It's on the way! (Advent 2)

What shall we cry? Cry Peace!
ADVENT 2 - Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-4

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I’m grateful for the uplifting texts of Advent.

I’m grateful that last Sunday,

the worship leader opened our service

by reading part of this Isaiah 40 text, which is in focus today.

So we get to hear it twice this season—

actually more than that,

if you listen to Handel’s Messiah anytime soon.

This scripture is deeply consoling.

“Comfort ye, my people.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her that her suffering is over.”

But now . . . sit with those words a few moments,

and contemplate the world we live in today . . .

What thoughts and questions come to mind?

I wonder how this Hebrew scripture would have been read, and heard,

in the synagogue that Benjamin Netanyahu

may have attended this weekend.

Or . . . how it would have been heard in synagogues in our country,

whose rabbis strenuously protest against

the scorched-earth war being waged right now

by the modern state of Israel.

Or . . . how our Palestinian Christian sisters and brothers,

who are worshiping today,

in churches inside Gaza,

and in Israel and the West Bank,

are reading this text.

Because—guess what?

They ARE reading this text. To-day!

On this second Sunday of Advent,

Isaiah 40:1-11 is the prescribed reading for

the Narrative Lectionary, which we use,

and for the Revised Common Lectionary,

which most mainline churches use worldwide,

and for the Roman Catholic Lectionary.

So nearly all churches who follow a lectionary,

are listening to Isaiah 40 this morning.

I’m guessing that this morning,

someone already read these words aloud

at Holy Family Catholic Church inside Gaza,

where, at least a few weeks ago,

over 500 people, of all faiths, were taking shelter,

after an Orthodox Church 300 yards away was bombed.

If this reading happened this morning, as I assume it did,

I wonder how they heard it:

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, her suffering is finished.”

But how to read the Hebrew prophets,

is not just a tough question for Jews and Christians

living in a war zone.

Reading the prophets is always a little tricky.

Because we have a history of reading them too literally.

We don’t use our imagination enough.

Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Old Testament

scholars of the last several decades.

45 years ago he wrote a book, The Prophetic Imagination.

Essentially, he said the prophet’s job

is not to foretell future historical events.

It is to challenge the status quo,

to offer up an imaginative reframing of reality.

 One quote from the book I appreciate is this:

“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive

the ministry of imagination,

to keep on conjuring and proposing future alternatives

to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”

Scot McKnight is a renowned New Testament scholar

at Northern Seminary, where I did my doctoral work,

and where I learned to know him.

Maybe some of you were here 7 years ago

when he did a community lecture, here in this sanctuary.

He posted something a few days ago that caught my attention.

Sounded inspired by Brueggemann.

He said traditional ways of reading the prophets is a problem—

both for a biblical literalist,

and for a non-believing critic of the Bible.

The literalist uses a prophet’s words

to build a timeline of coming historical events.

The critic uses the fact that those events did not actually happen,

to dismiss the words of the prophet altogether.

Both of them lack imagination.

McKnight writes, in an excerpt from his latest book:

“Prophetic language is dramatic, rhetorically-shaped imagination

meant to provoke a response

of repentance, justice, and peace.

[It is] imagination that stimulates improvisation.”

I love it! The prophet’s job is to spark imagination!

When conflict and injustice are as deeply entrenched

as they are in the Middle East, and especially in Gaza,

it takes imagination to move forward toward peace.

You have to be able to imagine a different kind of future,

before you can make bold steps to implement it.

Making war takes no imagination.

Oppressing others takes no imagination.

Those are just gut responses of presidents and prime ministers,

and of the public who have been conditioned

to see things only one way—the way of coercive power.

But the prophet, the seer, the listener to the Spirit of God,

is able to imagine a counter-future, a counter-culture,

something that contradicts assumptions of present reality.

The prophet is like an artist—

an artist sees something that is not yet,

and they let their vivid imagination move them toward it,

and they give it shape and color and texture

so that others might see it, and also be moved by it.

We are called to be artist-prophets;

to be peace-filled image makers.

Imagination is not just child’s play.

Although children are usually better at it than most of us.

McKnight also wrote, “Imagination is faith . . .”

and “faith-inspired imagination stimulates humans

to live into that imagined, alternative world.”

We should all be reading more, not less, of biblical prophets.

We should be marinating in their words,

in their unlikely and imaginative dreams

of a future where all is made right,

and violence and oppression are no more.

This prophetic imagination should be our primary narrative,

our main thought influencer.

You know . . . if you want to change the world,

read more Isaiah,

and watch less CNN.

Today’s news media—papers, TV, social media—

they all know what sells:

exploding bombs, and mass shootings,

and the most outrageous and divisive of political rhetoric.

They know what sucks people in . . .

and keeps them glued to their easy chair,

glued to the status quo,

and waiting for the next juicy story.

But you know . . . if the goal is

to get people of faith up off their rear ends,

to start moving in sync with God’s intended future,

and walking in the direction of peace,

and of restoring and transforming the world,

then we need to read Isaiah 40, or listen to Handel’s Messiah.

That’s way more likely to motivate us to act,

than listening all day to anxious and breathless talking heads

who have breaking news from the front lines

of everything that makes us reactive and afraid.

The comforting words of the prophet Isaiah, I think,

were written precisely for people like us,

people frozen in winter—

in an emotional, social, and spiritual winter.

When it is the hardest to imagine new life, new blooms, new anything,

the prophet cries peace.

The prophet cries,

“It’s on the way!”

“It’s coming!”

“Yes, I see the world as it is, in the dead of winter.”

“But the God of salvation is on the way.”

“Peace is near.”

“Believe it. And live like you believe it.”

“Do not fear!”

“Live.”

“Act.”

This is how we are invited to live,

in times of intractable conflict and overwhelming despair.

God is on the way.

Peace is on the way.

Love is on the way.

I’ll close by reflecting on an Advent hymn we know,

but don’t sing very much.

I read the stanzas of this poem with new appreciation last week,

when I saw them rendered imaginatively,

by an artist named Beth Felker Jones.

Actually, she’s a professor of systematic theology,

also at Northern Seminary, my alma mater,

who has written a dozen theological books.

And she uses her imagination to make art.

This hymn, People Look East, is about being in the barren winter,

but with an eye to the East, to the rising sun,

to the coming of something that is on the way,

for which we need to prepare.

This hymn is full of images.

It speaks of what is on the way . . .

as a guest, a rose, a bird, a star, and finally, the Lord.

It’s not too surprising that this imaginative hymn text and tune

was written by a woman who was a prolific children’s book author,

Eleanor Farjeon, who also wrote “Morning has broken.”

Art is by Beth Felker Jones.

I’m going to project the hymn art, one stanza at a time.

I’ll read it slowly, and then we’ll sing it, in unison.

People, look east. The time is near

Of the crowning of the year.

Make your house fair as you are able,

Trim the hearth and set the table.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the guest, is on the way.

Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,

One more seed is planted there:

Give up your strength the seed to nourish,

That in course the flower may flourish.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the rose, is on the way.

Birds, though you long have ceased to build,

Guard the nest that must be filled.

Even the hour when wings are frozen

God for fledging time has chosen.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the bird, is on the way.

Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim

One more light the bowl shall brim,

Shining beyond the frosty weather,

Bright as sun and moon together.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the star, is on the way.

Angels, announce with shouts of mirth

Christ who brings new life to earth.

Set every peak and valley humming

With the word, the Lord is coming.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the Lord, is on the way.

Now let’s sing our confession together,

we come, we cry, we watch, we wait,

we look, we long for you . . .

—Phil Kniss, December 10, 2023

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