For the Days When It Hurts--December 17, 2025

For the Days When It Hurts--December 17, 2025

"Strengthen the weak hands,
     and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
'     Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
     He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
     He will come and save you'." [Isaiah 35:3-4]

There's not a day that it doesn't hurt.

Somewhere, in some way, all of us are carrying hurts and wearing scars from what we've been through. All of us bear the aches in our bodies or our hears, or both, and some days it is just a relief to be able to say so, rather than thinking the "religious thing to do" is to push it down and fake a smile.

But some days, we just can't. Our hands are weak, our knees are feeble, and our hearts are trembling with fear or tiredness or grieving or all of the above. And some days we don't know what to do with all of that.

It can be especially tough to be wearing those wounds in December--not just because the cold can add one more layer of "blah," but because the songs on the radio and the lights in the yards all insist that it's "the most wonderful time of the year." And sometimes, it's all we can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

So, what do we do about it? What do we do with the sadness we cannot shake, or the disappointment and disgust that bubbles up when we turn on the news, or the smallness we feel at the size and scope of troubles that threaten to overpower us? And while we're asking things, is the answer from our faith only that "one day in the distant future it will be better in heaven?" Because, to be really honest, sometimes that's what it sounds like from a lot of Respectable Religious folk: sometimes the only hope they have to offer is a sales pitch that goes like this: "Everything will be terrible in this life, and there's nothing you can do about it to make the world any brighter now, but one day in heaven, it will all be sunshine and rainbows. So suck it up and get back to work making widgets!" And to tell the truth, that is not much comfort.

Well, there's good news--that's not really how the biblical writers see things, either. Voices like Isaiah's here don't just describe heaven and hope that visions of pearly gates or golden streets will goad us into working another day. To be sure, there is the Big Hope of the God who saves in the end. That much is certain, from the declaration, "Here is your God... he will come and save you." But Isaiah doesn't only have the hope of some distant future, or as Marty Haugen's famous hymn lyric goes, "not in some heaven light-years away." Isaiah speaks a concrete word of hope for us who are just limping along through our days, and he speaks encouragement for the present as well as the future.

Isaiah calls on the beloved community to strengthen each other. He tells us to build one another up and to lend our strength and stability to each other, so that we can endure the most difficult days. We are given not just End-Times-Afterlife-Big-Picture-Resurrection-Hope, but Present-Moment-Daily-Life-Immediate-Situation hope as well. You know, little resurrections within the found family of God's people. Small renewals that make it possible for us to endure the difficult days by having each other's backs. Ordinary miracles of healing that let our wounds become scars, and our scars become strength. Isaiah's word here is, "Until the day when all is put right and all our tears are wiped away by God's own hand, well, then, YOU be the ones God raises up to wipe each other's tears away!"

In other words, YOU be the ones to strengthen each other and steady each other, until the moment when God's hand touches us all to wellness. Until the day when "all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be made well" as Julian of Norwich wrote, well then, YOU be the ones who make it at least bearable for each other. Lift each other up. Carry each other when you have to. Let yourself be carried. Let down your guard, and drop your fake smiles. Be present for one another, and there in your midst, God will be present through your love for one another, until the day when you see God face to face in glory.

That gives us a plan for facing the day, while holding out our Big-Picture Hope, too. Instead of just being told to tough it out until the afterlife, we are given the invitation and the calling to strengthen one another, and to encourage one another--and in turn, to be strengthened and encouraged by the promise that God will not let the hurt, or even death, get the last word. In fact, we are told to encourage each other, not simply with the promise "God is coming to save the day...someday," but that God is already present, right here and right now. "Here is your God," the prophet tells us to remind each other. Not merely, "Off there in the distance is your God."

So what do we do with the pain we are all bearing? We carry each other. We honor one another's hurts and let them be named. We offer our strength to one another, and we let others' strength be a gift to us when we need it, too. And we keep pointing, so that each of us will see when things are unclear, "Here is your God."

There's not a day that it doesn't hurt. But neither is there a day when God is not here in the hurt with us, sending people to us, and sending us to others as well.

Strengthen our weak hands and feeble knees, O Lord, and remind us that you are here with us.

