Tag: Advent

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Fourth Sunday of Advent, “Keep Awake”

Title slide with photos of two churches where the sermon was preached

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
Mark 13:28-37
December 22, 2024

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Friday, December 20, 2024


At the beginning of worship:

Sarah and her thirteen-year-old sister have been fighting a lot this year. This happens when you combine a headstrong two-year-old, who’s sure she’s always right, with a young adolescent, who knows she’s right. Sarah’s parents, taking advantage of her newfound interest in Santa Claus, reminded the two-year-old Santa watches and doesn’t like it when children fight. At first it had no impact.
 

“I’ll just have to tell Santa about your misbehavior,” her mother said at her latest outburst. She picked up her phone and tapped in the numbers. Sarah’s eyes grew big as her mother asked “Mrs. Claus” (really Sarah’s aunt) “could you put Santa on the line.” Sarah’s mouth dropped as her mom described to Santa (really Sarah’s uncle) the two-year-old’s behavior. When Mom said that Santa wanted to talk to her, the toddler reluctantly took the phone.
 

Santa, in a deepened voice, explained to her how there would be no presents Christmas morning for children who fought with their sisters. He would be watching, and he expected things to be better from now on. Sarah, her eyes even wider, solemnly nodded and then silently gave her mother the phone back. After hanging up, Mom (who held back laughter at being so clever) asked, “What did Santa say?”
 

In almost a whisper, Sarah, sadly, but matter-of-factly stated, “Santa said he won’t be bringing toys to my sister this year.”[1]

We’re a lot like Sarah. We like to read into situations that we are in the right and they (whoever they are, a sister, an opponent, or even a group of people different from us) are wrong. But Scripture reminds us that there is a problem in the world (called sin) and we (as sinners) are a part of the problem which is why we need a Savior. We must be careful at making ourselves out as righteous and others as being in the wrong.

Before reading the Scripture:

Today, we are looking at the ending of the 13th Chapter of Mark’s gospel. This chapter has an apocalyptic feel. On December 1, we looked at the opening where Jesus warned about the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. He continues discussing the tribulations his followers would face during this time of the temple’s destruction. They want to know when it’s all going to happen, but Jesus doesn’t let the disciples pin him down on a date.

Then he moves to discussing how things will get even worse, as we saw last week. Only afterwards, does the Son of Man return at the end of history. Still, Jesus doesn’t give any clear understanding as to when it will happen, only that we are called to be ready and that the elect will be saved.[2]

Today, Jesus once again uses a fig tree as a lesson, which he did in the eleventh chapter.[3] While Jesus has been emphasizing our need to be ready throughout the 13th chapter, he hits a home run on this topic in the last nine verses. 

By the way, and for some of you this may be good news, this will be my last sermon on Mark for two months. God willing, I’ll come back to the book in late February. Hopefully, if all goes as scheduled, we’ll finish the book by Easter.

Read Mark 13:28-37.

Keep awake…  That was so hard when I was a child. Sermons were bad as my eyelids became heavy. It was the same in school, especially in a warm classroom without air conditioning or overheating from steam radiators. 

Keeping awake was hard, except for on Christmas Eve, when you were told to go to sleep. The difficulty of sleep on Christmas Eve topped even those nights with a tooth planted under my pillow… Something magical was happening. Anticipation arose, keeping sleep at bay. I’d roll and roll and when my parents looked in, pretend to be asleep. The clock kept ticking away.  

Keep awake, you don’t know when this is all going to happen and when the Son of Man might appear. It’s been almost 2000 years since Christ left. We’re weary of waiting. It’s not something we’re good at. We fret when we are in the doctor’s office for too long. If we get behind a slow tractor heading down the two-lane sections of Highway 58, we stew. We brood if a waitress forgets or is slow with the coffee pot. 

Waiting makes us feel out of control, unimportant, unwanted, and helpless. Yet, we wait all the time. Children wait for Christmas morning. Parents wait on children to go to sleep. And the more we wait, the more our blood pressure rises. When is it going to all happen? 

And then, Advent rolls around in the church calendar.  A period of waiting. It’s counter-cultural, for we are a society of people who want instant gratification. However, most people probably don’t mind waiting for Christ’s return. After all, we can put off the important things in life for another time. But that’s risky, Jesus says. That’s a gamble we shouldn’t take. Stay awake.

Mark provides us with a gloomily picture in this chapter. As I pointed out in my first sermon, much of it refers to the destruction of the temple which occurred in 70 AD. It was a period of false Messiahs and great upheaval. But in verse 24, Jesus moves to discussing his return. One way of looking at this passage is how, with the temple gone, the focus is on the Messiah, the risen Christ. 

The Jesus who lives in our heart and is present in the church, which represents him in our world today. So yes, Jesus is here with us now in Spirit, but he’s also coming back in person…  

In a commentary on this passage, Scott Hoezee, a friend, emphasizes tying together the two sides of Advent: 

“If the first advent of Christ has any meaning whatsoever, it is only because he is coming back to judge the living and the dead. If he is not coming back, then there is nothing to celebrate at Christmas….  If ditties along the lines of ‘Have a holly jolly Christmas’ could cure what ails us in this life, then there never would have been any need for God’s Son to go through the bloody trouble of coming here in person.”[4]

As I said earlier, there is a problem in the world. As sinners, we’re a part of that problem and Christ is the solution. We need Christ not just to atone for our sins, but to give us hope for the future. 

Our passage for today begins just after Jesus speaks about his return as the Son of Man. Jesus now returns to a familiar them for the entire chapter, our need to be ready. He uses a fig tree as a lesson. Just a day or two beforehand, Jesus cursed a fig tree for not providing fruit, and the tree shriveled up and died.[5] The fig tree was often used by the Prophets as a symbol of Israel.[6] Now, instead of a fig tree withering, he speaks of when it blooms, which is later that most trees. When it blooms, you know summers is at hand. 

Remember, this whole chapter builds upon the question from a handful of disciples concerning the temple’s destruction.[7] With the temple gone, God will not be seen in relationship to the temple. Instead, God will be seen through his Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. The fig tree which appeared dead in winter, puts forth new sprouts and is alive. Christ, who was dead, is resurrected.

Jesus doesn’t give an exact time for this to happen, instead he points to what will happen. The resurrection will happen soon. While the disciples are clueless, we know it’s at hand as we’re in the last week of Jesus’ life. Of course, his return will occur at a much later date. 

But instead of focusing on his return, in verse 31, Jesus speaks of his eternal nature. Heaven and earth can pass away, but his words will not pass away. God is eternal, all else is temporal. Here, Jesus hints at his divinity. 

Then we move to the final section of this paragraph. Jesus begins, in verse 32, with a problematic passage which has been debated since the second century. Jesus (at least the earthly/human Jesus) doesn’t know when it’s going to happen. Only the Father knows. We should understand how Mark depicts Jesus as following the Father’s plan.[8] Furthermore, maybe this is Jesus’ way to tell the disciples not to ask for specifics about his return. Like a parent telling a kid, they don’t know, it’s up to the other parent, Jesus deflects further questions. 

This section, however, is primarily about our need for watchfulness. Are we doing what we should be doing. Of course, “Keeping awaken,” doesn’t mean skipping sleep. Then we’d be less watchful for we’d be exhausted. Instead, we’re to be ready. The chapter ends with the imperative, “Keep awake.” Or as The Messagetranslates the ending verse, “Stay at your post. Keep watch.”  

One commentator on this passage writes, “vigilance, not calculation, is required.”[9] We’re not to be trying to figure out when Jesus returns. Instead, we’re to be ready. 

The use of the story about the slaves or servants waiting on the master implies that they have assignments to do. The same is true for us. Jesus has given us marching orders, things we’re to do while the Master is away. Interestingly, with this final section in Mark 13, there are no signs given. The slaves don’t know when to expect their Master, so they must continue with their tasks… Likewise, those who follow Christ are given tasks. Are we doing them?

Christ has come, Christ will come again. But until he does, we’re his hands and feet in the world, taking care of one another while telling his story so that others will catch a glimpse of the hope the world has in our Savior. In this way, we’re being ready. 

Oh yeah, and we should show patience, especially during this season. There’s a lot of stressed folks out there. Let’s show them a better way of being. Amen. 

[1] http://www.humormatters.com/holidays/Christmas/xmasjokes.htm

[2] Some scholars suggest that this passage is primarily focused on Jesus’ resurrected glory.  See N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 97.

