Day after day, week after week, the people of Messiah Lutheran
Church, South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, together with the followers of
our Lord throughout the world, have uttered the same words. They have
embraced with their tongues the words taught to Jesus' first disciples
and have prayed them without ceasing: "Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven."
These petitions put into words the unspoken hopes of a people seeking
another kind of life in another kind of world. Like the people of God
exiled in Babylon, separated from life as they once knew it and
seemingly isolated from the God who had created them, they are the words
of those in despair who cry out for help. They are the prayers for
relief voiced by our ancestors in the faith throughout the centuries, as
they faced imprisonment and the real possibility of death. They are the
cries of those who languished in torment even as they shouted, "Come,
Lord Jesus!"
Evil's Persistence
Similar cries are still heard thousands of years later. Shortly after
midnight, while darkness lies heavy upon a community falling asleep, the
wail of sirens shatters the peace. An anguished mother stands outside
her burning home, and there arises from her lips a tortured scream:
"Somebody get my child!" It takes firefighters 20 minutes before they
find her child inside the door to his bedroom. They carry his limp body
to the street below. Trying to comfort the distraught woman who has just
escaped the blaze herself, a relative standing nearby asks the question
that will become a banner headline on the front page of the local
newspaper: "How can God take an innocent [child's] life?"1
By the next day, it is apparent that the fire was deliberately set.
The child's father, along with an accomplice, stands accused of killing
his five-year-old son in an alleged act of jealousy and rage directed
toward the child's mother, his estranged girlfriend, who is engaged to
be married to another man.
Within the figurative shadow of my congregation's steeple lies Howard
J. Lamade Stadium, the site of the annual Little League World Series.
Children from around the world gather here every summer to play baseball
in the tradition of Carl E. Stotz, a Lutheran layman who started Little
League in 1938 as a healthy diversion from the world's troubles. Until
recently, concern for the safety of these children has meant providing
them with batting helmets and chest protectors; today, in the aftermath
of September 11th, it also means metal detectors and explosive-sniffing
dogs.
The reality of evil is everywhere apparent. The entire world,
including my little community located in the West Branch Valley of the
Susquehanna River, is held in its grip. Unfortunately, God's role in the
face of all this malevolence is far less clear to many within earshot of
my pulpit. They echo the pleas of those who suffer, the families of
those who have tragically died: Is God complicit in all this evil? Will
it never end?
"O that you would tear open the heavens and come down," pleads the
text from Isaiah (64:1) appointed for the first Sunday in Advent, as the
prophet echoes the communal lament of his people, urging God to
intervene in human history.2 The cry is familiar, but the
faith of Israel makes modern ears cringe. The people of Israel are quite
willing to insist that God is the source of the trouble that has
befallen them.
Nonetheless, they call out to him as "Father," insisting that they
are God's children despite all the evidence in their lives to the
contrary. They remain confident that just as God acted in the past,
causing mountains to quake and fire to blaze forth, God will intervene
once again to rescue them.3
The Future's Grounding
The season of Advent presents a challenge to the parish preacher, for
both preacher and parishioner live in an age that believes it is the
present that is certain and the future that is a mystery. The texts of
Advent proclaim precisely the opposite. Into the midst of current
darkness, fear, and uncertainty comes a word of hope from a future that
is more certain than the present. "Can't you see it?" the Sundays of
Advent ask. "Salvation draws near!"
Much of life, as it is experienced in the present, challenges faith
and leads to doubt and uncertainty, but the message of Advent is the
answer to our prayers. A new kind of life is at hand; a better kind of
world is in the throes of being born.
The reason for this confidence is God's faithfulness in the past. God
can be trusted. Therefore, looking beyond the ambiguity of the present,
people of faith anticipate God's intervention from heaven. The decisive
events that lead to such hope are the incarnation, death, and
resurrection of our Lord.
|
Both preacher and parishioner live in an
age that believes it is the present that is certain and the future
that is a mystery. The texts of Advent proclaim precisely the
opposite. |
|
As St. Paul reminds us on the first Sunday in Advent, the grace of
God that has been given to us in Christ will sustain us until still
another decisive day arrives, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor.
1:3-9). Through Christ, our estrangement from God and the far-reaching
consequences of sin have been overcome. He is the more powerful one to
whom John the Baptist pointed (Mark 1:7, second Sunday in Advent).
Life unfolds, day after day, in what appears to be an endless grind.
Evil seemingly is triumphant; but Advent insists that God will not
permit it to go on forever. "Beware, keep alert, for you do not know
when the time will come" (Mark 13:32, first Sunday in Advent). Yet this
word of hope creates still another challenge for the Advent preacher.
Sufferers ask, "Why doesn't the time come soon?" It is today that they
need the coming one.
I do not fully know the answer to this question, but 2 Peter 3:9
(second Sunday in Advent) insists that God is being patient. If God were
to act decisively — here and now — and bring this sinful world to an end,
too many would be left out of the kingdom that is to come. This much I
believe and trust: God not acting more swiftly — according to our
timetable — will be revealed to be an act of love, just as the seemingly
tragic and horrendous death of God's Son has been revealed to be an act
of love.
The Present Christ
Advent, of course, points not only to the one who is to come but also
to the one who has come and continually comes. Those who hear our Advent
preaching need to be reminded that the coming one already stands among
us (John 1:26-27), for the Spirit is upon us to "bring good news to the
oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted...to comfort all who mourn...."
(Isa. 61:1-3, third Sunday in Advent). We have been anointed for the
task of revealing God's presence, of uncovering what may be hidden, of
recalling what may have been forgotten, of proclaiming what may be
unknown.
We have a challenging message to deliver, but this Word, entrusted to
our lips, the fruit of Mary's womb, is the salvation of the world.
Surely, it was no less challenging for the angel Gabriel. Just consider
it. A young woman is told that she will become a mother, and this
announcement is said to be a blessing (Luke 1:26-38, fourth Sunday in
Advent). Is it any wonder that Mary pondered what kind of greeting this
might be? What kind of blessing promises to one who is engaged a child
whose life and death will result in the piercing of this favored one's
own soul?
Today, many assume that those on whom God's favor rests should enjoy
acceptability, prosperity, and comfort. But such marks have never been
the essence of God's blessing. Mary is blessed because God has committed
himself to her. God will be with her throughout her pregnancy and
beyond, and Mary trusts that it will be so. She responds in faith to a
mysterious present, trusting in a certain future, which is the challenge
of Advent. She does so because she knows that God will accompany her
along the way.
Surely God also will accompany the family of that five-year-old boy
who died. Soon after the fire took his life, people of faith in my
community sought to respond to the impossible questions raised by his
death, reminding his grief-stricken family that God too knows what it is
to lose a son. They urged them to trust that God did not take their
child but is at work healing their brokenness, even as God has healed
the brokenness of the whole world through the death and resurrection of
Jesus.
Perhaps some of their healing will come from a local Roman Catholic
parish that, having faced the death of several young people in quick
succession, has announced the formation of a support group for grieving
parents. The people of my congregation, Messiah, remembers them in
prayer, adding their voices to those throughout the centuries, "Come,
Lord Jesus."
This is our faith: Through the advent of his Son, God responds to
anguished cries.
Robert L. Driesen
is senior pastor at Messiah Lutheran
Church, South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Endnotes
1. Sun Gazette, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, May 2, 2002, p. 1.
2. All biblical quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version
(Division of Christian Education of the National Churches of Christ in
the United States, 1989).
3. Fred B. Craddock, John H. Hayes, Carl R. Holladay, and Gene M.
Tucker, Preaching Through the Christian Year, B (Trinity Press
International, 1993), 2.