God's Grand Restoration Project--December 16, 2025

God's Grand Restoration Project--December 16, 2025

 "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
  the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
 like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly
  and rejoice with joy and shouting.
 The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
  the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
 They shall see the glory of the Lord,
  the majesty of our God." (Isaiah 35:1-2)

Apparently, God's intention isn't just to get people into heaven; God intends to bring all of creation fully to life.

That vision certainly includes our hope of life beyond death, or as our sloppy shorthand might put it, "going to heaven when we die," but it is also much bigger.  When God moves in the world, it is not merely to collect up the human beings in order to whisk them away off to float on the clouds somewhere--it is to bring the whole world to life, turning even dry and barren waste lands into blossoming gardens. God isn't interested in plucking us up and taking us somewhere "better" while the world burns; rather, God is engaged in renewing the earth completely.  The news of God's coming is good news for the crocuses, too.

This passage from the book of Isaiah, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, reminds us of just how widely God's concern reaches.  As the prophet pictures God acting in the world, and what it will be like when God's Chosen Anointed One (or "Messiah") comes, he doesn't limit his description to human terms.  We don't hear things like "You'll know the Messiah is coming because the markets will all be up," but rather the prophet says, "When God passes through, you'll see the crocus blooming in the desert." We human beings are a part of God's grand restoration project, but we are not the only ones.  We are a part of the vast and varied family of God, absolutely; but we are not the only members of that family.   God cares about the stream beds in the wilderness, the flowers waiting for the rain so they can burst into bloom, as well as the wolves and lambs we heard about last week, who are waiting a new and peaceable kingdom where old enemies can be reconciled and no one has to be afraid of being hunted by anybody.  All of it belongs. All of it is a part of the community--the commonwealth, so to speak--of God's Reign.

When we forget that, we end up shrinking our Advent hope into merely afterlife insurance.  We end up caricaturing God into the bearded fellow from the cartoons who lives up on a cloud and only cares about snatching up a handful of well-behaved saints to live in the sky while everything "below" crumbles.  And we end up missing out on just how big a family God has brought us into.  We have a place beside our cousins the crocuses and cats, our uncles the mountains, our aunts the butterflies, and all of our human sisters and brothers as well.  God intends to make it all new, not merely to settle for a segment of us and giving up on the rest of creation.

Hold onto that truth today--and throughout the rest of this season.  The One we are waiting for isn't merely recruiting for members of an elite social club; the coming Christ is intent on renewing all of creation.  The child in the manger isn't born just for the sake of getting a few souls onto the Good List; he has come to bring everything and everyone more fully to life. And we are longing for more than just a record close for the stock market--we are waiting for the restoration of all things.

Come, Lord Jesus, and make all things new.

Bringing Our Disappointment--December 15, 2025

Bringing Our Disappointment--December 15, 2025

"When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?' Jesus answered them, 'Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me'." [Matthew 11:2-6]

Some people say that the "right" thing to feel in the season of Advent are emotions like "hope," "peace," "joy," and "love." Sometimes we even say that's what each of the candles on the Advent wreath are for. But John the Baptizer offers a minority report (doesn't he always?). John's witness suggests that the right responses to this waiting season are doubt, anger, disillusionment, and outrage.

And he's not wrong about that.

Or at least, maybe Advent needs to be about those difficult emotions before it can be about the pastel pink and purple notions of peace and joy.

Let me suggest that we sit with this scene for a bit today, before we rush on to talking about hope and peace and joy. John the Baptizer is in jail, and it's not fair. He's gotten himself into trouble with Herod, the arrogant narcissist who sits on a puppet's throne, having been placed in his position by the foreign power of Rome. And honestly, John's not there for anything "religious" that he said. John ended up making enemies in high places because he got political. John didn't say anything that wasn't true, but he called out Herod as a fraud and a crook, and he wouldn't keep his mouth shut about Herod's uncontrolled habit of dumping his old wives for newer, more attractive models when it suited him.

John even saw through the way Herod pretended to be religious--he wasn't even completely ethnically Jewish (he was Idumean, actually), and yet he thoguht that if he undertook renovation projects to the Temple, it would puff up his reputation and get the support of the Respectable Religious crowd, as well as give him more large marble monuments on which he could have his name engraved. But John had seen through Herod's bluster and propaganda and called him out for being a fraud and a crook--and it landed John in a dungeon waiting a date with an executioner's ax.