[3] Mark 11:20-25. See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2024/11/24/what-does-jesus-have-against-fig-trees/

[4] Scott Hoezee, Elizabeth Steele Halstead, Carrie Steenwyk, “Living in Advent: Worship Ideas from the Gospel of Mark” Reformed Worship 89 (September 2008), 9. 

[5] Mark 11:12-14, 20-21.  Morna D. Hooker, Black’s New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to Saint Mark (London: A. C. Black Limited, 1991), 320. 

[6] See Jeremiah 8:13, Hosea 9:10, Joel 1:7, Micah 7:1.  See footnotes for Mark 11:12-14 in The New Interpreters Study Bible (Abingdon Press, 2003). 

[7] See Mark 13:3-4. 

[8] James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 407.

[9] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark: The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 482.

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We’ll Always have Troubles

Title slide with winter photos of the two churches

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry & Bluemont Churches
December 1, 2024
Mark 13:1-13

Sermon recorded at Mayberry on Friday, November 29, 2024. It was late in the day and the setting sun in some places was intense, whiting out parts of the pulpit.

Comments at the beginning of worship:

Advent always seems to pop up unexpectedly when it immediately follows Thanksgiving. We don’t have a buffer between giving thanks and focusing on the coming of Jesus. It’s as if the dining room table hasn’t even been cleaned as the Christmas music begins. 

I often read a book about Advent or Christmas during this season. This year it will be a book on Ukrainian Christmas celebrations-if it arrives on time. In 2022, it was Fleming Rutledge’s Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ.[1]I still go back to that book. It’s a collection of sermons and lectures given by an Episcopal priest whose theology is steeped in the Reformed Tradition. I like her title. 

Yes, we remember as we prepare for Christmas during Advent that the Jews waited for years for the Messiah. Jesus came and we celebrate his birth every year.  But the other part of Advent is also important. Jesus will come again. During Advent, we hold these two themes in tension—the coming and the return of Christ.  It’s not just about celebrating the past; it’s about being ready for the future.

Before reading the Scripture:

We will still be in Mark during Advent. But I’m skipping over the 12th chapter, in which Jesus teaches through a parable and some encounters around the temple. I’ll pick up those stories during Lent of 2025. In the 13th chapter, Jesus speaks about the end of history and the things which must happen before his return. These are Advent themes: the first coming of Christ and his triumphant return. 

This chapter begins by focusing on the temple in Jerusalem, which we first saw in the 11th chapter.[2] Jesus, who in Mark only spends a few days in the temple, leaves its walls for the final time.[3] The disciples, country-bumpkins from Galilee, are in awe. They’re kind of like us, walking around New York City and looking up at the buildings in amazement. But Jesus has some bad news. 

Afterwards, he and the disciples make their way to the Mount of Olives, which stands about 300 feet higher than Jerusalem.[4]There, with a perfect view of the temple below, four of the disciples ask Jesus about the prediction he made when they were leaving.

While this chapter contains some disturbing themes, it also has an important message for followers of Jesus. Things may get worse, but we hold on to hope and continue to proclaim Jesus as Lord.  


Read Mark 13:1-13

When I was in the sixth grade, finishing up my last year at Bradley Creek Elementary School, I was sad walking down the halls and stairs and out the front door for the last time. I boarded the oversized orange snub-nosed Bus 6, which waited to take us home for the summer. I realized when taking those steps that I may never walk those halls again. 

Ever since that early June day in 1969, I have had similar feelings as I obtained diplomas or said goodbyes to places of employment, along with apartments and houses around the country. There is something nostalgic knowing it’s your last time at a particular place. As for Bradley Creek, where I spent grades 4 to 6, I never did go back. The next year, I started Junior High. Because of redistricting, my brother and sister who were a year and two years behind me, moved to Winter Park Elementary. So, I didn’t even have a chance to go back and see them. 

And later, after we all moved on, an arsonist burned the school to the ground. I was glad for those years between being a student and the flames because, like most 12-year-old boys, I’d fantasized about the school going up in smoke. I didn’t want to be a suspect. 

Do you ever have nostalgia knowing you’re moving on and won’t ever have an opportunity to relive the past? 

But I’m not sure Jesus had such feelings when he left the temple for the final time in our passage this morning. Jesus wants the disciples to focus and trust him, but they are in awe of the temple. After all, the massive 35-acre structure had been built using huge stones. The retaining wall on the east side incorporated chiseled out stones which were up to 45 cubits or 67 feet long.[5] When the disciples attempt to get Jesus’ take on the magnificent temple, he pours on cold water. See these great buildings, they’ll be all torn down. 

After that, I imagine the walk down into the Kidron Valley and up to the Mount of Olives was a bit subdue. How can this be, they pondered. Once they arrive, with a majestic view of the temple before them, four of the disciples—Peter, James, John, and Andrew—corner Jesus. “Tell us,” they insist. “When will this happen?” 

As often is his manner, Jesus doesn’t directly answer their question. He doesn’t say, “well, in 70 AD, Rome with have had enough of the Zealots in Israel and a mighty army will put down a revolt and burn the temple. And afterwards, just to make sure it’s gone, they’ll break apart the stones and wipe away any evidence it ever existed.” 

Instead, Jesus uses this opportunity to teach them about what to expect. “Beware that no one leads you astray,” he begins. 

Jesus knows, and history proves, there were others who came after him claiming to be the Messiah.  After all, the type of Messiah Jesus turned out to be didn’t meet their criteria for David’s successor. Some would come, insisting on kicking out Rome, which scratched the itchy ears of the Jews who longed for revenge and to be made “great again.” And, in 66 AD, they did kick out the Romans, but it was a short-lived victory. 

While Jesus speaks of false Messiahs, he essentially speaks about religious insiders who lead the faithful astray. These could be those within the church, who mislead people for their own potential gain. They could be those espousing a Christian nationalist viewpoint… Or a David Koresh, Jim Jones, or those within the Heavens Gate movement wanting to catch a ride on the Hale-Bopp comet. We must be careful not to follow such and maintain our focus on Jesus.

After teaching about insiders who endanger believers, Jesus continues by looking at the international scene, things in which most individuals have no control over. Wars will continue. Human history has had few periods without a war somewhere. He encourages the disciples not to panic. 

As if troubling news on the international scene isn’t enough, Jesus also suggests there will be other problems. The world will shake and fail to feed… Earthquakes and famines. Even this isn’t the end. It’s important to understand, Jesus does not provide a timetable for the future here. It’s all just the beginning.

In verse 9, Jesus shifts and begins to discuss our responsibility as his followers. I can pictured Jesus humming Lynn Anderson’s song from when I was in Jr. High. Do you remember “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden?” Too often we think that once we accept Jesus, everything will be peachy. Scripture tells us otherwise. 

Jesus speaks of his followers being hauled before leaders and into courts. As frightening as this sounds, Jesus suggests it’s an opportunity.  We have an opportunity to give our testimony. We can tell Jesus’ story! And we shouldn’t worry about what to say. Instead, we depend on God’s Spirit. 

And then it gets worse as even family members betray us, even to death. Think of those living in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany and the betrayals which occurred. Yet, we’re to endure, to stick to Jesus[6] to the end. If we do that, we’ll be saved. 

In some ways, the first events happening in this section of Mark 13 occurred in 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed, after a period of both famine and earthquakes in the region.[7] It was a time when people felt their world was ending. But there have been believers in almost every age who have gone through similar situations and the world continues. As bad as the first three centuries were for Christians, the 20th Century had more Christians martyrs than previous 19 Centuries combined.[8] While we in the United States, along with Canada and the United Kingdom have been spared from the worse persecutions, Christians in Europe, Asia, South and Latin America, and Africa all have faced great challenges. 

The disciples asked the wrong question. Instead of when will this occur, the right question has to do with how we respond. What do we need to do to ensure we remain faithful? Of course, there seems to be no way to prepare other than trusting. We trust God to give us the words when needed. This section of Mark 13 is all about God’s work being done and we’re not directors but actors on the world’s stage. Do we keep our eyes on Jesus or are we lured away by false prophets and fears?  

We should consider what we might do if we had to choose between Jesus, the truth of the gospel, and the lies of the world. Perhaps, if we find ourselves in such a situation, we should recall how Jesus taught us not to judge others.[9] We don’t know what others are going through.[10] Instead, we should focus on ourselves and our own salvation. Are we being true to the Jesus of Scripture?  Amen. 

[1] Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018). 

