Christmas I
Isaiah 62
6 O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray to the LORD day and night for the fulfillment of his promises. Take no rest, all you who pray. 7 Give the LORD no rest until he makes Jerusalem the object of praise throughout the earth. 8 The LORD has sworn to Jerusalem by his own strength: “I will never again hand you over to your enemies. Never again will foreign warriors come and take away your grain and wine. 9 You raised it, and you will keep it, praising the LORD. Within the courtyards of the Temple, you yourselves will drink the wine that you have pressed.”10 Go out! Prepare the highway for my people to return! Smooth out the road; pull out the boulders; raise a flag for all the nations to see. 11 The LORD has sent this message to every land: “Tell the people of Israel, ‘Look, your Saviour is coming. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.'” 12 They will be called the Holy People and the People Redeemed by the LORD. And Jerusalem will be known as the Desirable Place and the City No Longer Forsaken.
The greatest privilege of my job is hearing stories. Personal anecdotes, treasured stories, even the occasional tall-tale: they reveal both the teller and life in the city. Three examples:
Alex, whose father built houses in the 1930’s, and the day that a gentleman bought one of them, in cash, in three one-thousand dollar bills. His best guess was that the house was being bought for the mistress of a bootlegger.
Jack, who worked at the TTC maintenance yard, and participated in endless speculation about how fast a streetcar could really go. One evening, while crossing the Bloor Viaduct, a driver answered the question when he reached 70 mph before reaching the Danforth side only to be met by a cop. Needless to say, it was his last trip.
Rose, who worked for 42 years at the pen counter at Eaton’s. While some might wonder how fulfilling her work selling fountain pens was, she would remind them that she was one a first name basis with most of Toronto’s business elite. She was sent to Montreal on at least one occasion to tour the Waterman factory, and also conducted a clandestine friendship with the “pen girl” at Simpson’s across the street in the day when Eaton’s employees were not allowed to fraternize with the enemy.
Hearing the stories, listening to the intonation of the teller, one cannot help but be drawn into an abiding sense of innocence. Certainly stories of bootleggers and speeding streetcars and outhouses being tipped over on Halloween have some edge to them (that’s why they are great stories) but the underlying tenor of the stories is a kind of sweetness that belongs to a different age.
And these stories make you wonder about 2020. What kind of stories will we tell? How will we explain the pandemic in 20 years, or 40 years? And what kind of frame will be put around these stories, both in terms of lessons learned and the long-term result of a global crisis? Obviously time will tell, since it seems we are still very-much in the centre of the storm. Yet even as the storm breaks, and 2020 is assigned to the past, we can begin to look for perspective. And when we look for perspective, it’s always best to begin in the Bible. Hear the prophet Isaish speak:
Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray to the LORD day and night for the fulfillment of his promises. Take no rest, all you who pray. Give the LORD no rest until he makes Jerusalem the object of praise throughout the earth.
The exile has ended and the Israelites have returned to a city they can hardly recognize. The object of their desire, the city they heard described in story and verse is no longer there. So the civic leaders struggle to recreate a community amid the ruins and begin in a most disarming way: they post watchmen atop the city walls to pray aloud and remind God to fulfil his promises to the city and those now returned from exile. The effect is electrifying, and the voice of the prophet animates God’s response with these words:
Go out! Prepare the highway for my people to return! Smooth out the road; pull out the boulders; raise a flag for all the nations to see. The LORD has sent this message to every land: “Tell the people of Israel, ‘Look, your Saviour is coming. See, he brings his reward with him as he comes.’” They will be called the Holy People and the People Redeemed by the LORD. And Jerusalem will be known as the Desirable Place and the City No Longer Forsaken.
This is a reading for the time after Christmas precisely because this is what incarnation does: a Saviour is coming—look he is already here—and he will bring the reward longed for in a people redeemed and a city with two new names: The Desirable Place and the City No Longer Forsaken. He will bring hope.
It was William Countryman who said “hearing the good news is the beginning. The rest of our life forms our response.” To understand that God has entered our world once more through a tender babe means that God will help us transform the ruined places and create The Desirable Place and the City No Longer Forsaken.