Now, John was a brave and principled man, and he was willing to suffer for the cause of righteousness and for the sake of truth-telling. But he also had pinned his hopes on the notion that Jesus of Nazareth was in fact the promised Messiah--and John figured that surely, the Messiah would strike down the pompous pretender on the throne, Herod, right? Surely, the Messiah would not be able to stand such an arrogant and obviously hollow crook remaining in power. And certainly, the Messiah would free John from being wrongfully imprisoned simply for having spoken truth to power... right?

And so, understandably, John finds himself in prison feeling outraged and angry, doubting and disillusioned. He is disappointed that Jesus hasn't busted him out of jail or raised up an army to take over Jerusalem from Herod and the Romans. He is angry that a rotten crook like Herod seems to be getting away with his crookedness. He is outraged that the others around him either don't seem to be able to see how terrible and self-absorbed Herod is, or worse--that they can see it, and they just don't care! And because it looks like Herod's pettiness and corruption are going to go unchallenged while he wastes away in prison, John is beginning to doubt whether Jesus really was the one he has been waiting for. All of his mental pictures of a Messiah busting down the door, guns blazing, to break him out of jail are evaporating like morning dew, and John is on the edge of despair.

Honestly, can you blame him?

The trouble with Jesus, of course, is that he reserves the right not to conform to our expectations. If we expected him to recruit soldiers to "take back the country for God" or fight childish bullies and violent tyrants with his own bullying and violence, we are are going to be disappointed. He is the one we have been waiting for--that much is true and certain--but he is not bound to be what we expected. And that's part of what makes this season of waiting so difficult. It's hard to be full of hope and peace and love and joy when you look around at the rottenness of the world around you and you can't shake the question, "Doesn't anybody else see this? Isn't anybody else upset that this is how things are? Isn't God upset at it all--and if so, why hasn't God fixed it all yet?" Our wish is for God to come and zap the world into instant righteousness--of course, that's righteousness as WE want to define it, where God hates all the people I already hate, and where God's pet peeves are conveniently my own. We want a God who busts down doors, locked and loaded, who stands his ground with righteous fury, and who cuts down the crooked Herods of the world instantly, rather than letting them think they are winning the day. As Robert Farrar Capon has put it, we want a God who looks more like Superman, punching his way to victory, rather than a God who goes to a cross and dies at the hands of crooked pretenders like Herod and brutal heathens like Pilate or Caesar. And when we see that Jesus' way of doing things is different from what we expected, we can't help but be a little disappointed.

But what we are given is Jesus... and Jesus does not seems at all interested in catering to our bloodlust. And if we have pinned our hopes on God fitting with our expectations, well, we like John are going to find that waiting for Jesus looks a lot more like doubt and anger than hope and peace.

And this is where I think we need to hold onto John rather than just dismissing him. See, I'm convinced that John is right about the crookedness of Herod and the rottenness of a society that just accepted his claims to be "King of the Jews." I think John is right to be angry, in the same way that outrage is sometimes a sign you are just paying attention. If we aren't upset at the rottenness and crookedness of the world, we are complicit in it. So in that sense, anger is appropriate for Advent, if it is the kind of anger over what is wrong in the world that also then leads to action to put things right.

But just being angry isn't enough. And assuming that God has to work with our preferred methods is rather arrogant, too. Jesus' response to John reminds him--and us--that God is indeed dealing with the brokenness of the world around us. But God's way of dealing with it is to heal it and to bring it back to life, yes, even to raise what is dead in us, rather than to just zap and shoot and smash things.

