Sermon-Advent Comfort

"Advent Comfort"
(A sermon for two voices)

Dr. James L. Mayfield
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

December 19, 1999

Text: Isaiah 40:1-11

#1: One of the most well known passages of scripture that is read during the season of Advent is the poem from Isaiah that was read today. What does this poem say? What meaning does it have for us today? This is what this sermon is about.

#2: This poem Isaiah wrote is about hope and expectation. The season of Advent is about hope and expectation—profound hope in God, and expectation of God's activity in our lives.

#1: Of course not all the hope and expectation we experience this time of year is profound. When I was a young child, I remember telling my mother what to write in my letter to Santa Claus. I had carefully examined the toy section of the Sears catalog and finally decided on the one toy I wanted Santa to bring—a set of Lincoln Logs. And after the letter was written and sealed, I lived in hope and expectation of what would be under the Christmas tree early Christmas morning. Since then, I have written and prayed in all sorts of ways to all sorts of Santas asking for some special gift. "When I give her the ring, please make her say yes." "Please make my Daddy well." "Please rescue my child from from his living hell."

#2: In all sorts of ways, we send our petitions to all sorts of Santas, asking for some special gift, some special miracle to happen to us, to those we love—to happen in our lives. And usually what we ask for is some sort of rescue or reward.

#1: God knows, there is much in human existence from which to be rescued—bad and painful situations, destructive habits and addictions, life styles that are demanding all our time and energy but are finally empty of lasting value, old regrets that torture us, old resentments that enslave us, old defeats that haunt us and hold our confidence captive, old and new fears that cripple our ability to care and share. There is much in life from which we can long to be rescued.

#2: When the poem that was read this morning from the Book of Isaiah was written, the time was not a happy time for either the poetic prophet or his readers. They were Jews in exile, captives of the Babylonians who had conquered their homeland, destroyed the city walls and the city of Jerusalem. They had even torn down the Temple, so that all that was left was the rubble of scattered stones. The Jews in exile had lost their homes and all their possessions. They were people who had seen members of their families and friends who were killed in the fighting or who died in the aftermath of devastation and disease. They were people who had hit the rock bottom of life and from the darkness of their situation were wrestling with despair and longing for some kind of hope.

#1: It was to these people in captivity to the Babylonians and also in captivity to grief and despair that the message from God came through the words of the prophet who wrote the poem we read today. "Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God."

#2: And the comfort Isaiah was talking about is more, much more than sympathy. Persons who give us sympathy are persons who experience feelings similar to those we have. For example, when we are sad because someone we love has died persons who are truly sympathetic share some of our sorrow. But comfort is more than sympathy. To be comforted is to be empowered. When we are comforted, we receive strength to face what we must face and power to move on with our living. To be comforted is to be empowered to face and deal with whatever is before us.

#1: Comfort does not rescue us from the pain and problems in our lives, but comfort does empower us to deal with our pain, face our problems, and enable us to take the next step—whatever that must be. To be comforted is to be empowered. The prophet Isaiah was writing about empowerment when he wrote: "Comfort, O Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that she has served her sentence, that her penalty is paid."

#2: In these lines of poetry, Isaiah was telling the Jews of his day that it was time for them to move on. They had been in mourning because of the loss of their nation and all they had done and failed to do that had contributed to that defeat. Isaiah was telling them it was time to quit dwelling on the truth that the pain they were suffering was in large measure the result of their failure to live as God intended. The penalty had been paid; the sentence had been served. It was time to move on. The past was now past. The present and future were before them.

#1: But how were they, how are we to move on? In and through his poetry, Isaiah told them and us to prepare the way of the Lord. We are to move on with our lives doing what we can to get ourselves and others around us ready to receive what God has to offer. We are to get all the obstacles out of the way. It is like building a highway. We are to build up the low places, and cut down the high places. We are to make the roadway level and smooth so that the Lord can travel into our lives and into all of life. We are to get ourselves and others ready to receive the Lord who is coming into our lives and into life.

#2: Isaiah heard a voice say: "Cry out!" That is poetic a way of saying "Get on with it!" Isaiah knew that what God wants is for us to get busy saying and doing what needs to be said and done. Of course, whenever we are really aware of what God expects of us, we usually make excuses such as saying, "But wait a minute; I'm only human." This is what Isaiah said, but the way he put it was more poetic. Isaiah said we are like grass that is just like the flower that withers and fades.

