Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

December 7, 2008

Scripture:         Isaiah 40:1-11

Sermon:           “Salvation on Layaway”

            It has been the practice of the church for centuries to turn to the words of the Hebrew prophets during Advent.  And that is what we will do this morning.  Turn with me to the prophet Isaiah where we’ll read from chapter 40, verses 1 through 11.  You can find that easily on page 779 of the Old Testament in the pew Bible.

            You might hear echoes of the words ascribed to John the Baptist—“a voice crying out in the wilderness.  Prepare the way of the Lord!”  All four gospels connect the ministry of John the Baptist to these words in the prophet Isaiah.  And so we see how the earliest Christians understood that John and Jesus were somehow fulfilling these ancient Jewish longings for God’s salvation.

            Isaiah’s words were written hundreds of years before the life of Jesus.  Over 500 years, actually.  And in their original setting they were words to signify the end of this terrible time in the life of the Israelites.  God began to speak words of hope that a great restoration was under way after the destruction of the Hebrew nations, Israel and Judah.

            So, we’ll hear that Jerusalem, the city in ruins, has served her term; that her penalty is paid.  The punishment is over.  And we’ll hear the famous words associated with John the Baptist about preparing the way.  And then we’ll hear this comparison between the fleeting mortality of us human beings and the indescribable majesty of God.  People, it turns out, don’t really have the capacity to understand, own, or predict God, and that’s part of what this whole passage is about.

            But, it’s also about holding on to good news in the midst of what seems to be a prolonged wait for deliverance.  And, how appropriate is that for Advent when the days seem to get longer and longer as Christmas approaches!?!

            This is the word of the Lord…

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.

A voice cries out:  “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  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.  Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

A voice says, “Cry out!”  And I said, “What shall I cry?”  All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.  Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!”  See, the Lord comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.  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.

            There is this incredible tension in the words we just read.  On one hand the prophet is declaring that the punishment is over.  God’s anger for what had happened in the past was quenched.  The sentence was up.  The people had paid their debt.

            And on the other hand, the prophet is speaking about this future and coming redemption when folks would be restored to their homeland.  So, the price had been paid, but the results couldn’t be seen yet.  Do you see that?

            I suppose that is something like getting paroled from prison and living in a halfway house, or on probation.  Redemption doesn’t just happen overnight.  And salvation doesn’t just occur with the words “you’re free to go.”  It all doesn’t just happen at once, you know?

            Now, wouldn’t that be nice if it did?  Wouldn’t it be nice if salvation, redemption, blessing…all the good stuff we talk about…wouldn’t it be nice if we could experience it all at once?  You know, wouldn’t it work well if we could just one day get right with God, get our lives together all at once, and suddenly have everything work out according to the way we had always dreamed it would be?

            Isaiah proclaims that they’d served their time.  And in the next breath, you know, says get ready for the coming of the Lord.  It kind of reminds of that old Army saying of how things are in the service:  “hurry up and wait”.  Hurry up and wait.

            It’s not how we’re wired is it?  We like to have things according to our schedules, according to our timelines, our wishes.  And we can just give up waiting on God.

            Do you remember that thing called layaway?  That’s where you’d go to a store and put a little money down on something you wanted to buy.  A TV, maybe.  An expensive dress.  You’d give the store a little bit of money and they’d store it somewhere in the back for you until you paid the full amount.  That’s layaway.  It’s how folks used to save up and buy things they couldn’t afford all at once.

            Now, you know, we use credit.  We get the thing right now because we want it right away, and then pay for it over time with some interest attached.  But, we get what we want right now.  Credit is like the opposite of layaway.

            I called a couple of department stores this week.  I was curious if they even did layaway anymore.  And I asked this nice woman on the phone about their layaway plan.  She told me to wait a minute while she asked a manager.  And she got back on the phone and said, “Well, yes, we do still have layaway.  But, while I’ve got you on the phone, would you like to apply for our store credit card?  You don’t even need layaway.”

            Instant gratification.

            Isaiah seems to describing just the opposite from instant gratification.  Hurry up and wait.  Your penalty is paid, but salvation is yet to come.

            Maybe that’s why the prophet here starts to talk about how you and I are really like grass.  We’re no more patient than the flowers of the field.  We fade.  We wither.  Waiting is not our specialty.