In a sense we all need to get to the place where John is at some point in our life of faith--we need to move from complacency to urgent outrage over the rottenness in the world. But so long as we stay there, we will find ourselves imprisoned in that anger. Jesus can take it when we bring our disappointments to him, but he does have it in mind to change our thinking. Jesus enters there into that dungeon and brings life to us so that we are not stuck there forever, but we can't short-circuit the process and skip the honest anger that John has. We need to be upset over the things that upset God. We need to, as the old prayer goes, let our hearts be broken by the things that break the heart of God. And from there, we will be ready to let Jesus come on his own terms--not the conquering army general, but the baby in the manger. The Jesus we are waiting for these days is indeed the One through whom God puts all things right that are broken and crooked, but Jesus insists that his way of doing it goes through the saving and giving of life rather than through Herod's same old violent tactics. Ultimately, if Jesus gives in to John's revenge fantasy and would zap Herod with holy laser-beams out of his eyes, then Herod wins and the world really is just a game of King of the Hill. If Jesus fights Herod's self-serving violence with self-serving violence of his own, then nothing has really changed or been redeemed. So Jesus' way of putting things right will be, well, just what Jesus says to John through his messengers: the blind will be given sight, the lame will walk, the lepers will be cleansed, the dead will be raised, and the poor will be given good news.

So here is my prayer for you in these Advent days. I pray for you--and for myself as well--not the easy peace of just ignoring the rottenness of the world around, but the fiery love that can be awakened to anger about what is crooked, and the honest hope that looks to Jesus' way of putting things right rather than the same old tired ways of Herod the pompous puppet.

And when we have first been stirred up, we can then be given the deep peace of the God who deals with the brokenness of the world from a manger and a cross, rather than from a protected throne or behind a trigger.

May we be troubled over the crookedness of things like John is... and then may we be brought to life by Jesus who comes into our captivity and transforms us in his love.

Lord Jesus, where we are complacent, stir us up. And where we need to let you redirect us, turn us around.

 

Knowing God Will Change Us--December 12, 2025

Knowing God Will Change Us--December 12, 2025

"They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain,
 for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
  as the waters cover the sea.
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples;
     the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious." (Isaiah 11:9-10)

When we know God fully, we will no longer need to hurt each other.

When we truly understand the character of God, we will no longer seek to destroy one another.

When we dare to see the world from God's perspective, all peoples and all nations will be able to live together, drawn together by God's chosen one, who comes from the old family line of Jesse, not merely coexisting, but in community.

This is really mind-blowing stuff if you think about it. These words, which conclude the passage from Isaiah that many of us heard this past Sunday in worship, give us one more glimpse of that "peaceable kingdom" we've been exploring over the last several days.  Earlier, Isaiah had pictured all nations streaming to the mountain of God--to the very Temple in Jerusalem!--to be taught by God.  Then we heard the prophet describing a new creation where creatures themselves are changed so that former enemies are reconciled and can live safely and in peace with one another: wolves and lambs, cows and bears, leopards and kids, all together and none afraid.

And to hear Isaiah tell it, all of that change--which is pretty radical, to be honest--is made possible by knowing God more deeply.  The more fully we know God--not just facts "about" God, but to know the heart of God's character--the more completely we will be led away from wanting or needing to hurt one another.  The more truly we know God's ways, the less we will be driven to cause harm, or to justify hurting others in the name of getting what we want.  Isaiah seems to think that if we believe it is acceptable to hurt, destroy, or regard someone else as "less than," it is a sign that we don't really know God.  From the prophet's perspective, all nations are welcome and none can be dismissed as disposable, as trash, or as garbage. Isaiah says that kind of mutual care is what happens when "the earth is full of the knowledge of the Lord."

All too often, we treat God as our private possession who is there to take OUR side against THEIR side. We tell ourselves that WE won't be hurt or destroyed if God is on our side, but that God is here to be the heavy who can smite, blast, and blow up whomever we decide is "unrighteous" or "ungodly."  That's the thinking being used by "religious" voices in Russia trying to justify its invasion of Ukraine, and it's the same thinking that has been used by competing groups in Israel and Palestine to attempt to justify killing and bombing each other, and it's very tempting to do the same in our own setting.  We have a very, VERY hard time resisting the temptation of believing that God is on MY side, and therefore is opposed to YOUR side.  We have a very hard time considering that God might not be just MINE or seeking MY safety, but the well-being and life of all.  But that's precisely what Isaiah wants us to see.

