SPECIAL DAYS: Second Sunday in Advent

December 8, 2002 - Lessons: Isaiah 40.1-11; Mark 1.1-8

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I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day ⁽¹⁾
Words: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1864
Music: J. Baptiste Calkin, 1872

Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day in 1864, four months before the close of the Civil War. At that time, the thrust of the poem was much more obvious:

Longfellow's poem was written of a very specific period in time; it covered the start, dark and uncertain middle, and the hope of the end of America's Civil War. The fourth and fifth stanzas have been removed, but theya re s5till appropriate because of the nature of the world in which we live and the circumstances of war that confound our daily lives.

ORIGINAL POEM BY LONGFELLOW--

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing, on it's way,
The world revolved from night to day,
a voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth good will to men.

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the south
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth good will to men.

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearthstones of a continent
and made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong
and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail,
the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men."

1. Whether you read the original or the revised, there doesn't appear to be much peace on earth.
1. Only a cock-eyed optimist would see it differently.
2. Why is there not peace on earth?

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MAIN BODY:

1. Take a look outside of this sanctuary, What do you see?
1. Oak Street and Brown.
2. Look beyond out into the world.
3. What do you see?
1. The approach of winter with its colder weather.
2. There is a beauty even now to be seen and appreciated.
4. Don't be fooled by what you see.
1. This is not the Garden of Eden.
2. This is a wilderness.
2. We live in a wilderness.
1. Advent is the time to test our perceptions and expectations as we realign ourselves to Christ.

Robert T. Young writing in Holy Moments offers this insight. ⁽²⁾

He writes, "Christmas calls us to believe and reminds us of our unbelief; calls us to faith and reminds us of our faithlessness; calls us to follow and reminds us of how reluctant we are to respond to God's claim on us. Christmas speaks of peace, but we're surrounded by violence; tells us of joy, but we see sadness all around; is for singing but the last thing we feel like doing is singing; brings us hope but we feel much despair; talks of presence but we feel all alone; reminds us of love but we seem in the midst of sheer selfishness; it is the story of salvation, but we see a world bent on self-destruction."

2. Are we really a world bent on self-destruction?
1. It appears so.
2. How else do we understand the current situation in the Middle-East and with Iraq?
3. Is this the result of living in a wilderness.
4. But, then again, what is a wilderness?
5. We all have our understanding, our images of the wilderness.
1. When you examine wilderness from a biblical perspective it has two primary meanings.
1. HEBREW: H4057: øa˜ãšîÄ, (midbaòr, mid-bawr'), From H1696 in the sense of driving; a pasture (that is, open field, whither cattle are driven); by implication a desert; also speech (including its organs):--desert, south, speech, wilderness. ⁽³⁾
2. GREEK: G2048: hñçìïò, (ereômos, er'-ay-mos), Of uncertain affinity; lonesome, that is, (by implication) waste (usually as a noun, G5561 being implied):--desert, desolate, solitary, wilderness. ⁽⁴⁾
2. Take a moment and pause and consider how the world is a beautiful wilderness.
1. This is not a conundrum nor a contradiction.
2. This is not a flight of foolish fancy.
3. The world is a place filled with beauty.
4. It is also a place filled with senseless destruction and degradation.
6. The world is a wilderness because;
1. It is morally corrupt and bankrupt.
2. It economically favors the haves over the have-nots.
3. It favors the socially powerful over against the social outcasts.
3. The wonder of it all is that in the midst of this wilderness a lonely voice is heard.
1. It is the fulfillment of the ancient prophecies of Isaiah, 40.3-5.

³A voice cries out:

"In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
⁴Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
⁵Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken."

2. Again the encouraging voice of the prophet is heard.

⁶A voice says, "Cry out!"

And I said, "What shall I cry?"

All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
⁷The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
⁸The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.

⁹Get you up to a high mountain,
O Zion, herald of good tidings;
lift up your voice with strength,
O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,
lift it up, do not fear;
say to the cities of Judah,
"Here is your God!"

3. The Gospel of Mark quotes two Old Testament passages.
1. ³A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God, (Isaiah 40:3, NRSVA).
2. ¹See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts, (Malachi 3:1, NRSVA).
4. There is only one way to successfully live in the wilderness.
1. It is in not conforming to the wilderness way of life.
2. It is in confirming to the way of life that is set before us by the forerunner of Jesus.
4. We hear the terrible, yet triumphant words of John the Baptist.
1. ²As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; ³the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
2. ⁴John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
1. Repentance and forgiveness are the basis for the establishment of peace.
2. If not peace between peoples, at least a personal peace.
3. John also declares that there is coming: Well let his say it:

⁷He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

1. He declares that there is one more powerful.
2. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
4. This is because Isaiah portrays the Messiah as one who care for the least of all human beings.

¹⁰See, the Lord GOD comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.

¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.

5. Dan Horden of Miami, FL tells this story entitled: Beautiful in its own way,

Out in Kansas they have opened Christmas tree farms. Farms that grow Christmas trees. It has been done for years in Wisconsin and Michigan...but in Kansas it's a new business. It was the first year that the trees were ready. The farmer did not have any connections with the big tree cutters, so he decided to open the fields to the local people. The people could pick their very own tree, cut it, and get it a lot cheaper than buying it at the Christmas tree lots in town.

So one Sunday afternoon, a family went to the farm. Twenty acres of firs. The father told his daughter to go out and look at the trees, and the tree she wanted, she could have. It took a long time to look at 5 acres of trees. Many there were very nice, but there was one tree, about as tall as the girl, and the tree was ugly. There were missing branches. It was gangly...and that was the tree the little girl chose.

The father said, "Honey, are you sure? Look, you can have any tree you want, I don't care what it cost, I want you to have the tree you want."

The girl went back up the hill and looked at all the trees. Another 30 minutes passed when the little girl came back. She said, "Yes, this is the tree I want." So the farmer gave the man a saw and they cut the tree and put it in the car.

On the way home the father asked the girl why she had chosen that tree. She replied, "I chose it because I knew no one else would choose it. No one else would want that tree. I didn't want that tree having people say, "Look, isn't that an ugly tree, isn't that a scrawny tree?" And then she added, "I know that tree will be beautiful when I decorate it...and I love it because it is beautiful in its own way."

CONCLUSION:

1. This whole illustration is describing each of us.
   1. We are the ugly tree. 
   2. We are not ugly in god's sight.
   3. He changes us so that we are beautiful both on the inside and the outside.
2. Jesus hears the cry of the lonely and provides comfort and peace.
   1. He helps to create within us a desire for something else, something far better than the wilderness can provide.
   2. The wilderness loses its allure and its hold on us.