            We’ve got everything decorated for Christmas by the time October comes to end.  And then what?  We wait.  And we’ve got the baby Jesus already in the manger.  By the time Christmas Day actually rolls around, we’re plum tuckered of Holiday cheer.

            You know in the church it has long been considered inappropriate to sing songs declaring the birth of Jesus until Christmas comes.  We’ve got this whole section of Advent hymns, but we’re too antsy for Christmas to get here that we start singing Christmas songs before their time has come.  And I know of some folks in the ministry that are just downright militant about not allowing their churches to sing about Christ’s birth until after the fact.

            We can’t wait.

            Do you think that maybe Advent is meant to be a spiritual exercise in learning to live according to God’s time instead of our own?  It’s kind of ironic, really.  The season of preparation is full of yearning for instant gratification for us.

            There is this great prayer that we say sometimes.  God, grant me patience.  And give it to me right now.

            Oh, we are like grass!  We are like flowers of the field!  We can’t stand to wait.  Why doesn’t God get with the game plan, here?

            You remember Peter, don’t you?  The rock on which Jesus said he’d build his church?  Peter was as close to the Lord as you can get.  He once wrote these terrible frustrating words.  You can find them in 2 Peter 3:8.  He said, “Don’t ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.”

            A thousand years.  Oh, the waiting!

            It’s not just a trivial matter.  I remember a couple of years ago my father called to tell me that he probably had colon cancer.  And I shared that with you during our prayers.  And we lifted up my dad in our prayers.

            He didn’t have cancer, turns out.  His official diagnosis was this:  a shortage of patience.  He’d gone for one of those dreaded colonoscopies.  And a few days had gone by without hearing a word from the doctor.  You ever wait on word from the doctor?  I know some of you have.  Your mind just doesn’t deal with waiting.  It knows that something’s wrong.  It has to be.

            Dad eventually called the office.  Couldn’t wait any longer.  And the response that he received from someone that was not his doctor was that she couldn’t talk with him over the phone about his test results.  There was a note on his charts.  The doctor needed to speak with him in person.

            And so the sureness set in.  He must have cancer.  The doctor needs to talk with him.  The worst had happened.  And Dad started telling us all that the reaper had finally caught up with him.  The years of smoking, the years of not eating right, it had all taken its toll.  Time to start making plans for the end.

            That was a Thursday.

            The next Tuesday came around and the official conversation with the doctor took place.  All that doctor wanted to tell him was that he was concerned about my father’s diet and a few other matters.  No cancer.

            That’s kind of how it happens when we have to wait.  We give up.  Assume the worst.

            It seems to me that the wisdom of the church in all of its Advent preparing is really this radical way of being in the world.  God’s got a whole other idea of what needs to happen and when.  God’s thoughts.  They’re not our thoughts.

            Isaiah even pointed that out, too.  God’s thoughts are higher than our own.

            It is this radically different way of existing in the world that seems to me is more profound than ever.  We develop a deeper sense of patience here than our culture teaches us.  Salvation doesn’t happen in an instant.  It comes to us as a process of growth.  And to truly connect with God requires a deep sense that God’s got a much better view of things than we do.  Advent reinforces that by asking us to glimpse the future and wait patiently for God to bring it about.

            Now, consider this jumbled wad of Christmas tree lights.  Talk about making his paths straight!  Don’t you hate untangling these things?  Oh, it drives me crazy.  You think you’re all set to put the ornaments on the tree, and then you pull out this incredible knot of wires and light bulbs.

            Maybe that’s a bit how it works with God and us.  We’re knotted up pretty good.  It’s a fight to get these things worked out.  There’s a twisted mess of negative opinions we’ve accumulated about ourselves.  Goodness they stretch back in years.  And we’ve sinned more than we can even remember.  Quite a mess.  Relationships.  Good grief.  Do you see how wadded up we get?  And the grief we suffer?

            Maybe salvation is a process.  It takes a long time to get in the shape we’re in.  And maybe it takes God some time to work through all of it with us.  Patience.  Patience, my friends.  Salvation is coming.  Redemption is in the works.  Restoration to wholeness is being worked out even as we speak.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)