Minister Archives - Page 18 of 57 - St. Andrews Hespeler

It has been over twenty years, but I remember very clearly what it was like after the birth of our firstborn. Everything that led up to it had been frantic and chaotic as is often the case. For the birth, we had to rush to a hospital that was about two hour drive away. And then there was all of the stress and strain and frustration of dealing with the labour and birth, things that were completely unknown to us. And then came the struggles and the worries about feeding. It was all just so disorienting. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was wonderful and it was joyful, but you just have this sense of your entire world being turned upside down.

And so, what did we first-time parents crave once things began to settle down after all that? We craved some sort of return to routine and normalcy. We wanted to establish regular feedings, baths and bedtime routines. And we wanted to make sure that our child got everything that she was supposed to get in our culture. We wanted to make sure that our child’s first Christmas was just perfect. We insisted on that photograph with Santa Claus even if she was totally not into it. We wanted to make sure that our child had all of the right children’s books and children’s toys of the day. And of course, we had to take those monthly pictures to show how our child was growing. I mean, those were the kinds of things that parents did twenty years ago. I realize that the priorities might change in different eras of time, but that desire to make sure that your child gets all of the normal things that every child gets seems to be there for a lot of first-time parents.

And I suspect that this has been true for human parents since the dawn of time. I suspect that it was true for Mary and Joseph. After all of the chaos and disruption of traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the midst of a census, after all of the frantic worrying when they discovered that, when the time came for his birth, they had no place to lay their child and they had to resort to putting him in a feeding trough, after the strange visit from the shepherds who babbled how about visitations from singing angels, I suspect that they were looking for some way to establish some normalcy for their firstborn child.

And, in fact, that appears to be a central focus to our reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke. In this passage, we are told that Mary and Joseph took their son up to the temple in Jerusalem, just a short journey from where they had been staying in Bethlehem. And the obvious question is why. Why did Mary and Joseph do that at that time? And actually, that’s a question I really don’t need to ask, do I? Because Luke doesn’t just tell us once why they did this. I counted; he tells us five times why they did it. Five times in one pretty short passage.

He says that they did it, and I quote, in order to act, “according to the law of Moses,” that it was what was “written in the law of the Lord,” that the sacrifice was “according to what is stated in the law of the Lord,” that they brought the child because it was “customary under the law,” and that, when they were done, “they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord.” Hmm, do you suppose that what they were doing had anything to do with fulfilling the requirements of the law?

Now let me tell you something about reading the scriptures. When, in the Bible, something gets repeated even just once, that is significant. You can be sure that biblical authors are trying to draw your attention to something when they repeat themselves. So I can tell you for certain that it is not by accident that Luke tells us five times that they were there because it was required of them in the law.

So the question is why does Luke want us to notice that? What point is he trying to get across? I suspect he is trying to tell us a few things. For one thing, he doesn’t want us to miss the fact that Jesus was raised as a Jew just like any other Jew of his time and place. It is possible that, by the time this Gospel was written, a number of Christians had started to forget that. He wanted his readers to understand that the foundation of their faith in the Old Testament scriptures should never be forgotten.

He was also trying to make the point that the Apostle Paul makes in our reading from his letter to the Galatians, that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law.” Jesus had to know what it was to live under the law in order to offer liberty that can in some way transcend the law.

But I also get the sense from this story of poor Mary and Joseph, both still reeling from all that they have experienced over the last little while, looking to find some sense of normalcy in their life by just engaging in the normal cultural practices of their people and making sure they do them right. It feels like a very human parenting moment to me. And I’m sure that they were really just looking forward to blending in, to the anonymity of the crowd at the temple – to just be like any other parents who had come to do what was required under the law and then to just be on their way.

And so, can you imagine what they must have felt when, all of a sudden, a crazy old man just started walking towards them and calling out to them. His name was Simeon, but they didn’t know that. He was old, so old that he literally expected that he might just drop dead at any minute. But he had been waiting for something and, somehow, he had had a vision or heard a voice or dreamed a dream that told him that if he got up and went into the temple on this day, he would see what he’d been waiting for all this time. Like I said, a crazy old man. And it’s hard to imagine that Mary and Joseph thought anything but that had he just walked up and took the child out of Mary’s arms.