From Isaiah's standpoint, the more clearly we understand who God is and what matters to God, the more we will commit to caring for one another, protecting one another from harm, and refusing to hurt one another.  And Isaiah's repeated reference here to "the peoples" and "the nations" makes it clear that he doesn't just have his own country or clan in mind.  We are not only called to refrain from harming our own little groups, but we are called to seek the well-being of all people.  As Isaiah sees it, the more truly we know God, the less we will be able to say, "Me and My Group First," and the more we will be committed to the good of all.  That's because Isaiah is convinced that God's own heart is committed to the good of all.  For him, then, it only makes sense to say that no one will hurt or destroy because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.

Today, how can we deepen our knowledge of God--and are we prepared to let that deeper understanding change our way of relating to other people?  Are we willing to let our study of the Bible change our perspective of our neighbors?  Are will willing to allow that the more we learn, pray, and contemplate the character of God, the more we open ourselves to a new love of others, including others from backgrounds and stories that are very different from our own?

Isaiah warns us that we cannot reduce our knowledge of God to merely a matter of facts to be memorized and filed away in our brains; knowing God will change us.  And in particular, knowing God more deeply will make of us people who love deeply, who seek to preserve the lives of others, who honor and uplift the worth of all peoples and all nations, and who do not hurt or destroy others.  Dare we let our relationship to God change us that way?

Lord God, help us to know you more deeply, and allow that knowledge to shape us more fully in your likeness.

Divinely Unnatural Relations--December 11, 2025

Divinely Unnatural Relations--December 11, 2025

“The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
     the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
     The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
     and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
     and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
     on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord,
     as the waters cover the sea." [Isaiah 11:6-9]

We need to have a conversation about the word "natural."

More and more I notice that the marketing experts use the word "natural" as an automatically positive adjective. You know the refrains; they are a popular litany in the religious liturgy of consumerism: "You should try this new herbal supplement--it's ALL-NATURAL!" or "Don't buy that brand of soda--you should buy this other one that is made with NATURAL sugar!" or "I don't get the store-brand, because I want the one with the packaging that says it's the NATURAL choice!" or "I'm not going to get my flu shot, because immunizations are unnatural!" We get sloppy with our logic and accept the reasoning that anything you can call "natural" is automatically good, and anything that is "un-natural" is automatically bad.

Well, things aren't that simple. Sure, whole grains and sunshine are natural. But so it cancer. Malaria is natural, as is viral meningitis. So are lead, mercury, arsenic, and uranium. And on the flip side, you know what things are not found in nature? Vaccines, or water purification, or indoor plumbing. MRIs that catch tumors before they grow too big to treat are un-natural, too. And a good many life-saving drugs out there are things you won't find in nature, either.

For that matter, death is natural. Resurrection is un-natural.

Maybe things are more complicated that just saying "unnatural is always bad" and "natural is always good."

The natural world itself, for example, seems built on death... and therefore also on fear. In the animal kingdom, we say that there are two groups of creatures: the hunters and the hunted. You've got to eat your opponent or run from your opponent, but basically your choices in nature are limited to "fight or flight." We say things like "It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and only the fittest survive--that's just the natural order of things." We seem to just accept that our lives should be lived forever under the cloud of fear of being eaten, and we accept just as easily the idea that you might just have to step on somebody else if they get in your way to climbing to the top of the hill. That's all just... you know, natural. The way it is, and the way it must always be.  We have to see every other person around us as a threat--as competition for scarce resources, for our way of life, for our livelihoods, and for our stuff--because it's "the law of the jungle" and it's "only natural."

Trouble is, God seems committed to making a whole new kind of creation--a resurrected creation--that looks, to our eyes, quite un-natural. Of course, to the person who's been sitting in a dark room all day, the brilliance of the daytime sun is going to seem too bright for their eyes. And for us who are accustomed to a world built on the fear of death, a new kind of creation will seem dangerously un-natural, too.

But look at the way the prophet Isaiah envisions the promised new creation that the Messiah will bring: it is staggeringly UN-NATURAL. All the creatures have exchanged their "natural" relationships as enemies for new and gloriously "un-natural" relations as friends now. Just look at how hilariously un-natural the whole scene is: wolves and lambs cozying up next to one another, and leopards and baby goats lounging next to the cows and bears, and nobody is eating each other!

