Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 23, 2007
Sermon by Pastor Joy Bussert
The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (1:18-25)
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. Her
husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public
disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
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. She will bear a child, and you are to name
him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what had
been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall conceive and
bear a son,
and they shall name him
Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the
angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife, but had no relations
with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Listen again to the lines of an old Finnish tune
included in the new cranberry hymnal as an Advent hymn:
Lost in the night do the people yet
languish,
Longing for morning the darkness to
vanquish,
Plaintively heaving a sigh full of
anguish:
Will not day come soon? Will not day come soon?
The day we wait for in the four weeks of Advent is
what is nearly upon us, the dawning of Christmas in the dark night of the
winter solstice, just as the people of long ago waited for a Messiah to deliver
them in very dark times. Will not day come soon? Will
not day come soon?
In the world in which people waited was not much
different than the world in which we wait today, where a king named Ahab
decided to secure the nation of Israel through a military alliance with
Assyria, and the prophet Isaiah tries to intervene: “This is how you will know
that God is with you, not through military or political alliances, but here,
look, this will be the sign, a young woman will bear a child named Emmanuel,
which means God is with us.”
Imagine, in the face of such danger, such threat in
the midst of such insecurity, the sign of God’s presence with you is to be
found in something so small, so vulnerable, so anonymous as a young woman with
a child. Centuries later, the Christmas
story, as told by Matthew, will show us the same picture. This time the threat is not
Imagine for a moment what would
happen if all of life were so reorganized with this prophetic picture; imagine
for a moment if this picture of a young mother with a child would become the
central reality around which all public and private life would be organized,
not just for Isaiah’s time, not just for Matthew’s time, but for our time. “Emmanuel,
God with us.”
Security,
trust, not in large military and political realignments but in something so
small, so humble, so anonymous, so out of the way, this is how we know that God
is with us. Emmanuel, God with us.
From Matthew of the First Century on
up to the time of Constantine in the Fourth Century, the early Christian
movement was a small Jewish movement, including diverse schools of thought and
different points of view on exactly what was meant by this affirmation: Emmanuel, God with us. But at the time of Constantine, the early
Christian movement ceased to be a small, struggling movement and became a big
religion of the empire, formally, or informally, continued for centuries to be
the dominant religion in the western world—Christendom, as the historians have
called it, at least up until the present time.
But now futurists in our time are asking the question of how Christianity
might take its place as one religion among other religions, in an increasingly
pluralistic world.
Acknowledging this new challenge for
the Christian church today, one writer, Douglas John Hall from Montreal, in a
small but prophetic little book entitled “The
End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity,” invites us to think
about this challenge not as an end but as a new beginning. Oh, he has written many other big works of
theology; this is just a small book with a very new idea for our day. On the very last page of this small book, he
talks about the possibility of littleness, not the problem but the hope
of littleness, beginning with something so small as the little Lord Jesus, in a
world hungry for mystery, hungry for a sense of the sacred, a prophetic word
for a world in crisis.
Imagine if we took to heart this central affirmation
of the incarnation that God is with us,
not in the form of empire but in this picture of the manger, of a mother with
child; Emmanuel, God with us, that
Isaiah and Matthew saw long ago, but the church as empire had forgotten.
Imagine if all of our efforts to be the church today were reorganized around
this, in thinking small, not big, and certainly not mega-church big, might we
not reclaim the movement? Might we not
have the possibility of authenticity, that is, becoming the people of God
today, that Mathew, indeed Isaiah, imagined we might be? Look for the future, for the security of the
Gospel, not in big things, but in small things.
This is Emmanuel, God with us,
Isaiah and Matthew want us to see.
A few weeks ago, the children of Immanuel gathered
around St. Nicholas, downstairs in the Lower Commons, to hear again some of the
legends about this Fourth Century saint, the real historical character of St.
Nicholas. One of the legends that was
not told was how St. Nicholas became a bishop of the church in the Fourth Century
in the first place. As the story goes,
the bishops of the district in Southern Turkey were uncertain as to who should
be elected the new Bishop of Myra, when one of them had a dream that he should
go to the church the next morning and the first person that he would see should
be chosen bishop. Nicholas, a young boy
from the town, went to the church early every morning to pray. And so, small as he was, because he was the
first there that morning, he was still chosen bishop. And as he grew, and leader of integrity that
he came to be throughout his tenure, he looked to small things as the place
where God was at work in the world, especially to children and to the needs of
the poor, including three daughters of a desperate family that would otherwise
have been sold into slavery had it not been for Nicholas’s kindness and
generosity.
Look to the future, look for the security of the
Gospel, indeed, the future of Christianity in our times, not in big things but
in small things. This is Emmanuel, God with us.
As always, our school choir had to sing at the Mall
of America and various other shopping establishments again this year; places,
if not for the wondrous voices of the young people in the middle of it all, I
would just as soon avoid during these days leading up to Christmas. But after one of the concerts, our
extraordinary music teachers, Ms, Hotchkiss and Ms. Lemay, were talking about
how they survived the days leading up to Christmas. One of them said, “Yup, we did it all on line
this year, all of our shopping on line.
It felt a little strange, but actually pretty good. We avoided the big parking lots, we bought
less, and we bought small things, things that could easily arrive in the
mail.” It was the first time I can
remember feeling a bit of warmth toward the Internet. Imagine, I thought to myself, if we could put
the mega mall out of business, how much more focused our lives might be on the
small things of the season: a song, a carol, a greeting, a card from a friend,
the morning cardinal at the bird feeder, not forgotten in the rush—Emmanuel, God with us—looking to the
humble things, the small, out-of-the way things, and even to the neighbor in
need.
Indeed, the season is so full of big things all
around us, big parties, big expectations, big lights, like the big Holidazzle
Parade, Minnesota’s infamous winter- solstice ritual at this time of year. As I reveled in the sheer wonder of it all
last Friday night—the biggest parade of lights you can imagine lighting up the
night at the darkest time—the smaller snowflakes along the side of the street
caught my attention; snowflakes of light, but made up of a whole bunch of
little lights, fading in and out, in and out, coming and going in the
darkness. It was a small thing, a bit of
light amidst the bigness of light, yet coming and going. And I felt grateful for the nuances of
light. Sometimes light is just there in
life. Sometimes it comes and goes in
small ways, but sustains in the darkness, nonetheless.
As Christians, we do take in the glory of the season,
the parties, the gatherings with friends and neighbors, the wonders of a
Holidazzle, and all of the ways that Minnesotans have learned to survive a
long, dark winter, and we should—except for here. Will we come throughout these long Advent
weeks of waiting to ask and imagine in small ways: “What are we really waiting
for—at Christmas, in life?” It is here
that we wait for just one more candle each week. And in the midst of it all, we ask in a
moment of quiet contemplation, “What are we really waiting for?” “Will
not day come soon? Will not day come
soon?”
And in the end, Isaiah and Matthew tell it like it
is. An authentic future can only be
secured in the waiting for the small things, like a picture of a mother, a
child, a manger; a little more peace, a little more justice, a little more
light, a little more love.
Emmanuel,
God with us.
Amen.