[2] See https://fromarockyhillside.com/2024/11/24/what-does-jesus-have-against-fig-trees/

[3] At least the final time as a free man, if part of his trial that took place in the courtyard was on the temple. See Mark 14:53f. 

[4] James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 389. 

[5] Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (1992 Hendrickson Publishers 1997), 304. 

[6] The Message translates “endure” as “stay with it.” 

[7] Edwards, 391-392 (see also notes 17 and 18).

[8] This was recently reported in a news article, but I was unable to locate it. 

[9] Matthew 7:1-2. 

[10] As an example of such focus, see John P. Burgess, Holy Rus’: The Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), 192. 

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Waiting with hope

title slide with tree in fog

Jeff Garrison
Mayberry and Bluemont Churches
Mark 13:24-37
December 3, 2023

After the Advent Candle Lighting
We live in such a wonderful age where solutions to our problems appear regularly. Just this week, I learned Doritos, that’s right, the corn chip company, has unveiled an app for our phones and computers. Miraculously, it silences the sound of Doritos crunching in your mouth.[1]

When you’re on the phone or in meeting over the internet, you can stuff your mouth and crunch away. Imagine taking an online class, you can eat without disturbing anyone. Or if you have a phone call during an NFL game, you can continue snacking as you mumble as if you’re listening and not watching the game. Don’t we live in an incredible age? 

Perhaps because I’m old fashion enough to prefer potato chips to Doritos, I found myself asking why we need to eat when in virtual meetings. I mean, who takes corn chips into a staff meeting or a classroom. 

Science takes care of many problems but continues to struggle with the ones which really matter. Cancer hasn’t been eradicated, pollution causes premature deaths, plastics fills our oceans, and nuclear war remains a possibility. We need to do what we can to make this world a better place. Biblically, while we are called to work to better the world, we also are reminded that Christ will return.[2] Advent is not just recalling those waiting for Christ’s first visit, it’s about anticipating his return. 

Before the Scripture Reading
Today, we explore the end of the 13th Chapter of Mark’s gospel. This chapter takes on an apocalyptic flavor. We’re jumping into the middle of Jesus’ teachings. The stage was set earlier. Admiring the temple, Jesus foretells of its destruction. Then, when a group of disciples corner Jesus, they ask when it will take place.[3]Jesus talks about tribulations. But it’s not all doom, for he ends discussing his return. Of course, he doesn’t provide a clear understanding as to when this will happen, only that we are called to be ready.[4]

Advent is a season of waiting not just for Christmas, but for the hope we have in Christ’s return. 

Read Mark 13:24-37.

Keep awake…  That used to be so hard when I was a kid. Sermons were the worse. My eyes became heavy and slowly gravity won. But school could be just as hard, especially in a warm classroom before air conditioning. 

Keeping awake was difficult, except for on Christmas Eve, when you were told to go to sleep. You expected to awake to something magical. With so much anticipation, sleep was allusive. I’d roll and roll and when my parents looked in, pretend to be asleep. The clocked ticked away.  

Keep awake, you don’t know when this is all going to happen and when the Son of Man might appear. It’s been almost 2000 years since Christ left. We’re weary of waiting. It’s not something we’re good at doing. We fret when waiting in the doctor’s office. We stew when stopped for the construction along Highway 58. We brood if a waitress or waiter in a restaurant is inefficient. 

Waiting makes us feel out of control, unimportant, unwanted, and helpless. Yet, we must wait all the time. Children wait for Christmas morning. Parents wait on children to go to sleep. And the more we wait, the more our blood pressure rises. 

And then, Advent rolls around in the church calendar. A period of waiting. Advent challenges our desire for instant gratification. (Such as provided by the Doritos app). However, I suspect most people don’t mind waiting for Christ’s return. After all, we put off important things in life for another time. But that’s risky, Jesus says. It’s a gamble we shouldn’t take.

Mark provides us with a gloomy picture in this chapter. Much of the chapter refers to the destruction of the temple which occurred in 70 AD. It was a period of false Messiahs and great upheaval. But in verse 24, Jesus moves to discussing his return. Think of it this way. With the temple gone, Jesus, the risen Christ, becomes the focus. Jesus should live in our hearts and be present in the church… But he’s also coming back in person… The good news is that future is in his hands. 

In a commentary on this passage, a friend writes: 

“If the first advent of Christ has any meaning whatsoever, it is only because he is coming back to judge the living and the dead. If he is not coming back, then there is nothing to celebrate at Christmas….  If ditties along the lines of ‘Have a holly jolly Christmas’ could cure what ails us in this life, then there never would have been any need for God’s Son to go through the bloody trouble of coming here in person.”[5]

Our world has problems. As sinners, we’re a part of that problem and Christ is the solution.

Our passage begins with a description of terrible days.  The darkening of the sun and moon while stars fall out of the sky… If you ever witnessed a meteor shower high in the western mountains, long from artificial light, you get a sense of how this can be terrifying. Thinking of them as shooting stars, you wonder if any stars left in the sky. Of course, we know they just look like stars, but we can understand why such showers frightened to those in the ancient world. Mark envisions not just a darkening of the sky, but a collapse of things we take for granted. Chaos reigns.[6]

Perhaps we need to look at this passage in a less literal way. The lights of the sky, as in a theater, are lowered so that your focus remains on the action. In this case, the spotlight shines on Jesus Christ. With the distractions removed, everyone pays attention. The scene is scary and wonderful at the same time. It’s God’s great and final drama in history. 

This return involves the gathering of the elect, the faithful, those chosen by God through Christ. The faithful are brought into Christ’s presence. 

Jesus then returns to the question that started this discourse, about when these things (such as the destruction of the temple) will occur. He uses a fig tree as a lesson. Just a day or two before, Jesus cursed a barren fig tree. The tree shriveled and died.[7] The prophets used the fig tree as a symbol of Israel.[8]Now, instead of a fig tree withering, he speaks of when it blooms, which is later that most trees. The budding of the fig tree is a sign of when summer is at hand. 

Jesus likens the budding figs to when this will all happen. Jesus the Messiah rising into prominence as the temple, which will soon be no more, fades from history. We no longer see God in relationship to the temple. Instead, we encounter God through his Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. The fig tree which appears dead in winter, puts forth new sprouts and is alive. Christ, who was dead, is resurrected. Christ who ascended to heaven, lives in our hearts. And he will return. 

Jesus doesn’t give an exact time for his return. We’re still waiting. 

What’s important is that we remain ready. “Keep awake,” this chapter ends, or as The Message translates the ending verse, “Stay at your post. Keep watch.”  As one commentator on this passage writes, “vigilance, not calculation, is required.”[9] Don’t try to figure out when Christ returns. Instead, be ready.

The use of the story about the slaves waiting on the master implies that they have assignments which must be fulfilled while the Master is away. Interestingly, with this section in Mark’s gospel, relating to the Master’s return, there are no signs given. The slaves don’t know what to look for, so they must continue with their tasks… Likewise, each member of the church has work to do and by doing that for which we’ve been called, we fulfill our obligation to “watch.”[10]

Christ has come, Christ will come again. But until he does, we are his hands and feet in the world. We should take care of one another while telling his story so that others will catch a glimpse of the hope the world has in Jesus Christ. “Stay at your post.” We do what we’re called to do so we might be ready when Christ comes. Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Amen. 

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/doritos-creates-ai-software-that-silences-chewing-noises-2023-11?op=1

[2] I like this quote from James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 402: “If we dispense with eschatology, then the purpose and destiny of history fall into the hands of humanity alone. No one, I think Christian or not, takes solace in that prospect…” Human life needs to be “redeemed.” 

[3] Peter, James, John and Andrew asked Jesus when this will take place, setting the stage for this dialogue that starts in Mark 13:3. 

[4] Some scholars suggest that this passage is primarily focused on Jesus’ resurrected glory.  See N. T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues (New York: HarperCollins, 2014), 97.

[5] Scott Hoezee, Elizabeth Steele Halstead, Carrie Steenwyk, “Living in Advent: Worship Ideas from the Gospel of Mark” Reformed Worship 89 (September 2008), 9. 

[6] In Genesis 1, with creation, we see God bringing order to chaos. God has such power and will do it again. 

[7] Mark 11:12-14, 20-21.  Morna D. Hooker, Black’s New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to Saint Mark (London: A. C. Black Limited, 1991), 320. 

[8] See Jeremiah 8:13, Hosea 9:10, Joel 1:7, Micah 7:1.  See footnotes for Mark 11:12-14 in The New Interpreters Study Bible (Abingdon Press, 2003). 

[9] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark: The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 482.