It doesn’t say that he asked for permission to take the child, just that he took him. Did you notice that? You can bet that Jesus’ parents did. And as he stood there holding the infant, can you imagine how Mary hovered around and maybe tried to tell him how to support the baby’s head and be careful not to startle the boy? And then Simeon looked down at the child and essentially said, “Okay I am ready to die right now.” I can’t imagine that set their hearts at ease! I’ll bet Joseph asked himself if he shouldn’t demand that this nutcase put down his baby this instant!

And while all this was going on, another person came running up – a woman who, if it is possible, looked even more ancient than the man. She at least didn’t try to grab the baby but she, oddly, didn’t even speak to the parents. She just took one look at the boy and turned around to speak to everyone else who had come to the temple that day to tell them that the boy, this tiny little child, would bring about the redemption of Israel. Any thought that Mary and Joseph may have had of a retreat into normalcy and anonymity was going to be a lot harder than they had imagined.

So, does all of this have anything to say to us where we are right now? I think we all have moments in our lives when we, like young parents after all the excitement of the birth, crave a little bit of routine and a little bit of normalcy. That is natural. I think it is something that we’re all craving a fair bit right now. After celebrating a most unusual Christmas, after enduring so many months of unusual life, I think we would all like to find a way to get back to some sense of routine. And I do believe that God graciously does offer us times like that in our lives because God knows that we need them.

But the story of Mary and Joseph in the temple teaches us that there are times when God wants to guide us into a new way. The two people who come up to Mary and Joseph in the temple represent two ways in which God prompts us into new directions. Simeon, we are told did not usually hang around the temple, but he had been specially prompted by the Spirit to go there because God had something to show him. So Simeon represents the leadership of the Spirit.

I truly believe that God’s Spirit does have ways of doing that to us. God’s Spirit acts within us, ever prompting us to step out into new directions and to take new risks. I know we often don’t want to hear that voice speaking within us, we would like to play it safe and just go with what we know. But Simeon teaches us that great wonders and glory are to be found by listening to that disrupting voice within.

Anna, the old woman, is different. She is no stranger to the temple, in fact she basically lives there. She has done so ever since her husband died after seven years of marriage and she has been a widow for a very long time. But her presence there has had a very important purpose because she is a prophet. And that means something very particular. For centuries, the prophets in Israel have been those people who sat near to the institutional authorities – near to the kings and governors and priests – and who confronted those authorities to challenge them when they were wrong and to correct them.

So Anna may have spent her days in the temple, but I can almost guarantee to you and that she was not loved by the priests or other temple authorities. She was there to goad them and to speak the inconvenient word of the Lord. As a prophet, Anna was also different from Simeon in that she was not only dependent on that inner voice of the Spirit, but also on the traditions and laws that demanded that the people act better and especially that they take care of the most vulnerable among them.

Like I say, a lot of people are very uncomfortable around prophets like Anna. And it is precisely because they do not allow us to do what Mary and Joseph were trying to do – just get on with the routine of life and not think about the bigger questions that need to be addressed. But God sends us Annas. God challenges us with big ideas like, “the redemption of Jerusalem,” that Anna spoke to all the people about. This is not because God is angry at us, but rather because God loves us so much that God wants us to be the best that we can be, both as individuals and as a society together. So God will send us prophets to call us to work for these grand ideas.

I know that we are all like Mary and Joseph today. We would like to put aside the disturbing wonders of the times in which we live and just go back to ordinary life. But God will continue to speak to you through the Spirit and prompt you to step out and to risk.

I would counsel you to listen to that voice of the Spirit. You may have already heard it, but you have tried to suppress it and tamp it down. Give that voice a chance. And, while you’re at it, open your heart to listen to the Annas who are speaking in the world today and who are challenging us to address some of the injustices and systemic problems of our society because redemption is still needed for our city.

You might think that it is a bother and annoyance that God would ask these things of us, just like Mary and Joseph found Simeon and Anna to be a bother and annoyance, but it is actually a great privilege to receive such messages and to be given the opportunity to be part of the incredible things that I promise you God is actually doing in our world today.

What if Mary couldn’t go?

