Saturday, December 22, 2007

Images from Isaiah

Images of Isaiah #3 - “Birthing Joy”
The Third Sunday of Advent
December 16, 2007
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Keating, preaching

Text: Isaiah 35:1-10

God’s love is born in us at Christmas, bringing joy and abundance to the blighted portions of our lives.


On Friday, my dentist told me that I would be getting a root canal for Christmas. After peering in my mouth, looking at the x-rays, delivering the news, he stood up, shook my hand and said, “Well, Merry Christmas!”

Oh, yes, tidings of comfort and joy!

Driving home, I became increasingly despondent. While it wasn’t the news I wanted to hear, it was hardly the worst news, either. In fact, life is very good. Our lives are not filled by tragedy, overwhelmed by grief. We are healthy, things are going well for us on the whole. Despite this, my dentist’s diagnosis did little to promote a cheerful holiday mood. So, thinking a bit of physical exertion would improve my attitude, I grabbed Dean and headed outside to finish putting up the Christmas lights. This did seem to help for a while, until I had about two thirds of the lights hanging on the house and realized there were sections on either end of the strands which were not working. And it was becoming dark. As was my mood.

By dinner, most of the family was trying to avoid me.

On Saturday morning, Carol asked me what I was preaching about today and I said, “Joy.” She raised her eyebrows, snickered a bit under her breath and turned away.

And then the Cardinals traded Jim Edmonds.

Let nothing you dismay.

That is certainly the struggle, isn’t it? As much as we try to decorate our lives with strands of joy and the bright lights of happiness, the truth is that for many of us, the joy we proclaim these holy days can seem as artificial and lifeless as a discounted Christmas tree from the clearance aisle at K-Mart. We want so very much to be filled with joy and peace. Yet, as Barrie Shepherd writes, “We seem to find so little peace of any kind these days at Christmastime. We get so occupied in doing things, getting ready, making careful plans, then bringing them to fruition. It’s the most hectic time of year…” We yearn for those happy, joyous Christmas memories that we expect to find. We crave the high of those feelings, so much so we will pay any price, literally pay any price, as if true joy could be purchased or wrapped or shipped. Amazon.com offers free next day shipping, and perhaps maybe joy can be, too.

Our lives in this frantic Yule-a-thon are now are as Isaiah once described: a dry, parched wilderness, a place of emptiness. After graduating from seminary, my first church was in Pueblo CO – a town situated on the front range of Colorado. It is a beautiful town, but completely surrounded by arid, scrub prairie – a vast, empty desert. The first day, I went to work, and Carol started unpacking. She had never lived west of the Mississippi, and quickly began missing trees and green grass. After listening to a television news report about Prairie Dogs in Pueblo carrying bubonic plague, she called me at the office. “Where have you taken me?” she cried.

Let nothing you dismay.

That is the vision Isaiah sets before us today. He lifts the imagination of all who have ever asked the question: “Where have you taken me, Lord?” Isaiah looks out at those dried, parched wasteland, and invites us to see something different. There, in least likely of all places, hope is blossoming. Tall trees are growing, flowers are blooming…God is coming. Joy is everywhere.

Tidings of comfort, tidings of joy.

Sometimes, we can forget to hear how that joyous song erupts. Years ago, Carol led worked with nursing patients, persons who in many respects were like the exiles described by Isaiah: little hope, little memory, abandoned and hopeless. In approaching her work, she spent time thinking about the mysteries of song and rhythm. Grabbing our daughter’s rhythm instruments – tambourines and bells and drums – as she headed out the door one day, Carol thought of an idea. Perhaps when everything else is gone, memories of tempo and rhythm will remain…so passing around the instruments she appointed one person to be the “beat keeper” and the others as followers. It took a while, but pretty soon faces that had faded to empty stares were smiling again, and then laughing, and clapping. God had not disappointed them in that nursing home wilderness. On that day, all saw the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God: the one who strengthens weak hands and makes firm feeble knees, who calms fear-filled hearts, who says to us, “Be strong, do not fear!”

Listen, and see if you can hear that rhythm, too. I hear it in the stories our Women with a Mission group tell as they have reached out to the Burundi Refugee families in Saint Louis. These families, some of whom were in exile in Rwandan refugee camps for decades – for decades – have been invited to start their life over in Saint Louis. Janvier, the father, has a job down the street washing dishes at the Fountains retirement residence. He takes a series of Metro buses from the city to get to his job – and you thought your drive to church this morning was difficult! Other African immigrant groups have formed a fledgling Presbyterian church in Rock Hill, and they are reaching out to this community with us. We will dedicate a part of our Christmas Joy offering to help him and his family continue to hear the song of Christmas… “Be strong, do not fear!”

Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day.

The story is told about a group of English folks who were traveling through India’s steamy continent by train. The hot and weary travelers were irritated by the lack of accommodations and with each other, and to make matters worse, a child held in the arms of his father was becoming more and more cranky and ill-tempered. By evening, the baby was crying incessantly…so much so that one of the Englishmen stood up and said, “Would you please give that baby back to its mother?” There was a brief pause, and then the child’s father said, “I’m sorry, I’m trying the best I can, but the body of her mother lies in a casket in the back of this train.” The car became silent. Finally, in the midst of this awkwardness, the man who complained got up, came over to the man and apologized. Then, in a loving embrace, he took the child and held it until she had fallen asleep.

Waters will break forth in the desert, burning sand shall become a pool…and even our broken, parched selves shall be made whole…let nothing you dismay. And all God’s people said, “Amen.”