[10] Hooker 322. See also Lane, 484.

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God Believes in Us

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches
December 18, 2022
Isaiah 7:10-16

Sermon recorded at Mayberry Church on Friday, December 16, 2022

A thought at the beginning of worship:

You know, it’s tough being a Department Store Santa. Thankfully, most of the kids are good when they crawl up onto the chubby old man’s laps. Santa listens to their wants and desires for Christmas. But some lists breaks Santa’s hearts. Others, who come with a list that rivals the one their mom has for the grocery store, reminds Santa of how greedy some kids can be. And then, sometimes a kid pulls his beard to see if it’s real. 

And then there is Scottie. At eleven, almost twelve, he feels he’s too old for Santa. But he’s his mom’s last kid and she wants one last photo of him on Santa’s lap. Scottie doesn’t like it when his mother orders him to climb up in the Old Man’s lap. 

Santa doesn’t relish the thought much, either. Especially because Scottie was big for his age and had a few extra pounds to boot. But Santa has a job to do. He lets out a hearty “ho-ho-ho” and welcomes Scottie, asking the boy what he wants for Christmas. Instead of answering, Scottie looks Santa in the eye and says, “I-don’t-believe-in-you.” “That’s alright,” Santa says. “I believe in you.”[1]

I believe in you

“I believe in you.” That’s what God says to us and to all humanity.  

God believes in us even when we have our doubts. And when we least expect it, in the darkness of a depressed Palestine, God enters our world as a child. God believes in us, a truth that should empower our lives with meaning and conviction. 

Before the reading of today’s scripture: 

We’re again looking at hopeful passages found in the first half of Isaiah during this Advent season. Today’s passage is problematic. It seems odd for this passage to relate to this season. However, this reading (or verse 14 of the reading) is tied to the Christmas season thanks to the Matthew’s gospel.[2] It’s made even more famous by the rousing singing of altos in Handel’s Messiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us.” If God is with us, it sounds like God believes in us, doesn’t it? But it’s also a frightening thought. God being with us also brings judgment, as this chapter of Isaiah shows.

An odd passage for Advent?

As I said, the Isaiah passage from where this verse which brings so much meaning to Christmas seems quite odd for the season. After all, Isaiah deals with international politics and who’s aligned with whom. And we have a king, Ahaz, who fails to take God’s advice. If you read on to the end of the chapter, God judges the king for following his own way and not the ways of God. 

Take time this afternoon to read this chapter. There are some hidden meanings behind the “hair cut” the king receives in verses 20.[3] Again, in Isaiah, as we’ve seen all along in Isaiah, the prophet ties judgment and hope together. It seems an irony, but perhaps Matthew understood this for after telling of Jesus’ birth, he follows that hopeful story with that of another king. Herod finds the hope of a child too threatening and seeks to destroy him.[4].

Hope and Judgment.

Hope and judgment? How do we respond to the hope that God is with us? Is it good news or do we fear the judge?

Read Isaiah 7:10-16. 

Background info on Ahaz.

Ahaz, the king Isaiah confronts in today’s passage, isn’t a model of faithfulness. He’s remembered as one of the worst kings—one of the most idolatrous—in the history of the Hebrew people. His history is somewhat scattered. It must be pieced together from several books within scripture as well as from Assyrian sources.

World politics 2700 years ago

It seems Judah, some 700 years before Christ, found herself besieged by the combined forces of her northern cousins, Israel, and the Aramean or Syrian kingdom. Israel and Syria allied in an anti-Assyrian pact. Assyria was the unquestionable world power for several centuries during. Israel and Syria joined together to fight her dominance. Judah did not enter this pact; she was attacked because of this.

Ahaz, the king of Judah, calls on Assyria for help. The Assyrians attack Syria, which relieve Ahaz forces. After the capture of Syria, Ahaz meets with the king of Assyria in Damascus, and they set up a pact. The Assyrians would not conquer Judah, but the little state would become a vassal under the mighty Assyrians. Ahaz, the king, pledged his loyalty to the king of Assyria.[5]Can you keep Syria or Aramean, Assyria, Israel, Judah straight? Complicated, isn’t it? World politics always is.

Ahaz’s real sins

Had Ahaz just forged an alliance with Assyria, he might have been okay. But his loyalty went beyond a military alliance. While in Damascus, Ahaz eyes an Assyrian altar. It must have been pretty fancy because he orders his chief cabinetmaker to build one to put into the Jerusalem temple. Furthermore, Ahaz robs the temple of some of its treasures to pay tribute to the Assyrians. Ahaz seems to have a thing for the idols of Judah’s neighbors, preferring them over the God of Abraham. Many of these idols he places in the temple, too, making it into a pagan shrine as opposed to a place focused only on the worship of Almighty God. 

Today’s text

Now, with that background, let’s look at the text. The Lord tells Ahaz he should ask of the Lord whatever he needs. Ahaz refuses, telling Isaiah that he’s not going to put the Lord to the test. We’re told in Deuteronomy not to test God.[6] If we just read this verse, it sounds as if Ahaz faithfully tries to live by God’s commands. But, as I have shown you, history tells us otherwise. Ahaz isn’t going to test the Lord, even when given permission, because he has a bunch of other gods upon whom he can call. Perhaps this resulted in Isaiah’s sarcastically response in verse 13, “Is it too little to weary mortals that you weary my God also?”

God with us through a child

Isaiah’s use of “my God,” points to Ahaz’s faithlessness in the God of his ancestors. But God is not going to be unfaithful, Isaiah proclaims. God will come to this people. A young woman is to give birth to a child named Immanuel. The Hebrew word translated as young woman means a girl or maiden, someone entering the age for marriage. 

There’s a lot of confusion around this word. As I said, in the Hebrew, the word is for a young woman of marriageable age, but when the Isaiah was translated into the Greek, the words used was for a virgin. And that’s what is in our mind as Matthew quotes, not the Hebrew text but the Greek Septuagint.[7] This led to the veneration of Mary in the medieval world. And thanks to Matthew, along with Handel’s wonderful oratorio, becomes entrenched in our mind with Christmas. 

The real miracle in this prophecy 

But the real miracle here is not with the woman. I suggest the scandalous miracle is with the child. God comes to us in an infant. That’s the meaning of Immanuel. God is present, in person, in this child wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manager.[8]

You know, God could have washed his hands of Judah because of Ahaz. If God would be like us, the king’s unfaithfulness would be enough to find some new folks for the chosen people. But God doesn’t work that way. God remains faithful. As I said at the beginning of today’s worship, God believes in us. God believes in us so much that he sent his only Son.[9] God’s desire to be in relationship with us is so great that we’re given chance after change to get it right. God was willing to give Ahaz another chance. He didn’t take God up on the offer, but that was his decision. And in Jesus Christ, God offers the world a new way of being. 

Where do we see God’s presence? 

During the Advent season, we should think about where we see God’s presence in our lives and in history. Are we looking in the right places? Who’d expect an infant from a young mother to make such a difference?

In the 1975 movie, “Love and Death,” Woody Allen’s character says, “If God would only speak to me—just once. If He would only cough. If I could just see a miracle. If I could see a burning bush or the sea’s part. Of my Uncle Sasha pick up the check.” If only… We understand these feelings. An unambiguous sign from God would certainly be appreciated.[10] Instead, we’re to take hope form the birth of a child.

The season of expectant waiting.

This is the fourth and last Sunday of Advent. We now have four candles burning in our wreath. Advent is the season of expectant waiting. In Isaiah’s day, they longed for safety from invaders, someone strong and bold, yet Isaiah promises hope in a child. A child doesn’t come with armor and a spear. One must wait, as God’s people waited for a Messiah and as we wait for his return. 

Prison and Advent

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian killed by the Nazis just a few weeks before the end of World War Two, wrote in prison shortly before Christmas 1944, his last: “Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent. One waits, hopes and does this, that, or the other—things that are really of no consequence—the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.”[11]

Bonhoeffer is right. Only God can come to us. Our sinful natures are unable to transcend the divine. We must depend on God to open the door… But don’t despair. Remember, God still believes in us. That’s the good news. God enters our world through Jesus Christ and ushers in his kingdom which is demonstrated when one of us accepts his rule over our lives. Christ has come and we should see evidence of his presence in one another as we gather to worship and to do the work to which we’re called. 

Conclusion 

And Christ will come again. Until then, the question we need to ask is, “Will we be ready?” Or will we be like Ahaz and, in the meantime, run off after other gods? God believes in us. Will we believe in God? Amen. 