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, December 20th, 2020 in Minister

https://youtu.be/xCs4Xzzqb0Q

Hespeler, 20 December 2020 © Scott McAndless
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-55 (Click to read the scripture)

After the strange visitor had left her, Mary just sat there for a while. Her mind was reeling. How could it be that she, a nobody, a lowly woman from a small town, could possibly be described as being highly favoured? How could it possibly be said that the Lord was with the likes of her? Most of all, how could it be possible that she would be having a son?

Yes, she was young, but she was not an idiot. She knew how these things worked. She might be engaged, but she had barely even met Joseph. She had basically seen him from across the room while her parents and his had sorted out the whole matter that was to be between them. But that was it. Nothing else had happened. So how could what the stranger said be true?

Now, she had listened and nodded along as he had offered his explanation. What he had said had sounded completely crazy, but he said it with such authority and gravity that you couldn’t help but look into his eyes and agree with him. And he had confessed that, yes, what he was talking about actually was impossible. His argument, basically, was that the impossible was possible. So she had agreedhttps://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201%3A26-55&version=NRSV and she had bowed her head and taken on the mission he seemed to be giving her. But now she was troubled because it seemed as if it was one thing to agree with the words, but it was another to actually feel as if it were true with all her heart.

But wait, wasn’t there something else that he had said? Hadn’t he spoken about another impossible thing? Oh yes, it was about cousin Elizabeth – poor cousin Elizabeth who for so long had struggled with her inability to have a child. And yet he had stated the impossible as a fact: she was already six months pregnant! Suddenly Mary knew what she needed in order to make all of this surreal experience into something that seemed real. It was one thing to hear the word that Elizabeth was pregnant, but it would be something else to be with a joyful Elizabeth. She needed to see her for herself. But, unfortunately, it was 2020 which meant that nothing was as simple as it might usually be.

Skype call initiates on screen. Mary is calling Elizabeth and when she answers, we see them both on split screen.

Elizabeth: Hello? Oh, Mary, it’s you! How sweet of you to call your old cousin.

Mary: I’m calling, Cousin Elizabeth, because I heard a rumour. Do you and cousin Zechariah have some news that you should share with the family?

Elizabeth: You’ve got me, Mary. I don’t know how you found out, but it’s true. I’m expecting a baby!

Mary: Congratulations! I know that you and Zechariah have wanted this for so long! But you wouldn’t believe what has happened to me.

Elizabeth: Actually, at this point, I think that I’d believe just about anything.

Mary: Okay, but this is all kind of thrown me for a loop. I can’t even explain what happened. But somehow, I can’t help but think that, if I could see you, if I could see the miracle growing in your belly, somehow that would make it all real. Maybe then it would make sense.

Elizabeth: Oh Mary dear, you know that Zechariah and I would love to have you come up here and visit. But I’m afraid that you just can’t come. The covid numbers up here in the Judean hill country are just too high and the governor has ordered people not to even visit their close relatives. We have to be sensible and safe, even if such wonders are going on.

Mary: Yes, of course you are right. I guess I’ll just have to sort through all of this on my own. But somehow, it seems, it is harder to live with miracles when you’re alone. Okay, bye Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: Bye dear. Thanks for calling!

I have thought this year about that trip that the Gospel of Luke says that Mary took to the hill country after her visit from the angel Gabriel. It seems clear enough that the reason why she went had something to do with the angel’s suggestion that the fact that her cousin Elizabeth was pregnant was a sign that nothing was impossible for God. Now, I don’t think that this was because Mary didn’t believe what the angel had told her about having a child. The story seems pretty clear that, by the time Gabriel had left, Mary had accepted the truth of what he was saying. So she wasn’t seeking proof, but surely she was seeking something. She wasn’t just going to throw a baby shower for her favourite cousin.

I think that Mary was understanding something that we often miss in our modern individualistic society. Our assumption is often that faith is an intently private thing. It is something between me and my God and it is really not anybody else’s business. But that is a very impoverished understanding of faith, and it often reduces the question of faith to a matter of the things that we intellectually believe to be true or false.

