A Sermon by Reverend Lillie Mae Henley on the First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009, at Universalist National Memorial Church
This time of year, some of us watch the leaves fall from the trees and estimate how many plastic bags we will fill when we rake. Others of us, who do not have yards, or trees in our yards, only marvel at the number of bags which fill the curbs of those who DO have to rake—year after year.
It is the time of year when we begin to feel the changes of the season, from summer to fall to winter. It is a time of year when poets write words about the “beautiful,” colorful leaves; and our bodies begin to embrace the winds announcing the coming cold days of winter.
It is the time of year when we begin to see the early darkening of each day. It has always been this way for us in the northern climes—a definite changing of the seasons—a sure cooling down of the earth—winter.
It is the time of year which witnesses ancient religious traditions. Traditions created by early humankind and practiced throughout our human story. The early Jesus followers designated this time of year as the time when Jesus was born. And the early church set aside the days beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas Eve as Advent. Advent means arrival and expectation. The Christian church has always asked those who follow Jesus to take this Advent time to consider what his arrival, his birth, means for each and every one.
If Advent is such an old tradition, why do we recognize and celebrate it? We celebrate Advent because it is a good time of year to re-new our faith, to take some time in the midst of each busy day to consider for ourselves what it means to follow Jesus. It is a good time to look at our relationship with God and decide whether we live up to Jesus’ expectations of his followers.
Today, and for the next three Sundays, the messages will be centered on the themes surrounding the birth of the Messiah. The prophecy and promise of the Messiah, the Journey to Bethlehem, Jesus is born, and celebrating his birth.
Today we look at the prophecy and promise of the Messiah.
Malachi, the Old Testament prophet, [chapter 3:1-4] said, “I am sending my Messenger to prepare the way...” The One will refine and purify the people so that they will worship YHWH as they did long ago.
The tribes of the Hebrew Scriptures needed a Messiah because they had been torn from their promised land, forced to live in an alien culture, and finally allowed to return home. They were a disparate people returning to the root of their tribes. The metaphor of the root of Jesse is paramount in their Scriptures. They needed a Messiah to gather the tribes again. They needed a Messiah to bring them “back to YHWH.”
And the author of Luke [chapter 1:68-79] in our reading this morning, tell us that there is one who “… prepare[s] the way for the Promised One.”
She brought forth her first born son. This is what the New Testament tells us about Mary and Jesus’ birth. But it is also the story of Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, and her first born son John. Later to be known as John the Baptizer.
Elizabeth and Zechariah were old. They had given up the possibility of parenting a long time ago. When THE angel Gabriel told Zechariah Elizabeth was pregnant, Zechariah didn’t even believe him. Consequently, he was muted, and the women take over the story. Mary, young maiden, agrees to bring forth the Messiah. And she is told to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is six month pregnant with John.
Their story is in the Gospel of Luke, and we all know. First John is born, becomes a well-known aesthetic, prophetic figure in the desert. There had to be one who prepared the way of Jesus, to fulfill the prophecy of the Hebrew people, and it was John.
But what else?
Education theorists tell us that we learn by building on what we already know. Learning IS a building up of knowledge. A progression—
John the Baptizer, was as much a marginal Jew, if not more than Jesus. John P. Meier author of The Marginal Jew, tells us that Josephus the first century Jewish historian included John and Jesus in Antiquities, because they were “marginal” enough to be cited in his Antiquities.
John had a following of Hebrews who were willing to change their relationship with YHWH. As we have already explored in a sermon on baptism earlier this year, baptism, the immersion, was built on the Hebrew custom of cleaning oneself before entering the Temple to worship YHWH. Baptism changed their religion from a cultic one to a personal one. It changed the responsibility of one’s religion to a personal relationship with God.
There is so much more to this, the people gathered from Diaspora had no Temple in Diaspora. The complexities fill shelves in the libraries. For today, John the Baptist is but one of the building blocks of the changing religion of the Hebrew people in the first century.
Jesus’ teachings were about personal responsibility, responsibility to each other and to YHWH. He was of the Hebrew tribes, and his intention, scholars tell us, was to first change his religion of that time.
Jesus would not have had followers
if there had been no prophecies of a Messiah,
if Elizabeth and Mary had not agreed to carry the sons they brought forth.
If he had not been a radical and on the margins.
We need to begin this Advent season pondering whether we are radical enough, whether we are on the margins, enough.
The leaves have, just about, finished falling, the season is moving to the darker nights of winter. We have an opportunity to take the longer, darker nights to prepare our hearts.
To prepare our hearts for the message and messenger of Christmas. We need to pray to build OUR relationship with God. Do we live up to the tradition in which our roots are buried? Do we live our lives so that when others see us, they see One who is purified and refined in the messages of those radical Jews—John and Jesus—of the first century?