Introduction
This is the Pastor’s Blog for the Service on Sunday Nov 30th at 10:45AM. Included here is the primary Scripture of this message and the Pastor’s notes. Prior to the service it will include an excerpt of the Pastor’s notes and following the service the complete notes will be added. Also following the service a link will be provided at the bottom to Replay this service. We hope you will join us in Worship on Sunday.
Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5
This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
2 In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
3 Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
5 Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.
Pastor’s Message.
Happy new year, my friends! Today is the first Sunday of Advent which marks the beginning of a new church year. Let me offer a quick explanation of the rhythms of the church year for those who may be unfamiliar with it.
Advent is the first season in the new church year. It is the season of preparation for the birth of the Christ child. Advent’s color is purple – the color of royalty, and also the color of penitence. Advent gives way to Christmastide, a short season of 12 days (yes, this is when the twelve days of Christmas begins – on December 25th), and the colors of Christmas are colors of celebration: white, gold and silver. This leads us to Epiphany on January 6, marking the journey of the Wise Men From the East and their arrival in Bethlehem. The word “epiphany” means “appearance” or manifestation and is used to describe what the Wise Men witness – the God of the universe, revealed in the child Jesus.
After Epiphany we enter the first of two seasons called “ordinary time.” We focus on discipleship and the teachings of Jesus during ordinary time. This season’s color is green – the color of growth and development.
Then we have another season of preparation – the season of Lent. This season’s color is also purple, and it begins on Ash Wednesday, when we begin our Lenten journey by receiving ashes on our foreheads, a sign of repentance. Lent lasts 40 days – not counting Sundays (Sunday is the first day of the week, the day of Resurrection, and is always a day of feasting and celebration) – and is a time for introspection, reflection, and heightened attention to spiritual discipline.
Lent ends with the glorious celebration of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday, which ushers in the Great Fifty Days of the Easter season (including Sundays). The colors of Easter are the same as Christmastide – white, gold and silver. We sing many Alleluias during Eastertide, and hear about the resurrection appearances of Jesus, and the disciples’ struggle to understand what they are witnessing.
The Great Fifty Days of Easter ends with the Day of Pentecost, a celebration of the giving of the Holy Spirit and the birth of Christ’s church. Its color is red – the color of fire and the Spirit.
The very next Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday on which we give praise and thanks for the Triune God. And then we enter the second season of ordinary time, a long stretch of months that carries us through the summer, into fall, until we begin a new church year once again with Advent.
Rather than being a straight line of time, the church year is circular, carrying us through seasons of preparation, penitence, celebration, and growth. The church calendar carries within it a deep awareness of the challenges and joys of life: there are times that bring sadness and despair. There are other times which are joyful. There are also times of wondering, of longing, of questioning.
I love the honesty of the church calendar. It doesn’t demand that we be happy happy happy all the time. It’s real, and it takes us seriously, both as individuals and communities.
The season of Advent offers us a “prophetic” space because it runs counter to a society in which Christmas starts showing up in the stores in October, demanding that we spend more money that we need to. Advent is very different from the commercial enterprise that tries to co-opt Christmas: it asks us to wait, to prepare, to confess the longing that lives deep in our souls and the pit of our stomachs. We are weary of division. We’re weary of fighting. We’re weary of not-enoughness. We long for togetherness. We long for unity. We long for peace. Advent offers us space to face and process this longing.
Into this longing come the words of Isaiah: “in days to come….” Isaiah offers us a vision that lifts our eyes and hearts from the stress of the present to a vision of the future in which God’s house will be established as a place of welcome as all the people of the earth stream to it. God’s house becomes a place where the weapons of war are melted down and repurposed for growth and abundance. God’s house becomes a place for learning the ways of the Lord, God’s house will be a source of light and peace.
Isaiah offers this vision in the midst of suffering and war. The Assyrian Empire is about to invade and level the Northern Kingdom of Israel. The people are about to lose everything: their homes, their gardens & vineyards, their way of life. The situation is dire.
The prophet sees beyond the threat. He calls the people to look for the movement of the divine. This quote from our Advent study materials states it beautifully: “In the face of corruption, violence and misplaced trust, Isaiah dares to imagine a world reordered by divine wisdom. He doesn’t wait for perfect circumstances to proclaim peace – he casts a vision while chaos still reigns.”
Isaiah’s vision is bold. It lifts the heart while at the same time striking that chord of longing. “Oh, if only this could really happen!” The vision is so bold and beautiful that it’s sometimes hard to take it seriously. Too far-fetched, some might say. It’s too hippy-dippy-trippy, too marked by viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses.
As we pause to consider this, let’s turn back to the season of Advent for a moment and what it can offer us. Advent offers us four words to navigate by: hope, peace, joy, and love. Each of the four Sundays of Advent we will light a candle that draws our attention for that day’s word. The flow of the words is a beautiful arc, one word leading to the next. We hope for peace. And when we are gifted with peace, we feel joy. And joy leads to love.
By the time we welcome the baby Jesus at Christmas, we can adopt Isaiah’s vision as our own. We can emerge from the season of Advent bearing witness to the growth we’ve experienced on the Advent journey. Because the church calendar is circular and not linear, we can follow this arc of hope, peace, joy and love again and again, and grow in our vision and discipleship more and more with each cycle.
The word for this first Sunday as we lit the Advent candle is hope.
Hope is very different from optimism. Optimism tends to shrink from the hard stuff of life. Hope, however, looks around at the chaos and the mess and rolls up its sleeves and gets to work. Hope is muscular. It doesn’t shrink from what’s hard and painful. As our Advent study writers say: “the hope of Advent is not about ignoring pain but confronting it with imagination, It sees the world’s wounds clearly and chooses to dream anyway.”
Advent gifts us with a season for dreaming with God. It is a season for receiving instruction which flows out from God, pulling us ever more deeply into God’s dream for this world – a world in which all are invited to walk in the light of God.
Even now, God-in-Christ is moving in creation, in our communities, in our neighborhoods, and in our hearts. This has been the living word – the instruction — from Christ for two thousand years. When all seems lost, stand up, lift your head, roll up your sleeves, and dig into hope. Isaiah’s dream will become our reality.
Let us pray:
God who is, who was, and who is to come,
we enter this season of Advent keenly aware
of the brokenness in and around us.
Comfort our longing spirits,
and teach us again how to be people of profound hope.
You never leave our side, but walk with us in our pilgrimage
toward the renewed world you promise.
We pray as expectant people,
seeking again the assurance of your salvation,
brought to birth in Jesus Christ, our hope and our savior.
Amen.