And so we look forward to 2021 and the changes to come. A city inoculated against the pandemic, along with people everywhere. An economic recovery based on helping the greatest number of people. Food banks and drop-ins for people in emergency situations, and not a way to solve problems that our governments seem incapable of solving. And a new look at racial justice, hoping that when people remember 2020 it will be for the year Black Lives Matters entered our common consciousness—and not just the pandemic.
The only positive thing about returning to a destroyed city was that the Israelites, for the very first time, were equal. They were having a common experience, an experience that led them to imagine new ways of forming and maintaining their society, new ways of seeing each other. Exile and return became a new beginning, where compassion happened more readily. This was then translated into the birth of hope found in Jesus, and the grown-up teachings we read throughout the year. In many ways the message is the same: understand Jesus and you will see God. Love him and follow in his way. See him in others, and remember that he walks with us still. Amen.
Christmas Eve
Matthew 1
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Do you wish you could wake up to discover that 2020 was just a bad dream?
It worked for Pam and Bobby. An entire season suddenly became moot, the ultimate TV do-over. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to find someone over 50—quick. And not to outdone, the show Newhart ended the series with Bob and Emily discussing the strange dream Bob just had—in this case, he dreamt an entire series. Again, over 50, you know the drill.
Dreams are strange things. Freud said that dreams constitute “wish fulfillment,” which is a fancy way of saying you wish you could work out the vexing thing that’s troubling you. I dropped first-year psychology, so I can’t really say if Freud’s right. If you’re like me, however, and you’re working out vexing things in the middle of the night, the last thing that’s happening is sleep.
The Bible makes pretty strong case for dreams as a means to receive divine messages. Jacob dreams of a ladder, with angels descending and ascending, and receives an affirmation of the covenant with Israel. Joseph dreamed of a future, when famine would ravage the land and he would have an opportunity to help his family. And Joseph also had the power to interpret dreams, something that came in handy in the court of Pharaoh. Leaping over today’s dream, we learn of Peter’s dream, a blanket from heaven covered in all kinds of creatures. The Lord blesses them in the dream and commands Peter to eat.
And then there is the story of Jesus’ birth. It begins with a vision, where Zacharias learns that Elizabeth will bear a child—the one who will one day baptize Jesus. And then there is the passage Bunny read, where Joseph is seeking a way to save Mary the hardship of ending their betrothal, when an angel appears in a dream, saying:
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
At this point, Matthew breaks in and reminds his readers that all this was also the subject of a prophecy, when Isaiah said a young woman would bear a son, and he would be named Emmanuel, God-with-us. I think you can already see the problem with dreams: Is it Jesus, ‘for he will save the people from their sins,’ or is it Emmanuel, God-with us?
Well, it appears this child will have many names, with Isaiah suggesting Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace—just to name four. And this list is helpful, because it shows us that (in fact) Jesus has one name, but many titles. And that’s just on the night of his birth.
Why so many titles? I would argue that when we “put on Christ” (as Paul tells us) we also put on something we need. Dwelling in shadow? You need the Light of the World. Hungry for the food that truly nourishes? You need the Bread of Heaven. Feeling lost? You need the Good Shepherd. Jesus is ever near, to find us, feed us, illuminate us—and save us.
The dream is clear: “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” There’s more here, though, since Jesus is literally a Joshua, which the translation from Hebrew, to Greek, and to English, gives us Jesus. Now Joshua was a common name in the time of Jesus, but the reason was clear: it means “God is salvation,” or “God will save us.” Jesus’ name is both a prayer and an answer to prayer. Add Emmanuel—God-with-us—and it becomes even more fervent. God will save us and God is with us—Jesus is the hope and the answer.
And it begins with a dream. It begins with the dream of a world-made-new, where God enters the world to be our salvation. From that moment, and for all time, we can trust that God will save us and God-is-with-us. Whatever peril we face, we are not alone. Whatever circumstance confounds us, we are not alone. Whenever we are shadowed, hungry, or lost, we are not alone, for God will save us and God-is-with-us. Amen.
Advent III
Luke 1.46b-55
My soul proclaims God's greatness.
My spirit rejoices in God my saviour.
For you have looked with favour on your lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
You have done great things for me, O Most Mighty.
Hallowed be your Name!
You have mercy on those who fear you,
From one generation to another.
You took action with a strong arm.
You scattered the proud in their conceit.
You pulled the mighty from their thrones.
You raised the lowly.
