Rev. Dr. Bary R. Fleet - Pastor
December 9, 2007 – Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 11:1-10
Romans 15:4-13
Matthew 3:1-12

Christmas Greetings

Christmas is the time of year for sending messages. That's why the postal service estimates some five billion Christmas cards and letters will be mailed in the next few weeks. By anyone's standard, that's a lot of money, time and trouble invested in sending a message of good news to friends and family.

But messages are important … and for many of us, Christmas is the only time in the year when we hear from old and distant friends. Christmas is a time when God sends a message to the world as well, and these words from Isaiah bring us a message from the Lord that we long to hear. This ancient prophet was called upon to be God's message-bearer to a people who had lived in despair and misery as captives of the Babylonians. The Hebrews were a despised people, displaced persons who lived in a world that had been turned upside down. Their daily lives were filled with injustice and conflict, and there was little in which they could take courage. But Isaiah was chosen of God to bring a message of good news, and the prophet's beautiful vision may well be the same kind of message God wishes to send us in this Advent Season.

Isaiah's first words are words of hope in the midst of despairing times: "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse ...." Now this is much more than some twig that begins to grow out of a dead stump. The Hebrew words suggest a strong healthy branch, tough new growth on a tree that has long produced much good fruit.

The hope that God promises in the midst of despair is a message that forces us to see our world for what it has become in its brokenness and sinfulness. To be sure Christmas is coming, but in Central America the destroying, the killing and the oppression are daily facts of life. Christmas is coming, but the very fabric of our society is threatened by new realities called drug wars, drug lords and drug traffic. Christmas is coming but for those who live in the Middle East, all talk of peace and good will seems to be little more than empty rhetoric. Christmas is coming but the FBI says that every 54 seconds a violent crime occurs in this nation, a robbery every other minute, and another woman violated by rape every 17 minutes.

Isaiah's vision of a world where peace and justice are possible is based on that same conviction that it is God who brings us peace. Isaiah never forgot that this is still God's world, and that one day God will be triumphant over everything that is evil and oppressive in our world. Isaiah could envision a reconciliation that would not only include human beings and the Living God, but even the animal kingdom and all of nature. In Jesus Christ our broken, troubled world catches a glimpse of a time to come when the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. In the midst of wars and rumors of wars, we need not despair. God is already at work through the power of suffering love to bring about that new age, and every now and then, you and I are privileged to see God at work.

(See note below.)

God’s message, as presented in Isaiah, is that there is reason to hope in the midst of despair … that in the midst of life’s unfairness, in the midst of conflict, peace and justice are still possible.  That’s God’s message to us today,

I’d like to close by reading another message,  the message from the Nebraska State Council of Churches, in response to the recent tragedy in Omaha.

 Dear friends,

"What then shall we say in response to all this?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  For God who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.  Shall God not also graciously give us all things?  Who can separate us from God's love?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life; neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord"                                                        Romans 8

Besieged with emotions we feel inadequate to express, our community of Nebraska has been confronted with an unspeakable terror.  [This week], one of our children, so desperate and despondent, chose death as his response to the pain of living, and also chose to afflict so many others with murderous agony.  The horrific events overwhelm us with their senselessness and frightfulness.  Random outrage killed innocent people simply living life's tasks.  We are filled with sorrow, confusion, anger, and fragile vulnerability.
    
As those who follow the Christ, how are we to respond?

We grieve together.  Sadness permeates this whole event.  We ache for those families whose loved ones were so treacherously stolen from their midst.  The finality of this appalling choice hurts to the very core.  As the painful story of Robert Hawkin's life unfolds, we again face the dark valley of broken belonging.  As our children are startled out of innocence and our own mortality awakens, we bemoan the recognition of the dangers around us.  In grief, we reach out, consoling each other.

We tell the truth.  Evil is real.  Human brokenness and sin have consequences.  We do not deny reality with thoughtless mantras that hide the truth.  In a society that too often hears: "Everything happens for a
reason," we honestly admit our inadequacy to understand.  We also challenge subtle attempts to blame God.  God did not cause this, but was present in the midst of the suffering. The God of the Cross was with them and us. God's heart breaks.

We turn to God, this God who continually turns to us.  In this season of "Immanuel…God with us," we recognize anew the tremendous compassion of our God who came, who comes, and who promises to be with us always.  In turning, we also trust the redeeming power of our God who can transform Good
Fridays into Easters.  We re-tell the story of love so amazing that God would defeat sin, death, and the devil through the Cross of Christ and rise triumphant with the hope of life.

We live with hope.  We move forward with purpose.  Death and evil do not have the final word.  God does!

May the shadow of Jesus' Cross be cast over all of our lives, and God's grace uphold and encourage us.

Amen!

NOTE:  The above section is credited to a sermon by Robert A. Beringer, entitled, “God’s Christmas Message” and can be found on www.esermons.com. 

SERMON IN A SACK:  A branch … and a copy of my family tree.  Talk about the branch of Jesse … and how we are all related to Jesus – by adoption!