But while faith may begin in the intellectual mind, it is actually something that only becomes a powerful world-changing force for good in community. And I believe that that is what actually drew Mary out to the hill country of Judea. Luke doesn’t say anything about the relationship of Elizabeth and Mary other than that they were cousins, but there was clearly a deep bond between them. Mary didn’t just need to see if what the angel had said was true, she needed Elizabeth to help her sort through it all and to make sense of it.

We read Mary’s song this morning – the Magnificat – and what people often don’t realize about this song is that it’s not just the song of a young pregnant woman. It is a song that is rich in tradition and particularly in tradition that has been handed down among women from generation to generation. Her song contains explicit echoes of the song of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, of the story of the mother of Samson and even of the stories of the great matriarchs of the Jewish people, Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel.

These are obviously stories that she has heard, that have been told to her by older women like her cousin Elizabeth. These are the kinds of stories that women have told each other down through the centuries to help them make sense of the trials and tribulations of their lives, especially as they live in a world where they are so dominated by men.

It even makes me wonder whether, for some reason, Mary’s mother was no longer in her life at that point and Elizabeth had become a mother figure for her. I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if Elizabeth was that person who had passed women’s wisdom and tradition down to her young cousin.

So, when Mary was given life-changing information by this visitor in the form of a man named Gabriel, she may have believed, but she still needed help to sort it all through and I expect that it is exactly that that compelled her to visit Elizabeth.

And think about that for a few minutes. If Mary, the one chosen by God, this special vessel uniquely used by God to bring about the wonder of the incarnation and given a clear and unambiguous explanation of the whole thing by a messenger from God, needed the help of family and of a long-standing tradition passed down through the generations to really make sense for herself of what was happening to her, how much more do you or I need that?

And, in fact, I think it is something that we all experience especially at Christmas time. At this point in our lives, if we are practicing Christians, we have all heard the Christmas story hundreds if not thousands of times. We know where the baby was laid. We know the song that the angels sang to the shepherds and it has become our prayer for peace on earth among people of good will. We know the gifts that the wise men brought and what they were seeking.

So why do we gather to celebrate? Do we really think that the preacher might give us information about the nativity that we have never heard before? I mean, I may try to give you a unique angle, but I know I’m unlikely to teach you something completely new. No, we gather because we know that information, facts and data are not enough. We know that we have to experience it all collectively to make it real.

And that is not just when we gather in churches, by the way, but also when we gather in other ways. I know when we gather with our extended families, we may not spend a lot of time discussing the deep meaning of the nativity together. (I mean, that may depend on your family, but I suspect most don’t.)

But whether we talk about it or not, when we gather like that, we are living out the truths of the Christmas story – the truths of joy to the world, the truths of reconciliation with others who might see the world differently from us and the truths of unconditional love. We may think about such things in the quiet moments around Christmas, but we can only truly understand them when we experience them in community.

And that is exactly what makes this Christmas so difficult. If Mary had gotten pregnant in 2020, she wouldn’t have been able to travel to the Judean hill country to visit with Elizabeth. And so what are we supposed to do when we cannot gather like we traditionally would this year – not in the church, not with our extended families and friends. And what is Christmas without Mary’s Song, without a deeper understanding of what it’s all about that is cultivated in the community of two women who gathered together. I think there’s a real danger that, though we hear the Christmas story yet again this year, it just doesn’t get through to our hearts.

And what do we do about that? I know there are some out there who are saying that we should just ignore or violate the limitations on gatherings, that Christmas is too important and that we can’t let them stop us from getting together. But I cannot agree with that. The limitations that have been put in place are there for the sake of the protection of the community and especially of the most vulnerable, which has more in common with the Christian gospel than anything else we could possibly do at this season. No, it is right that we should behave in an exemplary fashion as much as we can.

But I don’t think that means that we must forgo the deeper experience of the Christmas truths. We are just going to have to be much more intentional this year, despite the limits, despite the need for physical distancing, to breach that distance as much as we can in other ways whether it be over the phone or over Zoom or with actions of compassion and care that can be shown over such distances.