You filled the hungry with good things.
You sent the rich away empty.
You come to the aid of your servant, Israel,
for you remembered your promise of mercy,
to our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah,
and to their children in every age.
Margaret Keenan was the first person to get the “the jab,” as they say in the UK. The soon-to-be 91 year-old described receiving the vaccine as the “best early birthday present.” It was a lovely moment, but then came the second recipient, an 81 year-old with the unlikely name William Shakespeare.
Twitter erupted: “They really are prioritising the elderly,” one person wrote, “this guy is 456.” Someone called it “the taming of the flu,” while another said, “I’m surprised they let William Shakespeare have the vaccine. I thought he was Bard.” I should stop. But one more: reflecting on the fame these two have gained after getting the jab, someone noted, “A plague on neither of their houses.”*
Ignoring the bad puns, it’s easy to feel joy and relief in the face of this long-awaited turn-of-events. It has a “beginning of the end” feeling to it, and somewhat perfectly timed, as we reach what are literally the darkest days of the year. If this was a seasonal film, this would be the moment for someone to shout “it’s a Christmas miracle!” And it certainly feels that way.
And beyond the feeling, some remarkable things have taken place: the early word was that vaccines can take years to develop—this one took about ten months. The early word was that finding one vaccine would be lucky—there are already three or more. Even the manufacture of doses, something that was predicted to take months or years, was started months ago, on the off-chance that the vaccine would eventually be approved.
So we praise God that we are here, waiting for the day we can get the jab, and we praise God for the gift of medicine, along with the gift of insight and imagination. God has shown us once more what’s possible when we focus all our attention on a problem. We can do something revolutionary.
Revolutionary. Revolutionary is one of those over-used words that has lost some of its power—perhaps too many hair products or exercise machines have been described using the word. When something is revolutionary—like developing a vaccine in a matter of months—it turns the existing order on its head, and it changes everything.
And the word also reminds us of political revolutions, a changing of the existing political order into something else altogether. Again, the word is often misapplied, with the most famous example being the American Revolution. For a revolution that proclaimed “all men are created equal,” there remained the bitter reality that 700,000 African-Americans were enslaved at the end of the revolution, or nearly one-in-six Americans. And this number would grow to 4,000,000 before slavery ended in 1865.
Turning to Oxford to help us understand what revolutionary truly means, we get “involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.” Like the Song of Mary:
You took action with a strong arm.
You scattered the proud in their conceit.
You pulled the mighty from their thrones.
You raised the lowly.
You filled the hungry with good things.
You sent the rich away empty.
It’s no surprise that when Latin-American theologians were trying to describe “a theology of liberation,” they pointed to Mary. Between Mary and Moses, and some early Isaiah thrown in for good measure, we begin to understand the radical nature of scripture. These three embody complete and dramatic change. For Isaiah it was “swords into plowshares,” an idea so powerful that it is carved in front of the UN headquarters. For Moses, it was literal liberation, the power of God to free God’s people. And for Mary it is predictive, a revolution that begins in Bethlehem and concludes at Calvary.
Why concludes? I say it concludes at Calvary because the cross is a once-and-for-all event, an event to reconcile us with God, to end death, and to ensure our freedom in the Spirit. The world no longer has hold over us, and we are free to live with love and mercy. But every conclusion, of course, must have a beginning: and the beginning of this revolution is God’s desire to enter the world in the most humble way possible, as a baby. And this is truly revolutionary: no strongman, no advancing army, no tactical plan. Just a baby, the most vulnerable form God could possibly assume.
But before we shift all our focus to the birth of Jesus, we would do well to remember Mary. For our Roman Catholic friends, she is the patron saint of all humanity, the Queen of Heaven, and the Our Lady of numerous locations. Our Lady of Guadalupe, as an example, is the patron saint of the Americans. And for all Christians, as declared at the Council of Ephesus (431), she is Theotokos, the Mother of God. In addition, Mary is the only woman named in the Quran—mentioned 70 times—and exalted as “the greatest of women.” Listen again to the beginning of her song:
My soul proclaims God's greatness.
My spirit rejoices in God my saviour.
For you have looked with favour on your lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed.
You have done great things for me, O Most Mighty.
Hallowed be your Name!