Kind of makes you think that maybe what we are quick to label "un-natural" might not be "unacceptable" after all, but in fact might just be gloriously good!

The old logic of death, and the old engine of fear that kept the old logic churning, is gone. No longer is the assumption that it's a kill-or-be-killed world, and there is no longer the either/or choice of fight or flight. Instead, there is a new way of relating, a new way of being in relationship with one another--and it comes from learning the peaceable ways of God, according to Isaiah. At the coming of God's anointed one--the time when the long-awaited Messiah appears--creation itself will be turned inside out, resurrected, and pulled into a new form. Like the resurrected Jesus is able to pass through walls and go without being recognized, and yet is still clearly the same Jesus who was nailed to the cross, the new creation will be the same as this one--and yet resurrected. Transformed. Renewed. And yet, we aren't scared of the risen Jesus. We don't kick him out because his risen way of being human is "un-natural" or "abominable". No, his resurrection itself is gloriously unnatural!

My point in all of this is that the future toward which God is bringing all of creation sometimes seems scary to us because it runs contrary to what we are used to--what we call "natural," and yet it is a good and beautiful future. The idea of a peaceable kingdom can seem frightening to us if we are used to "peace" through the threat of death, "peace" at the point of a sword, or "peace" won through intimidation and fear. What God calls us into is a completely different way of relating to one another--a way grounded in the courage to be vulnerable and to let down our guard, rather than in baring our teeth at one another and needing to dominate others for fear that they'll dominate us.

The world around us seems run on the tired old logic that says, "You gotta get THEM before they get YOU!" and says it is only natural to see everyone else around you as a threat--either a predator out to get you, or other prey that can leave you to be eaten by a lion if they outrun you. But the God who raises the dead opens up a new possibility--a new way of living with one another, even if it seems to run counter to what everybody else swears is "natural."

Our hope as followers of Jesus is not that the coming Messiah will give us special weapons to give us an advantage against our opponents in a dog-eat-dog world. Rather, our hope is that the One we are waiting for is the one with the nail-scarred hands to prove that there is a new kind of creation in store for us, one that might not look "natural" at all, but is actually, with God's blessing and by God's design, gloriously "un-natural." It is the peaceable kingdom where old animosities are set aside, where old systems are done with and put away, and where God makes it possible for wolves and lambs, lions and cows, all to share a table.

Our Advent hope is for just such a promised future as that--a future of gloriously, blessedly, divinely unnatural relations.

Lord God, make us new in your surprising love, and bring about your new order of things where old enemies can reconcile in peace.

Surprised All Over Again--December 10, 2025

Surprised All Over Again--December 10, 2025

"A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

     and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,

     the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

     the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

     He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide why what his ears hear;

     but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..." [Isaiah 11:1-4]

I used to think the cat was out of the bag with Jesus, and that I could no longer be joyfully surprised by the coming of the Messiah. But God always has a few tricks up the divine sleeve.

Honestly, I think sometimes we church folk think we've got all the plot twists of the story of God figured out, and that they can't catch us off guard anymore. This time of year is one of the reasons. We Christians re-read passages from the prophets and say, "They were predicting the Messiah, but he's already come now, so there's nothing left for us to glean from these ancient poems." We have a way of dismissing all of this Advent tension of delayed gratification as just a game we play every year--since we know that the baby will be born in a manger, and we are no longer surprised that the angels show up to see shepherds working the night shift. We sometimes even treat the whole idea of a long-awaited messiah with a "been-there-done-that" attitude, like watching the same old Christmas movies year after year and pretending you don't know whether the hero will "save Christmas" this time or not.

I know I do this myself--it is tempting to think we are masters of these ancient texts, and that we have wrung every drop of meaning from them already.

But then I read these well-worn words again, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, and I discover that I am not nearly as in control of them--nor of the God to whom they witness--as I had thought. The old poets and dreamers have things to tell me that I was not expecting... or maybe that I had never paid attention to before.  The prophets keep reminding me that God reserves the right to catch me off guard and leave me surprised all over again.