The miracle of Christmas is real, and I’m not just talking about the miracle of a young virgin conceiving over two thousand years ago. I’m talking about the miracle that any one of us can experience this year. I’m talking about the miracle of hope in the midst of a time when there is too much despair. I’m talking about the miracle of life in the midst of too much death. And I’m talking about the miracle of light in the midst of the darkness of this world. I want to remind you that these miracles are all there for all of you and that all you really need to do is make a connection no matter what barriers might be there preventing it. I pray that you might know and experience these miracles this year.

A Spirit Led Recovery

Posted by Scott McAndless on Saturday, December 12th, 2020 in Minister

https://youtu.be/rUcCvcqxDgA

Hespeler, 13 December 2020 © Scott McAndless – Advent 3
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11, Luke 1:46-55, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24, John 1:6-8, 19-28

So, a vaccine – or rather a few vaccines at this point – have been created. Distribution in Ontario will begin in a matter of days and, if all of the research and testing turn out to be correct, we may soon get to the place where our entire lives are no longer dominated by a tiny little thing called a coronavirus. This is good news, and I realize that it’s probably a little bit premature to celebrate too much – certainly far too premature to celebrate with large maskless gatherings – but maybe it is time to at least start thinking about what comes next.

I am sure that some people are expecting that, on the day when it’s finally done, the day when enough people are vaccinated and herd immunity is attained, that the crisis will just be over. Everyone will just get up in the morning and go back to living their lives the way that they used to. That is what everyone who lives through a crisis dreams of and it is understandable. Sometimes when you’re living through a crisis, the only thing that keeps you going is the thought of getting back to life the way you used to know it. And yet, I think we all realize on some level that that is not all that realistic. Because of the direct and indirect effects of this crisis, there are many things that will simply not go back to the way they were.

We have no idea how many yet, but we can be sure that, when this is over, there will have been many businesses that have long been important parts of our local and national economies that will simply no longer exist. People’s savings will have been decimated and their debts will be that much more unmanageable. People will lose their homes or be thrown out of their apartments. People will continue to struggle to find good jobs for some time to come. Women, in particular, seem to have fallen out of the workforce and will face many struggles to get back in.

Oh, the end of the crisis will go just fine for some people: the fortunate few. That is almost always what happens in the aftermath of a crisis. In fact, for those who have the resources and are willing to ruthlessly take advantage of the misery of others, there is a very good chance that they will make enormous profits out of the whole situation. Chances are, when this is all over, there will be a small group that finds themselves greatly richer and there will be a very large group that have simply fallen through the cracks of society and the economy. And the simple fact of the matter is that, when that is the situation, it makes an economic recovery for everyone that much harder. But, that is where we will likely find ourselves in the coming months.

But, of course, we are not the first people in history to face such a situation. In fact, it is the kind of thing that happens just about every time a society faces a major crisis and then has to recover. Take, for example, the great crisis of the exile for the ancient people of Judah. When their country was destroyed and all the leading citizens were taken away into exile by the Babylonians, well you can just imagine the kind of devastation that caused.

But when that crisis finally came to an end, and the people were able to return from that exile and start all over again, their troubles were hardly over. The country had been ruined. The economy was in shambles. They were trying to rebuild and they had almost no resources to do so.

And, under those circumstances, it was the poorest folk who struggled most of all. They had no savings and they went deep into debt. Meanwhile, the few wealthy people who had returned were in a great position to benefit from the misery of these others. They loaned them money, and then, when they were unable to repay, they seized their lands, if they had any, and then they seized the people themselves and turned them into slaves.

And given that that was the kind of thing that was going on, the economy only got worse and the whole thing was a real mess. As a very few people got very rich and the great mass of the people fell into poverty and slavery, the recovery was looking like a complete disaster.

But then, a prophet came along. And he came along with a stunning message. “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me;” he cried out in the ruined city. “He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, To bind up the broken-hearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” And this was not just the ranting of a crazy person, it was actually a plan – a plan for a real recovery.

You see, there was an ancient law in Israel. Every fifty years, all debts had to be forgiven, all lands that had been foreclosed on had to be returned and all debt slaves released. It was called the year of Jubilee. It was a way – admittedly a radical and very disruptive way – but a way of making sure that people didn’t fall into permanent poverty and that the richest people were not able to exploit their misery, at least not forever.