[1] This story came from an the old ECUNET internet bulletin board. I first told it on December 20, 1998, changing the kid’s name to Scottie to pick on Scott Burns, one of the great jokesters in the congregation I served at the time (Community Presbyterian Church, Cedar City, Utah). A year earlier, we had moved into the new church. When the building was dedicated, we hung in a hall 8”x10” photos of pastors who had served the church. At the unveiling of these photos, Scott created a special “photo” of me. It was poster sized. He’d taken a rather unflattering picture of me, at church camp that summer, sleeping in a hammock. It seemed only right to name the kid after him.

[2] Matthew 1:23

[3] See the footnote for this verse in the New Interpreter’s Study Bible (2003). Dehairing describes destruction as in Ezekiel 5:1-4. 

[4] See Matthew 2.  See also Scott Hoezee, “Sermon Commentary for Sunday, December 18, 2022: Isaiah 7:10-16” at https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2022-12-12/isaiah-710-16-3/.

[5] Background information on Ahaz from the Anchor Bible Dictionary and John Bright, A History of Israel (1959, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981), 291f. 

[6] Deuteronomy 6:6.

[7] Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 1-12, The Old Testament Library, 2nd Edition, John Bowden, translator (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 154. See also Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah Updated Edition (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 145ff.

[8] Luke 2:12.

[9] John 3:16.

[10] Donald W. McCullough, The Trivialization of God: The Dangerous Illusion of a Manageable Deity (Colorado Springs: Nav Press, 1995), 119. 

[11] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (NY: Collier, 1953), 135. 

After sunset, last Tuesday
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Advent, Poetry, Essays, & Riding the Rails

Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ 

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018), 406 pages including Biblical references

A few weeks before Advent this year, I began reading this collection of essays and sermons. However, I quickly learned I was already behind the curve. For Rutledge, the Advent themes begin on All Saints Day adding another four weeks to the season we generally think of as the four Sundays of preparation for Jesus’ birth.

The Christian year begins with Advent, but her sermons include the end of the old Christian year and the beginning of the new. This is the season of judgment, the return of Jesus, the end of the age, the need to be ready, to repent, to wait patiently. In writing about Advent and with a host of sermons that she preached during this season of the year, Rutledge reminds us that we’re not as good as we think we are and our need to depend on God. Her sermons are filled with reminders that evil is real and there a real battle going on in both the world and our lives. She warns against a Christianity that thinks we must make the right decision (accept Jesus) and not have to deal with the reality that there is an enemy of God, Satan. Her sermons are a call to action. 

Sermons that tie into what’s happening in the world

Karl Barth is often quoted as saying we are to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Rutledge, a student of Barth (along with Calvin and others), displays this wisdom. These sermons, delivered from the mid-70s through the first decade of the 21st Century, display keen insights into the events of the world: terrorist attacks, Rwandan genocide, the Gulf War, the Iraqi War, the Bush/Gore election, school shootings, Emmanuel AME shootings among others. I have never had the skill or maybe I lacked the boldness to directly include such topics in my sermons, often choosing to address them in prayers. The sermons are pastoral. Imagine preaching an ordination sermon the weekend after the Sandy Hook school shooting in a neighboring town. She handles the scripture, the charge to the pastor, and addresses the situation with grace.

Rutledge is a master wordsmith

Rutledge is well read, both in the discipline of theology as well in literature. Her sermons are steeped in scripture, which allows her to interpret the events happening in the world along with insights from theology and literature. She draws heavily on the poetry of W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot.  The combination results in convincing essays and sermons that give her listeners (and readers) much to ponder.  While Rutledge (taking her clues from scripture) doesn’t provide an answer to the reason evil exists, she also doesn’t deny or diminish evil’s powers. But she reminds her readers of God’s greater power and love and leaves us with hope. While there is a lot of darkness in her sermons, there is also the anticipation of light (which is what the season of Advent is about).

Rutledge is an Episcopalian and one of the first women ordained into ministry by the Episcopal Church in the United States. 

I recommend this book for both Christians and those who might be skeptical that the Christian faith has little to say to today’s world. 

Paul J. Willis, Say This Prayer into the Past: Poems 

(Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2014), 100 pages.

This is a delightful collection of poetry from Willis, an English professor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.  I purchased the book from the Calvin University bookstore when I was there in early October. I had met the author though Calvin’s “Festival of Faith and Writing” workshops. Once, when I lived in Michigan, I encouraged him to stay a few days afterwards to do a poetry reading at Pierce Cedar Creek Nature Center south of Hastings, Michigan. It was early April 2012. On the morning of the reading, I took Willis on a hike on the trails around the property. That evening he read a poem he’d worked out while hiking that morning titled, “Skunk Cabbage.” An edited version of that poem is in this collection. 

Nature plays a prominent role in Willis’ poems. Many of these poems he locates in various places in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Pacific Northwest. Faith and scripture references also abound in these poems, as well as the theme of fire. This collection was compiled after the author lost his home to the 2008 Tea Fire that devastated areas around Santa Barbara. I recommend this collection of poetry. 

Skunk Cabbage

Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song 

(New York: Little Brown, 2019) 251 pages.

This is a delightful collection of essays by the late Brian Doyle. I heard so much about him at the HopeWord Writer’s Conference this past spring and this is my first of his books to read. One Long River of Song is a book to be savored and read slowly, over time. This book spent a couple of months on my nightstand and whenever I didn’t have anything else to read, I’d read from one to a half-dozen essays before bed. Some made me tear up, others brought laughter.

All these essays provide the reader something to ponder. Each essay stands on its own. Doyle handles diverse subjects, from how he learned humility to how to write the “perfect nature essay.” There is an essay on the school shooting, a somewhat fictional account of William Blakes trial, on otters and wolverines and the human heart (that maintains a 4/4 beat). Doyle, who was Roman Catholic, explores the church and the meaning of faith. As the essays come toward the end, they tend to be more and more about death, but even here there is wonder.

This collection was published by Doyle’s wife after his death in 2017. I recommend it! 

Carrot Quinn, The Sunset Route: Freight Trains, Forgiveness, and Freedom of the Rails in the American West 

(2021, Audible Books), 9 hours and 27 minutes. 

Someone had suggested that I read Quinn’s book, Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart. In looking up that title, I realized she’d written another book about riding the rails. I have done long distant hiking, but have never hopped a train. However, the lure has always been there, so I decided to start with this book. While there is a lot about catching trains and how to hide from the railroad police (who are not like the railroad bulls of the 1930s), this book is Quinn’s “coming-of-age” story. While I didn’t want to stop listening, it was hard to listen to much of Quinn’s story. Yet, she needs to be heard as she is not the only one to grow up in such difficult circumstances.

I found this book to be a cross between Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and Chad Faries, Drive Me Out of My Mind which I read in early 2020. Like Faries’ experiences, I found myself angry at Quinn’s childhood. No child should have to live in such a manner. While such an upbringing has helped make her who she is, I worry about other kids who didn’t make it.

Review of The Sunset Route

Quinn flips back and forth, from her adventures on a train to growing up with a mentally ill mother in Alaska. Her mother believes she is the Virgin Mary and often has weird visions. At times, unable to hold things together, her mother would forget to file for welfare and Quinn and her brother along with their mother would be homeless. It was a difficult as she learns at an early age to forage food from dumpsters. In her teens, she is taken from her mother and sent to her grandparents in Colorado. Then she runs away. She becomes a part of a drug and alcohol-free anarchist community and learns about riding rails. As she rides the rails, she reads Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, a book I read when I hiked the Appalachian Trail. 

It appears to me that throughout her life, Quinn keeps trying to find love and failing. Her mentally ill mother can’t love her. When her mother is sick, she says terrible things to her children. Her estranged father has abandoned the family and while he brought her a plane ticket on one occasion, isn’t able to show love to someone he abandoned as an infant. Her grandparents don’t know what to do with two teenagers when all the rest of children have grown. When her brother becomes an addict, there is another rift from one she had been able to depend on. And then there are the relationships to others, mostly to other women but also to men. While Quinn doesn’t find love, there are a few bright moments in her life when someone helps her out. 

At the end of the book (which has a big gap of the time when she hiked long distance trails) she seems to have come to peace with her situation. She and her brother have reconnected, as they both shared a terrible childhood. She even tries to find her mother, fearing that she might die in the cold in Anchorage. 

Recommendation

While many will find this book difficult to read. But stories like these need to be heard because so many of these stories are not heard and are hidden from society. 