As prophetic utterances go, this one remains true. From her lowly station she becomes mother, guardian, guide, follower, and witness to the resurrection. She inspires and blesses all humanity, with her song of liberation and her life with God. She reminds us that whatever seems fixed, or certain, or impossible to change can be quite the opposite. And she reminds us that praise and gratitude are at the centre of a life of faith.
May God see us through the dark days ahead, and may we never lose sight of hope, with Mary to guide us, Amen.
*https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/08/shakespeare-britain-pfizer-coronavirus-vaccine/
Advent II
Mark 1
4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with[e] water, but he will baptize you with[f] the Holy Spirit.”
Who is about to be born, and in early middle-age, and about to begin a promising career, and apparently doomed?
If you answered Jesus, you would be correct. If you answered Jesus in the season of Advent, you get a bonus point. My riddle points to the mixed up timeline we’ve entered, and the extent to which the season is trying to accomplish several things at once.
Of course, the Bible is filled with biographies, stories of characters that give us a glimpse of the span of their lives. Most famous, perhaps, is Moses: from the babe in a basket to an aged liberator, gazing upon the promised land. Or David, a mere lad, out tending the sheep while God’s anointed is being chosen. We will see the span of his life too, victories, foundations, and personal defeats. Or Esther, the beautiful young orphan who becomes queen, develops a mastery of court life, and saves the Jewish people from death.
In each case, the story is told straight, a linear description from beginning to end: selected or saved for service, engaged in a crisis or conflict, and triumphant at the last. In each case, of course, it is God that is victorious, and we give thanks. What we don’t do, in the course of telling these stories, is interrupt the order: we wouldn't tell the story of the burning bush to explain why the baby Moses was set adrift on the Nile.
In Advent, we enter a unique version of time. Future is present, the past predicts the future, and the one for whom we wait is already here. Heroes of the narrative occur in the middle of the story, but they help us prepare for the beginning. The baby John the Baptist may appear in the time of Jesus’ nativity, but now he’s the fully grown John who will help us prepare for Jesus’ birth.
“After me,” says John, “comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Again, these words fit the prelude to Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, but they also describe our fondest hope, the time for which we wait.
The glue that holds this story together is baptism. John is practicing one aspect of baptism (“a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”) and Jesus another. John’s work, like Advent, is preparatory, allowing us to make room for Jesus to enter our hearts. We must die to our old selves to welcome him in, to find new life in Christ. St. Paul knew this better than most:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Rom 3)
In Athens, the wise ones would say “tell us more, for you are bringing strange things to our ears.” (Acts 17) It is strange, to conflate baptism and death, but remember that the timelines are not what they seem. When we were baptized we entered the death and resurrection of Jesus, not some distant event, but the same death and resurrection that happens at every baptism, both now and in the future.
This is what John means when he describes our baptism as baptism with the Holy Spirit. It exists outside of time, and it defies time, because new life in Christ never stops happening. Maybe this is why Paul’s Athenian friends were so puzzled. Your life unfolded in a predictable manner: spun, measured, and cut, without any sense that it could be respun or uncut or measured in a different way. Jesus takes away loom and tape and scissors, sets them aside, and says ‘walk with me, and follow in my way.’ Nothing about your life is set when we’re talking about new life in Christ.
Just now the practical people are crying out for something tangible, and for them, I have a confession. Not an actual confession, though I do have a few. My confession is the abiding belief that confession is at the very heart of who we are and what we do. In confession, we ask God to help us set aside the things we regret and the things that are holding us back.
But there is more than just that. In confession we send a signal to others that it’s healthy and appropriate to name the ways we fall short and seek forgiveness. In a world of facades and falsehoods, we can be the voice that says “we all screw up, and we all need God’s help to get by.” We can’t self-pardon. But when we model a way of being that includes humility and a realistic sense-of-self, it can start catching. Maybe others will admit they’ve failed, and fallen short, and that they need something outside themselves to make it right. That is when the Spirit moves, and new life comes.
So John was right all along. People enter the desert places longing for something, anything that can help them. And he appears, practicing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins—which was always just a fancy way to describe confession. They were busy making room: leaving cluttered lives and unresolved situations to seek the new life that only God in Christ can bring.
May God bless you as our Advent journey continues. May you enter and reenter the story as needed, always aware that it leads to new life. Amen.