Now, I do hear all of the objections that you are thinking about this idea of a year of Jubilee. I mean, can you imagine the havoc it would wreak in our economy if all debts were forgiven and all sales of land were undone? It is something that is quite unthinkable under our present economic system, though it may have made a bit more sense in the ancient agrarian economy of Israel.

But, even back then, it was likely problematic. So perhaps, many have suggested, the Jubilee was not practiced, at least not on a regular basis. Sure, it was a law, part of the law of Moses, but you can well imagine that it would have taken a strong will on the part of the authorities to make sure that such a law was actually implemented and you can also well imagine that there must have been times when that will was lacking.

And so, in the aftermath of the exile while the people were trying to rebuild their lives in the city of Jerusalem, it had probably been a very long time since there had been the will to hold a year of Jubilee. And there were almost certainly no authorities who would be inclined to implement the ancient law at that moment. And so, guess what happened. A prophet stood up and declared that he didn’t care that there was no king or priest or other authority who was going to implement a year of Jubilee.

Why didn’t he care? Because the Spirit of the Lord God was upon him. He might have been nobody, he might have had no power at all, but he had God’s Spirit and that was enough. And so he would speak up and demand that the Jubilee be proclaimed. And there is no doubt that a Jubilee is what he means when he speaks of, “good news to the oppressed. . . liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” It is clearly what he means when he proclaims “the year of the Lord’s favour.”

And I have a lot of respect for that prophet for having the courage to do such a thing. I don’t think I’m the only one. You are probably aware that, according to the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus began his public ministry in his own hometown of Nazareth, he did it by taking this very same passage of scripture and applying it to himself, basically saying that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

That is to say that Jesus came at a moment in history when the people were facing the same kind of crisis of a country and an economy that were falling apart, this time mostly due to the greed of the Romans. And so, Jesus declared that he would be the embodiment of the same call of the ancient prophet. Though he also had no earthly power to do so, his presence in the world would bring about a new Jubilee.

But it is not something that is just there when Jesus announces it at the beginning of his ministry – it is something that runs through the entire Gospel of Luke, as we see in our reading from the Magnificat this morning. You see Mary doesn’t have to wait until Jesus returns to Nazareth to speak in synagogue to know that his mere presence in the world means that the impossible Jubilee is now possible. As soon as she can sense that she is pregnant she sings it: “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

The mere presence of Jesus in the womb of his mother is enough – the fact that he is coming into the world means that the reality of the world and how it works is being turned upside down and the rich and the powerful are losing their place and the poor, the neglected and the forgotten have taken that exalted place. The unthinkable is happening.

I worry about the recovery after this pandemic, I really do – not because I doubt the ability of medical science and research to come up with a vaccine that will get us out of this mess. I have no worries about that. But I do have worries about human nature and especially that our greed and our selfishness will mean that whatever wealth is available will stop circulating and remain in the hands of a few and so the recovery will be much less than it could possibly be and that it will leave far too many people behind. I worry because I suspect that our leaders, who, after all, owe so much to the rich and powerful, will not be able to oppose them.

But maybe, if I listen to the Old Testament prophet, if I listen to the mother of Jesus as her hands clutch the life that is just beginning to grow inside her, and if I listen to her son as he stands before the people in Nazareth, I will realize that we don’t necessarily need to wait for our leaders to wake up and realize what is actually needed. All it takes is someone who has the Spirit of the Lord upon them. And, my friends, that is and can be any of us.

When you think about it, it is kind of amazing to hear some of the voices that are being raised right now, voices of people who are essentially powerless and who, under normal circumstances, would never be listened to, and yet, those voices are being heard right now even though they are saying things that were previously unthinkable.

I’m talking about people who are saying that maybe it is time to forgive student loan debt. I’m talking about people who are saying, let’s take some of that money that has been used to militarize the police and instead redirect it towards mental health and housing and building up social capital. I’m talking about people who are daring to suggest radical ideas like a universal basic income. These words are not coming from the powerful and the influential, and yet they are being heard. I wonder, is it maybe because somehow the spirit of the Lord is behind such ideas right now because that is what is needed?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t know how much merit is in some of those ideas and whether they will work or not. But I absolutely welcome such voices being heard because I know that we will never get anywhere if we quench the voice of the Spirit of the Lord.