Train Station in Iowa.

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Hope in the Desert

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches
December 11, 2022
Isaiah 35

Recorded at Bluemont Church on Friday, December 9, 2022.

At the beginning of worship

There is a wonderful little book filled with wisdom titled, Jacob the Baker. When teaching his fellow bakers, Jacob holds up his fist and says:

The fist starves the hand… When our hand is made into a fist, we cannot receive the gifts of life from ourselves, our friends, or our God. When our hand is closed in a fist, we cannot hold anything but bitterness. When we do this, we starve our stomachs and our souls. Our anger brings a famine on ourselves.[1]

Think about it. Harboring bitterness only intensifies our despair. We need to make the best of all situations. 

Advent, as the days grow shorter, is a time of darkness. We might wish this time to quickly pass, but I suggest instead we seek God in such times. For only when we stand with open hands to receive the Lord will we be ready to be shepherded into a better place.

Before reading the scripture:

We’re again exploring a hopeful passage from Isaiah. This book forms the centerpiece for the Old Testament’s concept of a redeemer God. This is the God we meet fully in Jesus Christ, but the theological foundations for Christ’s work is set forth in Isaiah. Today, we look at the 35thchapter, which contains a hopeful vision. 

Many scholars suggest chapters 34 and 35 should be read together even though they seem to be contradictory.[2] Chapter 34 deals with God’s judgment on the nations, with Edom particularly selected for condemnation. The land becomes a wasteland inhabited by wild animals. This desolation is followed, in Chapter 35, with the promise of God’s restoration. By the way, blending judgment and hope is something Isaiah does well.[3]

Read Isaiah 35

Life in the Desert

Life in the desert is precious. Everything fights for its share of water. Savage animals live in the desert; they must be that way to survive. They’ve adapted to the climate. The sidewinder rattlesnake jumps sideways as it makes its way across hot ground while only exposing a limited portion of its underbelly to the baking rock. Other snake who slithers on the ground can be quickly fried. They only come out at night and quickly find shade when the sun blazes. 

Cactus is another example of unique survival. It’s a plant that stores up water and then defends its stash with sharp points. Everything competes for moisture.[4]

Fear of the desert

Many people are apprehensive about the desert. Back in 1988, when I moved to Virginia City, Nevada, I worried about driving across the 40-mile desert. I had read horrible accounts of what wagon trains endured crossing this parched land.[5] And it didn’t help any that I picked up a nail in a tire in Elko. Was this an omen? Thankfully, I was able to get the tire repaired in Lovelock, Nevada and made the trip without any problems. 

Without air conditioning, water purification systems and deep wells, life in the desert is precarious. Today, it’s a bit easier, but you still don’t want to run out gas or water or with a flat tire. 

In the days of Isaiah, the desert was even more hostile. Yet that’s where Israel finds herself, in the desert. Before looking at the 35th chapter, let’s take quickly review the 34th Chapter. As I’ve said, the two appear to be one unit. 

The Judgment of Chapter 34

In the 34th Chapter, judgment has descended upon the world. Everything is affected. In the first four verses, we read of those slain by God’s anger. In verse five, we learn that Edom, a neighbor of Israel’s, is especially singled out for the harshest treatment. God’s wrath continues till only wild beast, demons, buzzards and the like, inhabit the land. The world is now a desert; it’s an inhospitable wilderness. There is no hope on the horizon.

Metaphorical deserts

So far, I’ve spoken about literal deserts, something that not all of us will experience. Those of us who do experience a real desert, will probably do it on our own free will and prepared. So, let’s think about deserts metaphorically. Yet, sooner or later, all of us will find ourselves in such a place. 

Life becomes a struggle. We question what purpose life serves. It could be the evaporation of a career that seemed so promising. Or the unraveling of a marriage upon which we’d placed our hopes and dreams. The death of a parent, a child, or a close friend can bring about such feelings. Or our health declines, and things just don’t seem to be getter better. At such times, we enter a desert. We question if it’s worthwhile to continue to search for something that will quench our thirst. There’s no joy and no hope, only despair. Been there yet? Most of us have at least tasted a part of what I described. We’ve been there at the situation Isaiah explains in the 34 chapter, where hope seems as distant as a shower of rain in the summer desert.

But then we open the 35th chapter, which begins in the wilderness, and something strange happens. The wilderness and dry land we’re told are glad, the desert rejoices, flowers bloom abundantly. 

Death Valley in bloom

Occasionally, in late winter, Death Valley, one of the most inhospitable places in America, is transformed into a blanket of flowers. I once saw it in its full glory. This miracle last only for a week or two. It only occurs maybe once a decade, during a time where significant rain falls in December and January. Soon afterwards the flowers bloom, Death Valley resorts to its natural state. Everything dries up. 

Isaiah and the desert blooming

I expect Isaiah experienced such wonder. He knew how things can change quickly. He knew how the desert can bloom and be transformed into a garden—how seeds lie in wait for a thirst-quenching rain. And Isaiah uses this vision to remind his readers that God does wonderful things. It’s not all judgment and despair. God works best in our wildernesses—transforming a barren landscape into one of life! Out of the crucible of judgment God leads his people. 

Christ brings hope

This poem of Isaiah, which speaks of God’s people returning to Zion, foretells of Christ’s coming into a world without hope and reversing the fortunes of those with the least amount of confidence—the blind, the deaf, the lame. Water appears as springs bursting forth in the desert, again reminding us of the living water Jesus promises.[6]

A highway to paradise appears. A safe road with no nails waiting to puncture a tire. Those willing to leave their past behind move into God’s future are invited to journey upon it. Even fools, we’re told, won’t get lost on God’s Road. They’ll be no danger lurking at the edges. Lions won’t prowl. Remember, as I pointed out last week, the Assyrians were identified as a lion. But in this new Eden, ravenous beasts will stay away from those “ransomed” by the Lord.  

No reason to despair in the desert

The message of this passage is that being in the desert is no reason for despair. It’s in the desert we experience the full joy of our God. If we have such an outlook on life, such expectations, desert places won’t seem so frightening. Instead, we can enter such landscapes with a hopeful anticipation on what God can do for us and through us.  

God can speak in the desert

Terry Tempest Williams, a Utah author who writes about the land, says this about desert:  

“If the desert is holy, it is because it is a forgotten place that allows us to remember the sacred. Perhaps that is why every pilgrimage to the desert is a pilgrimage to the self. There is no place to hide, and so we are found.”[7]

Williams is onto something. When we are in the desert, be they real or metaphorical, we are exposed. We find we must depend upon the other and upon God. It may be that the desert is the only place quiet enough for us to hear God speak. When things go well, we’re too busy to be bothered. But when things fall apart and there’s no place to turn, then we hear. These are the moments God might speak to us. The desert helps us define what’s important.

Keillor’s story of life after a desert experience

Garrison Keillor, in his book Wobegon Boy, tells John Tollefson’s story. A cheerful young man, he leaves Lake Wobegon for the glitter of New York. John rises to the top, managing a public radio station and, with a friend, opens a restaurant. He’s got it all, it seems. Then comes the desert. He’s fired. The restaurant fails. You’d think his cheerfulness would wane, but during this desert time he realizes what he wants. For the first time in his life, he makes a commitment to love. The book ends happily with his wedding. John’s desert clarified his understanding of himself. [8]

We can’t just depend on ourselves in the desert

Ultimately, the desert reminds us that we can’t just depend upon ourselves. We must depend upon something greater, upon God. In Sacred Thirst: Meeting God in the Desert of our Longings, Craig Barnes points out that if we try to take care of every situation we find in our deserts, we’ll quickly burn up. We learn in the desert that Jesus, not anything we can do, is the answer.[9]

When we’re in a desert, we find we must listen and accept help from God and others to find the way out.  

While I don’t wish adversity on anyone, during such times if we choose, we might experience God. That’s the hope of Christmas. Don’t fear the deserts that may be before you, instead look at them as opportunities. Expect great things from our God. Amen.

[1] Noah BenShea, Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom for a Complicated World (NY: Ballantine, 1989), 27-28.

[2] Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1-39: Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 236.

[3] I was reminded of this reading Fleming Rutledge’s sermon on Isaiah 64 and 65 titled, “Advent on the Brink of War” in The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 307-309

[4] For a good understanding of water in the desert, see Craig Child’s The Secret Knowledge of Water (Sasquatch Books, 2000). 