Take this for starters: the prophet here doesn't simply promise that there will be a new king one day who will come from David's (and Jesse, David's father) family line. Honestly, that wasn't much of a headline in the days of Isaiah the prophet, since he lived during a time when there was a Davidic king already, and there would be more Davidic kings for another 150 years or so, give or take. The surprise wasn't the announcement of that there would be more kings in this particular dynasty.

But what makes this promised coming "branch" from the family tree of Jesse and David special is that for once in the world's history, this new sort of king won't be swayed by appearance, won't be motivated by the need to hold onto power for power's sake, won't be directed by greed or fear, and won't put his own personal interests over the interests of his people. For once, Isaiah says, there will be a ruler who won't be fooled into caring only about surface appearances or what "plays well," but rather will be guided by righteousness, by equity, and by wisdom. For once, in other words, there will be a ruler whose power is seen in serving those who are most vulnerable ("the poor" and "the meek of the earth," as Isaiah puts it) rather than trying to extract benefits from those who are most influential.

The real surprise, in other words is not the sentence, "There will be another king coming," but rather, "There will be a good one for once--a ruler who is genuinely and truly good, all the way to the core." The world has been waiting for such a thing. The world is waiting, still. The prophets were not suckered by the official royal propaganda coming from the palace in their day that just assumed God blessed and approved of everything the kings of the day did. Isaiah had seen half-decent ones and terrible ones, but never one that was wholly good, just, and wise. The prophets saw through the spin-doctoring and PR management offered by king after crooked king, and they recognized how the powerful people of their day were all more or less entangled in getting themselves more power and keeping it. And so the prophets kept on daring to dream of a better way... a better kind of king. A completely different kind of king, honestly: one whose power is revealed in self-giving, and whose authority is used to lift up the lowly. Sometimes I forget just how radical an idea that really is for a ruler.  Most folks in our time have given up that such priorities could be possible; we are so used to ego-driven demagogues only interested in winning the next election rather than actually striving for the common good that it is hard to believe another way is possible.  Isaiah tells us it is.

I think what surprises me and my cynical heart is the hope that Isaiah holds onto that things could really be different. It is so easy any more to see rottenness everywhere that we just assume that's how things must always be. Heads of state, heads of corporations, and heads of institutions all seem bent on holding onto their power, or enriching themselves, or gaslighting their supporters, or making empty promises, and it is terribly easy just to assume that it must be OK because "everybody is doing it." It feels any more like even just asking, "But what is the truth here?" is precariously close to being an out-of-fashion question, because so many pundits and experts seem only interested in what is popular, or what can be gotten away with, or what plays to a particular base. In a time when we are all so tempted only to listen to voices or watch the channels that will tell us what we already want to hear, it is hard to imagine the Coming One whom Isaiah says will not act based on what tickles his ear, what plays to a "base," or what makes for the best sound-byte on social media, but on what is just and right and true.  

Sometimes you'll hear Respectable Religious types join the cynicism, too. They'll say, "You don't have to hope for someone who is decent and honest and just and wise. You don't need a Boy Scout in charge--you just need someone who will do the favors on your wish-list in exchange for your allegiance. Just make that kind of deal and you'll get things that you want, too." But Isaiah doesn't let us off the hook for hoping for just making deals or selling out like that. Isaiah dares us to hope this surprising hope--that at the last, God's intention is for a world ordered by justice and peace, rather than self-interest and competing hatreds. Isaiah dares us not to be satisfied, and not to settle, for pinning our hopes on anybody or anything less than the promised shoot that comes out from the stump of Jesse, the One we know by the name Jesus.

Christians are people who have come to name Jesus as that king of whom Isaiah and the other prophets dreamed. That's the central defining feature of our community of disciples--we are convinced that Jesus is the One in whom God's Reign is most clearly seen because Jesus is the One in whom God is fully present. In that sense, we are in on the secret--nobody expected in Isaiah's day that the king will be laid in a used food trough on the day of his birth. Or that his royal entourage will be made up of illiterate fishermen, outcast tax collectors, undervalued women, notorious sinners and little-faithed doubters. Or that he will reign from a cross, executed by the empire of the day, before he breaks out of his borrowed grave.  We have been told these parts of the story, which prophets like Isaiah didn't even dream of.