What’s more, I believe that we, as people of faith, really ought to be those who are most open to such things because it is right there in the scriptures that we profess to believe. And it is especially there in the story of the incarnation, in the meaning of Jesus coming into the world in the first place, into the body of his mother and into that synagogue at Nazareth. If the spirit of the Lord God is speaking through somebody in the world today, we ought to be the first to rejoice in that.

The Press Conference

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, December 6th, 2020 in Minister

https://youtu.be/g1DZl3rskMQ

Hespeler, 6 December 2020 © Scott McAndless – Communion
Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, 2 Peter 3:8-15, Mark 1:1-8 (Click to read)

Good morning. It is Monday, November 9, 2020, and we take you now live to the headquarters of international drug companies, Pfizer and BioNTech for an announcement that that world has been waiting for:

Good morning, Scott, I am standing outside of the building where a stunning announcement has been made. The chief executive officers of Pfizer and BioNTech just came out to announce, and I quote, “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says the corporation. “Speak tenderly to the world, and cry to it that it has served its term, that its penalty is paid, that it has already received from the deadly coronavirus a double portion of suffering.

“For unto us, a vaccine has been born and an inoculation has been given. And behold, it’s efficacy shall be established at 90%.”

That is the announcement, Scott, though I would note that there is a little bit of fine print. There are a few steps yet to be accomplished. The vaccine will have to receive final approval and, of course it will have to be manufactured in significant quantities. But that’s not even the most complicated part. The companies say that, in its original form, the vaccine will have to be stored at -80 degrees Celsius, which will definitely complicate distribution. There is also the thorny necessity of convincing the vast majority of a population that, over the last little while, has discovered that it has some reasons to be wary of political authorities and medical experts, to actually take a vaccine that might make them feel sick for a short time.

And so, between now and the time when a sufficient portion of the population can be vaccinated and herd immunity be attained, there is a whole lot of work to be done. Basically, to get from here to there, we’re going to have to build a distribution highway. And you know how you build a highway: “Every valley shall be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; The uneven ground shall become level, And the rough places a plain.” And I know that that sounds like a lot of work and that it’s going to take a lot of time, but, my friends, this really is still good news. Our salvation has arrived! Take comfort, O my people.

I have said it many times during this difficult year of 2020. Again and again as I open the scriptures during this year, I read familiar passages that I thought I understood and I see them in an entirely different light. And that is true yet again on this second Sunday in Advent. Every year around this time, the church traditionally reads from the fortieth chapter of the Book of Isaiah. We not only read it, but we also sing it or hear it sung as one of the most favorite arias of Handel’s Messiah. The passage is so powerful that you would think that it could not more deeply affect me this year than it has in the past, but it has.

This part of the Book of Isaiah was originally written to people facing a very difficult historical struggle. It is addressed to the people of Israel who have, for far too long, been living in exile in the land of Babylon. Forcibly taken from homes, they have been made to live in a strange land surrounded by strange gods and strange customs. It has been extremely hard for them. But, in this passage, the prophet comes to them with some exciting, good news.

Babylon has fallen (or maybe it’s just clear that it’s about to fall) and the Persian Empire is about to take over its territories. And that might not seem like a big deal, I mean, who cares if you exchange one overlord for another, but actually it is. The thing that makes that good news is that Cyrus, the king of the Persians, has a different policy about exiles. As far as he is concerned, if they want to go back home, they can. Yes, the good news of the moment is that the people of Israel can finally go back home.

And it is in that context that the prophet says, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” He is announcing that the exile is over by saying that God has decided that the people have suffered enough.

But, like I say, I really found those words sounded very different to me this year after we have seen our society struggling with an extended period of suffering caused by a pandemic. And when that announcement of a vaccine came, it certainly seemed like the very same kind of announcement of comfort to a people.

So, the words of the prophet certainly hit me on a different emotional level this year, but there was also something else that really struck me, something that I hadn’t seen before. When these words of comfort appear, it’s like a sudden announcement that everything is going to change for the better. The announcement of the vaccine sounded like that too. But, after that initial euphoria, there comes a let’s-get-down-to-earth moment when we realize that there is still a long way to go before we get there, that the road is going to be difficult and that it might even get worse before it gets better. I think we’ve all been feeling that as well.