#1: "The grass withers, the flower fades," Isaiah wrote; "but the word of our God will stand forever." Isaiah was telling the Jews of his day, and he is telling us, that our hope does not reside in our feeble words and our awkward deeds. As important as it is for us to say and do what God wants us to say and do, it is finally not what we say or do that matters. It is how God uses our feeble words and awkward deeds that makes the difference. We humans and all our efforts are like grass. Only the active, creating, transforming word of God will stand forever. It is what God's active, creating transforming word does with our words and deeds that really matters and makes a difference.

#2: This is the good news. Although we are only human and like grass, God, the activity of God, the word of God, keeps on forever. God is not defeated—not even by the worst we do nor by the worst that can happen. God is able to take whatever happens—even the Babylonian captivity—and use it for good. We really do have something to celebrate. And so, Isaiah understands that part of what we are to do is to share the good news about God with the whole world. "Get you up to a high mountain …" Isaiah wrote, "say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’"

#1: And what is God? Who is God? In the First Letter of John, we are told God is love. It is not a sentimental, indulging love that describes God, but a tough love that works for justice as much as it offers mercy. The poet Isaiah said it this way: "See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him." God is revealed in the power of love that is both tough and tender, love that comes in both judgment and mercy.

#2: Those Jews in Babylonian captivity who had hit rock bottom because of what they had done and what they had failed to do, certainly understood the judgment of God. In this poem Isaiah faced that tough reality, but Isaiah also had something more to say to those Jews and to us. In poetic metaphor, Isaiah proclaimed the mercy of God, the tender love of God. "He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep."

#1: How does God do this? Where can we see the activity of God's merciful love at work in life? I suppose we all remember the humorous story about the man who was caught in a flood but was trusting God to save him, and so he refused help from people in boats and helicopters. The result was he drowned. In heaven he asked God why he had not saved him. God's reply was he had sent boats and helicopters. What more did the man want? How does God do what the poet described as the work of a good shepherd? I think we all know. It is in and through the words and deeds of people.

#2: Isaiah had already given us a hint in what he had just written about preparing the way of the Lord. It is what others say and do that prepares the highway the Lord uses to come into our lives. Someone makes a comment at just the right moment, and we hear more than what the person said; we hear the word of God that either calls us to accountability or brings healing into our lives. Someone does a simple deed of kindness, but we are aware of more than their act of kindness. The experience is for us an experience of the Lord, the grace of God, picking us up and carrying us in his bosom.

#1: And as we grow in our awareness of how God is at work in our lives through the words and deeds of others, we begin to be aware of the way God is able to use our inadequate words and our imperfect efforts to make himself and his love known in the lives of others. We begin to be aware loving our neighbor is not simply our doing good deeds for others. It is living in such a way that God is able to use all we say and do as a highway for the Lord to enter the lives of others.

#2: And as the love of God enters heart after heart, transforming more and more people so that what they say and do is what God wants said and done, there is hope for the world.

#1: The poem we read from the Book of Isaiah is about hope and expectation. The season of Advent is about hope and expectation—hope not only for ourselves, but also for the world.

#2: This is the time of year when we are called to focus on the hope that God is coming into our lives—the hope that God will redeem the world. And when this hope is not merely a wish but a confident expectation, this is when we become involved in preparing the way of the Lord.

#1: God, give us hope and give us hope for the world. Comfort us by empowering us so that regardless of what we are facing we will live in faithfulness and living in faithfulness, our words and deeds will prepare the highway for your coming. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:

God, help us hear the message of the prophets telling us to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Help us get ready for Christ coming into our lives by helping us be aware of the call to repentance, the call to change. We know that new life in Christ is impossible as long as we hang on to our old ways of living, our old routines and priorities. God, we know that it is only as we let go of our past that we are free to pick up the gift of the new future you are offering. God help us prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord in our lives.

And God enable us to be your servants so that all we say and do can be used by you to enable others to know the love you have revealed through Christ. God, we pray that our living will be a highway the Lord will use to enter the lives of others. God, empower us and enable us to prepare the way of the Lord.

This we pray, remembering he is the way, the truth and the life and that it was he who taught us to pray: "Our Father …"

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