But just when I think I have gotten these old words of the prophets wrestled into submission and that they have no more surprises for me, Isaiah comes along and pokes at me just where I wasn't expecting it. The prophets pull me out of my cynicism to look with hope to Jesus. They call us not to settle for accepting rottenness, and to call it out wherever we see it. They dare us keep holding on to the longing that at the last God will set all things right, and that we can anticipate it now in the ways we live, and love, and serve, and spend our selves.

Even now, all these centuries later, the surprising word from the prophets is, "Hold on. Don't settle. Justice, mercy, and peace really are on the way."

Lord God, keep us stubbornly hopeful, all our days, as we watch for your Reign among us.

In Recovery Together--December 9, 2025

In Recovery Together--December 9, 2025

"Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan were going out to John [the Baptizer], and they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins." (Matthew 3:5-6)

All those people who lined up by the riverbanks, those crowds who left their villages and towns and went out to the middle of nowhere to hear John and have him wash them in the flowing waters of the Jordan, do you know what they had in common?

Only this: they were mess-ups.  They were wrongdoers who felt trapped in dead-ends, looking for a new beginning.  They were, in a word, sinners.

The people who went out to John were manifestly not the role model/good example types on the cover of Respectable Religion magazine; if they had been, they would have been perfectly content to follow the traditional instructions of the Torah for addressing little offenses and minor infractions, and they would have been content to listen to the advice of the official priests and credentialed rabbis for making amends to their lives.  You went to John if you were at the end of your rope--if you were ready to admit that you needed more than a little spiritual pick-me-up or minor course-correction to your life, but a complete overhaul of your life.  You went to John, maybe not unlike those who show up at their first Twelve Step meeting, because you had hit rock-bottom and you were ready to admit that your life had become unmanageable.  All those folks at the river's edge were brave enough--or desperate enough--to declare publicly by their presence that they were royal screw-ups aching for the chance to start over.  That's the kind of people that John--and the God for whom he spoke--drew to himself: an assembly of sinners.

In a way that seems obvious: after all, if the people who went out to the river to be baptized by John came "confessing their sins," they must have had some hefty guilt about their failures and trespasses to deal with.  But we are so used to hearing the word "baptism" and picturing it as a ritual of respectability and polite piety.  For many it's a ceremony to be proud of these days, not like standing up in that church basement AA meeting and saying, "Hi, I'm Steve, and I'm an alcoholic" (there's a reason that the Twelve-Step groups and programs all have "Anonymous" in their titles, after all).  We might easily (and wrongly) imagine that the people who went out to John in the wilderness were doing the socially accepted thing to do by being baptized, but it's really just the opposite. John didn't fit the mold of a well-appointed and highly respected priest, or the formal schooling and bona fides of a rabbi.  He shows up like one of the prophets of ancient Israel, claiming no more for himself than that he was a "voice crying out." And his invitation was for anybody and everybody who was finally done with pretending that they were perfect. The people who came out to John were ready to give up the act that everything was fine and be turned at last in the right direction.  Those are the folks who went to the Jordan: people who were willing to set aside the cookie-cutter routines of their regular lives to go out to the middle of nowhere looking for a new beginning.

Maybe that's really the only kind of people God gathers: folks whose only thing in common is that we bring mistakes and mess-ups, sins and transgressions, into God's presence, desperately hoping that God will take them from us and bring us up out of the water as new people.  Like the lyric of Jon Foreman puts it, "We are a beautiful letdown, painfully uncool/ The church of the dropouts, the losers, the sinners, the failures, and the fools." Or as the old cliche goes, "the church isn't a museum for saints, but a hospital for sinners." That's the only kind of community you'll find out there with John in the wilderness, because honestly, it's the only kind of community God can work with. And when we show up on Sunday mornings, it's not because we are there to model our holiness like a fashion show, but to be honest about our brokenness like we are all in recovery together.  We are.

This is the kind of community we belong to, and the good news is that in that kind of community--the found family we call "church"--there's no need to pretend anymore that we've got it all figured out or that we're better than anybody else.  There is instead the freedom to admit our failings, let go of our sins, and be pulled up back on our feet to walk in a new way.

There's a place for each of us there in the wilderness... just like there's a place for us on Sundays.

Lord Jesus, take us as we are, and make of us what you will.