[5] The summer before moving to Nevada for a year as a student pastor, I worked at a camp in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. One of the books I read that summer, in preparation for going to Nevada, was Sessions S. Wheeler, The Nevada Desert (1971, Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, 1972). Chapter 2 is titled “The Dreaded 40 Mile Desert.” This is a section of land between Lovelock and Reno (the Humboldt Sink and the Truckee River) where there is no water to be found.

[6] John 4:10, 7:37-38. 

[7] Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (New York: Vintage, 1992), 148.  

[8] Garrison Keillor, Wobegon Boy (New York: Viking, 1997).

[9] M. Craig Barnes, Sacred Thirst: Meeting God in the Desert of our Longings (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), see especially Chapter 5.  Barnes draws heavily on the story of the Samaritan woman at the well found in John 4.

The desert blooming.
That’s me standing in Death Valley in early March of 2005.
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A shoot from a dead tree & the peaceful kingdom

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches
December 4, 2022, Advent 2
Isaiah 11:1-10

At the beginning of worship: 

I can’t imagine what these mountains where we live looked like at the beginning of the 20th Century. In the mix of the trees were chestnuts, giants that grew straight. Chestnuts provided not only strong and rot-resistant wood for building, but they also gave an abundance of nuts. Our pioneer ancestors would gather them for eating. Furthermore, they were a cash crop that could be sold to supplement one’s livelihood. By the mid 1920s, long before any of us were here, they were gone. 

A fungus introduced in the United States in 1904, when some Asian chestnuts were brought to New York, spread into the American chestnut population. An estimate of 4 billion chestnuts trees died in the Appalachian Mountains alone. It is thought that one in every four hardwoods died. But still, in places, from old chestnut stumps, new growth sprouts. The sprout grows tall and straight. It looks promising. But before it matures, it too succumbs to the blight. Hopefully, one day, scientists can find a way for these trees to dominate the landscape once again.

A shoot for a stump

A shoot coming up from the roots of a dead tree is a sign of hope, as we’re going to see in text today. Advent is a season in which we are reminded that we live in a world that’s not our home. Our world is like a stump, in need of new life. We long for a better home, which will require God’s invention. God can do things that has mostly alluded scientist for the past 100 years—giving growth that continues from a stump that appears dead. As followers of Jesus, hold on to this hope. 

Before the reading of Scripture

Today, I’m going to read two passages of scripture for the sermon. The first is from Matthew’s gospel, in which we hear that madman John the Baptist rail against the people of his day. John knew something was happening and he wanted people to prepare by repenting and changing their ways. John speaks to our world today, and the need we have to prepare ourselves for God’s coming. I’m not going to say much about John in the sermon, but let’s hear his words and be reminded of the type of world in which we live. Are any of us fully content here? I hope not. I hope we long for a better world. 

We get a glimpse of this better world my second reading from Isaiah. We hear of a shoot growing from a stump and catch a vision of life as God intends. 

Read Matthew 3:1-12 and Isaiah 11:1-10

Edward Hicks

You know, sometimes artists appear to be in a rut. Think of Monet and his 250-some paintings of water lilies. Another such painter is Edward Hicks, a 19th Century Pennsylvanian artist whose favorite subject was “The Peaceful Kingdom.” Hicks painted an untold number of canvases that depict the scene we just heard from Isaiah. All the animals are at peace: predators and prey, along with children and snakes. The National Galley in Washington, DC have several of Hick’s paintings. If you are there, check them out. While you can look at his paintings in a book or on the internet, there is something about seeing it in person. 

Hicks’ mother died when he was 18 months old. Being unable to care for him, his father shipped him off to friends who raised him. Then he moved into a coach makers home, where he worked as an apprentice. He became known for his illustrations on the side of the horse drawn carriages he painted. This resulted in people asking him to paint furniture and signs. He was later given commissions for paintings to decorate walls. 

Depicting Biblical Scene

Hicks joined the Quaker Church. This created a tension with his art because Quakers were plain folk who shunned art for art’s sake. He then began to use art to interpret scripture, especially the peacefulness sought by Quakers. This is when he began his lifelong obsession with “The Peaceful Kingdom.”[1] I wonder if Monet and his waterlilies and Hicks and his peaceful kingdom were attempts to get it right. By painting the same scenes over and over, were they striving for perfection? It will take a lot of work to achieve such a kingdom. In fact, we can’t do it ourselves. Only God can bring such a kingdom about. 

The curse of Genesis 3 is remove

But just because we can’t, by ourselves, bring such a kingdom about, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about it. Instead, we should mediate upon it, and ponder how we might help demonstrate the kingdom to the world. In doing so, we instill hope. Our passage from Isaiah showsthat the curse of the fall, from Genesis 3, has been removed. In the curse, the woman’s and the serpent’s descendants are to be in constant battle. Humans stomp on snakes while they bite at our heels.[2]But in Isaiah, and in the paintings, a child is safe around a poisonous snake. 

Now, I know my mother thoughts of heaven would be a warm place without snakes. She was afraid of them and didn’t want us to have anything to do with them. But perhaps this idea of the child and the snake being together is an example of how, in heaven, we’ll get along even with our enemies. 

Animals living in harmony

Furthermore, in this scene, as I’ve said, we have the predator and the prey lying together. Woody Allen once quipped, “the day may come when the lion will lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”[3] Like the child, the ancient enemies in this imagined world are no more. No longer do the weak have to be concerned about being consumed by the powerful. Predators and bullies and rouge nations are no more. Everyone looks out for everyone else. That’s the Christian hope. We won’t be able to do this on our own. We’ll have to depend upon God. Thankfully, we worship a God of miracles who sent his only Son into our world. And that child, born in Bethlehem, gives us a vision of the kingdom that is coming. 

Two parts to this reading from Isaiah

There are two parts our reading from Isaiah. I’ve discussed the second one first. But let’s go back to that shoot growing from a stump which reminds me of the chestnut tree. The stump of Jesse represents Israel at a time when it was united between the north and the south and it’s greatest king, David, the son of Jesse, ruled. By Isaiah’s time, David had long returned to the earth. His united kingdom had split and those in the northern half were about to be consumed by the Assyrians, the raging lions as they were known, which gives us a new insight into the tamed lions in the second half of this reading.[4]

But for Isaiah and his contemporaries, with David a distant memory, things didn’t look good. And soon, things would get worse. But our God is a God of justice and miracles. God can bring a sprout out of a dead stump and send a Son to save the world. 

The Almighty prepares the righteous king

God prepares the righteous king proclaimed by Isaiah with wisdom and knowledge and the fear of the Lord. He’s able to judge, not by sight or ear, but by righteousness, granting justice for the poor and oppressed. The lion that was Assyria will not always be on the prowl. The predators who bring danger, whether wild animals or unscrupulous business leaders or rouge nations, will be destroyed or tamed. And God’s king will rule fairly. But that’s still in the future. 

The hope of a new world

Today, we live in the world much like that which John the Baptist condemned. But it won’t always be this way. Jesus has come to save us from our sin. Jesus will come again to rule. We need to prepare ourselves for what God is doing and be ready. We need to do what we can to herald the new world that’s coming. Remember, the old saying, “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” Hold tight and trust in God. Jesus has come and will come again. Have hope, as we long for the day of peace promised in Isaiah. Amen. 

[1] For more about Hick’s and his paintings, see https://artandtheology.org/2016/12/06/the-peaceable-kingdoms-of-edward-hicks/  

[2] Genesis 3:15. See Otto Kaiser, Isaiah 1-12: A Commentary, John Bowden translator, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 260.

[3] See Scott Hoezee, “Isaiah 11:1-10” at https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2022-11-28/isaiah-111-10-3/

[4] Christopher R. Seitz, Isaiah 1-39, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 106.

The tree at the Garrison’s home
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Advent 1: A Call to be a Blacksmith

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches
November 27, 2022
Isaiah 2:1-5

Sermon recorded on Friday, November 25, 2022 at Bluemont Church

At the beginning of worship:

I started reading Fleming Rutledge’s book, Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ a few weeks ago. In one of her essays, she mentioned how she experienced Advent as a child. Rutledge is an Episcopalian, and they have a much stronger Advent tradition than most Protestants. But her childhood experience struck home with me because I’m old enough to remember when they first introduced an Advent wreath in the Presbyterian Church we attended. 

This happened in the late 60s or maybe 1970 or 71. It was before I entered high school. We even had a workshop to make Advent wreaths for our homes. We would read a devotion and light candles before dinner. The problem with those wreaths is that the candles were so small, they became a fire hazard well before Christmas.  