Well, the same thing happens in this prophecy from the Book of Isaiah. Because, you see, no sooner did the prophet announce this incredible, wonderful news that the exile was over, than the people had to deal with a huge realization. The people were in Babylon, and Babylon was a long, long way from Jerusalem. I mean, not only was it about a thousand kilometers in an age where most people travelled on foot, but it was a thousand kilometers across the biggest, most uncrossable terrain in the entire world – a vast desert.

So, immediately after announcing this enormous comfort, the prophet goes on to announce a gigantic work project: “A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” It was a highway for the people to return home and a very difficult highway to build: “Every valley shall be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; The uneven ground shall become level, And the rough places a plain.” That’s right, we need to bring in the bulldozers and level the whole terrain, and that’s all before you can even start to lay down the asphalt!

Now, to be clear here, this passage is not describing the construction of an actual highway to take the people home. This is poetry – a poetic way of saying that it’s going to be a long and difficult process that takes a lot of work to get the people home. But it is still a stunning change of tone from the original promise – we go from supernatural comfort to a major public works project that has to be completed before the promise is fulfilled.

But that is how life often goes. We are told that we get to go home, but then we have to build the highway to get there; the vaccine gets announced but there is all this other work to be done before its promise is realized. This is the kind of thing that keeps on happening and so this passage is forever new – forever speaking to the hopes and the frustrations of delays that people have to live with.

Which is, of course, why, when the author of the Gospel of Mark was trying to capture the mood in Galilee just before Jesus appeared on the scene, he turned to this very same passage in the Book of Isaiah. He describes John the Baptizer as, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

Now, on the surface, it might seem that what has happened here is that Mark has just misunderstood the original meaning of the Book of Isaiah. The original prophecy said, “A voice cries, ‘Prepare the way in the wilderness.’” And Mark has changed that to “A voice in the wilderness cries, “Prepare the way.” That is pretty close, but it is not exactly the same thing and Mark makes that change because Mark does see John himself as the voice that is crying in the wilderness because John preached out in the wilderness.

But I do not think that this is simply a mistaken interpretation on the part of the gospel writer. It is rather his way of saying that the ministry of John the Baptizer was a fulfillment of what had been anticipated in the prophecy in Isaiah, not literally in the sense that John was building a highway out there, but certainly in the sense that John’s call had so much in common with that of the ancient prophet.

In fact, I think we should greet the message of John the Baptizer today in almost exactly the same way that the ancient exiles in Babylon greeted the ancient prophet’s message – which is to say, much like how we received the news of the successful vaccine trials.

When John announces, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals,” how should we react? We should greet that news – the news that God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ to show us the power of God’s love and salvation – with joy because that means that the end of the story is written. God will bring us home. Because of Jesus we can know for sure that God’s purposes will not be thwarted and that our destiny and indeed the destiny of the whole world is safe in God’s hands.

And yet at the same time we cannot help but recognize that there is still some highway building to do before we get from here to there. And now especially, during this season of Advent, we are living in that tension between the promise of the coming of Christ, a promise that is sure and certain, and the simple reality that we are not quite there yet.

Because of Jesus because of his incarnation, because of his extraordinary teaching and example, because of his death and his resurrection, God has accomplished it all. The world is reconciled to God in Christ. The kingdom of God is established in the face of all the powers, principalities and rulers of this world. And we are forgiven, renewed and reconciled to God. That work is all done. As Jesus said on the cross at the very last, “It is finished,” which could also be translated as, “It has all been accomplished.”

And yet we are still in that waiting place. That is, by the way, what the season of Advent is all about; it is about life in the waiting place. Because, while everything is in place for all of that salvation to play out, we are still stuck here preparing for it all to be rolled out, for the highway to be built through the desert, for the vaccine to be approved and manufactured and safely distributed. That salvation is there, we can almost taste it, it is in the sights in the smells of this season of wonder, but there is still that sense of not quite yet.

And as Christians we are called to live into that promise. We are called to offer hope to people, to let them know that God has done the work and it is completed. And we are also called to live as if it were already so, and, in so doing we will make it so. That is our job. That is how we build the highway through the desert.