Advent: life before Jesus

But what struck me about the Advent of childhood, as I and Rutledge experienced, is that we were encouraged to think of the world without Jesus. We were to imagine living in the first century before the common era and contemplate what it would have been like to have no hope because Jesus had yet to come. This makes Advent void of Jesus.

But Advent is about Jesus. Jesus, who descends from God, who was there at the beginning of creation.[1] Advent is also about God’s intention for the world as we look to Jesus’ return. As Rutledge writes, “Advent faces into death and looks beyond it to the coming judgment of God upon all that deceives, twists, undermines, pollutes, contaminates, and kills his beloved creation. There can be no community of the resurrection without the conquest of death and the consummation of the kingdom of God. In those assurances lies the hope of the world.”[2]

Before the reading of scripture:

This season of Advent, I’ll focus on readings of hope from the prophet Isaiah. As a prophet, Isaiah speaks of judgment, but also of hope. His judgment passages seem to go on and on but mixed in are bits of hope. Our passage this morning from the second chapter is wedged in the middle of Isaiah’s opening oracle of judgment. 

The first three chapters of Isaiah deals rather harshly with God’s chosen people. They have rebelled against God. Zion is to be desolate and trampled on by foreigners. Judah and Jerusalem will suffer because of their arrogance. They have ignored their covenant with God. Judgment is at hand. But amid these oracles of judgment, we also get a glimpse of hope. God is doing something new. And for that, we can rejoice.

Read Isaiah 2:1-5

Have you ever wondered what heaven will be like? I am sure most of you have, but what kind of vision do you have for heaven? 

Is our heaven hopes like Bunyan’s?

Last week, I wove into my last sermon on the Lord’s Prayer pieces from John Bunyan’s classic, Pilgrim’s Progress. When Christian crosses over the river at the end of his pilgrimage (the river representing death), he’s met on the opposite bank by messengers who lead him up to gate of the Celestial City. There, people wear crowns and fancy gowns. Inside the city, the streets are paved with gold. Everyone sings praises to God and rejoice in his arrival. 

Perhaps something like this is your idea of heaven? But I’m not sure. I’m too much like Mark Twain. He wondered why, if heaven was just singing hymns, anyone would want to go there. Especially someone who couldn’t stay away in church on earth, why would they want to be involved in an eternal hymn-sing.[3]

Isaiah’s vision of the life to come

Isaiah, in the middle of prophecy of judgment, gives us a different vision of the future. This is a vision of Zion, and one that I can buy into, a vision of peace. From Isaiah we have those comforting passages about the lions and lambs and wolves napping together,[4] along with this passage where instruments of war are transformed to tools of peace. The world is restored to its original intention. We’re back in the Garden. This passage which focuses on Zion is my hope for the world to come.

Zion

Zion was a narrow ridge which contained the oldest part of Jerusalem. The name became attached to the city and to the hill upon which it sat. But in time, because of Jerusalem’s importance and the with the presence of the temple, Zion came to be understood more theologically than geographically. Zion is where God reigns.[5]

Our passage envisions the day when this will come to pass. The judgment promised in the chapter 1 and later in chapter 2 will have passed. The earth has been purified. Now that God has assumed his throne on Zion, it’s the highest mountain. 

In a literal understanding, this doesn’t make sense. Zion wasn’t a tall mountain. It wasn’t even the highest mountain around, there are many much higher to the south. Jerusalem itself is at roughly 2500 feet in elevation, about the same as we are here. But in our scripture, Zion is the highest peak. Either there are some unique geological changes occurring, or more likely Zion seems the tallest peak because we’re dealing with theology and not geology.  

Zion’s importance isn’t because of its physical height but because it is the Lord’s house. It draws people from all nations who desire to learn more about God’s ways. Zion becomes a center of learning, for out from it comes God’s word. Israel was to be the light to the nations.[6] Isaiah foresees Israel fulfilling this calling.

With-me

In verse 3, we see that in this new age of which the prophet envisions, the “With-me” principle works! Do you know the “with-me” principle?  It was a concept taught by Stan Ott and Lee Zehmer at our “Centered and Soaring” event earlier this month. The with-me principle involves us, when doing something with or for the church, inviting another to join us. Come “with me,” we might say. In Isaiah, we learn that people invite others to go with them to the mountain of the Lord, to learn of God’s ways. I can’t think of a better reason to invite someone along then to learn about God. We learn together!

Or course, some of this has already happened. The disciples, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, headed out into the world with the Great Commission. Their marching orders was to make disciples and to baptize them and to teach what Jesus taught.[7]And they went two-by-two. Jesus showed them God’s ways. Jesus then calls his followers, promising to show us the way back home to the Father.[8] But showing the world the way home is just a part of what Isaiah envisions in chapter 2. 

A message for the United Nations

In verse 4, we have a passage known beyond scripture. Even by those with little Biblical knowledge have heard about beating instruments of war into farming implements. You find these words chiseled into a wall across the street from the United Nations. Silently, as Fleming Rutledge images, it reads of beating swords into plows as it mocks nations that go to war.[9]

God’s view extends to the entire world

Looking at this passage, we see this is God’s kingdom. And God’s domain isn’t just for one nation, but the entire world. As judge, God settles disputes. There will be no more war or rebellion. God does this, but look carefully, God doesn’t do this all by Godself. God calls on us to participate. He hands us a heavy apron and calls us to become blacksmiths. How are you at swinging a hammer or heating up a forge? Ever see yourself working in a blacksmith’s shop?  See, there’s going to be a need for more than choir members in heaven! For some of us, this is really good news.

Converting the tools of war to instruments of peace

Notice the text says that God’s judges while they (think we) beat the swords into plowshares. The tools of war are repurposed so that they become instruments of peace and prosperity. Swords become plows; spears refashioned into pruning hooks. As a friend suggested in a sermon: tanks become John Deere tractors, gun barrels are fashioned into posts to hold grapevines, while missile silos find a new life as wheat silos. And the Pentagon, what to do with it? It can be converted into the world’s largest Food Court.[10]

Today, as we continue to read about the war in Ukraine, along with other places in the world like Somalia and Ethiopia, wouldn’t a little peace be nice? War brings destruction and famine, which is not God’s intention for the world. War is a sign our sinfulness. God desires us to live in peace, but a peace that involves more than the absence of war. A peace based on justice (which is why God serves as judge). And this is also why God sent his son into the world, to be born in Bethlehem. 

Bethlehem: The House of Bread

Did you know that Bethlehem means “the House of Bread.”[11]God desires the world’s abundance be used to feed everyone. And while war continues to exist in the present, there will come a time in which God will intervene. Peace will be established, and justice will reign. This is what we hope for when we pray, Come, Lord Jesus, Come. We long for the day when, instead of spending our resources on artillery shells, which only destroys, we invest in feeding and caring for people. 

We’re always in Advent

You know, Advent isn’t just four Sundays before Christmas. In a way, the church exists in Advent. Ever since the first coming of Jesus, we long for his return to consummate God’s kingdom. Until then, we hope and pray for his return. As Paul teaches, communion, or the Lord’s Supper, celebrates Jesus’ return.[12]We strive to live in a gracious manner that shows the world kingdom values. And we share this hope with others, as we invite them to catch a glimpse of the vision the Bible gives us of the world to come. 

Our hopes and fears…

As the Christmas Carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” reminds us, “Our hope and fears of all the years are met in thee (or Jesus).” Place your hope in Jesus. Yes, we live in a world of war and hate, but it’s not the way God intends. Imagine a world without war. Pray and do what you can to make this world a better place. Help create a small place where we can display Kingdom values. Invite others to also dream and vision a new future. 

And perhaps we should all learn some blacksmithing, just to be ready for when Christ returns. Amen. 

[1] John 1:1-3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:15-17, & Hebrews 1:1-2.

[2] Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 22. 

[3] I think Mark Twain said this in his Letters from Earth, of which I no longer have a copy. 

[4] Isaiah 11:6, 65:25

[5] See “Excursus: Zion in Prophetic Literature and the Psalms” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 960-961. 

[6] Isaiah 42:1, 6; 49:6; 51:4; 60:3.

[7] Matthew 28:16-20.

[8] John 14:6-7.

[9] Rutledge, 208-209.

[10] This came from Neal Plantinga, and was cited by Scott Hoezee in his commentary on this passage: https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2022-11-21/isaiah-21-5-3/

[11] ibid.

[12] 1 Corinthians 11:26.

The blacksmith’s hammer is a prop for the sermon (and a way to threaten those who sleep)