3 Advent B December 14, 2014
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 + Psalm 126 + 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-24 +
+ John 1: 6-8, 19-28 +
Come, Lord Jesus, into our darkening days and our deepest fears. Come as promised, as expected….as infant and Savior. Come as our beloved and our Lord. Amen.
Several years ago, in a small town in Montana, the sheriff’s deputy brought in two men for what he called “disturbing the peace.” The truth was that they’d been drinking a bit too much and their party had continued on the streets of this sleepy little town long after last call. The deputy put them in side by side cells and sat down to do the paperwork. He turned to the man in the first cell and asked him his name. “Napolean” he replied. “Napolean what?” asked the deputy. “Napolean Bonapart” he said. “You are not Napolean Bonapart” the deputy shot back. “Yes I am!” he insisted, “God told me I was.” And a voice from the other cell piped up “I did not!”
It seems that in that sleepy little Montana town, the peace was being disturbed by way of a drunken identity crisis.
Today’s Gospel reading is not so different. John, a man sent from God, is having something of an identity crisis. And what we are learning about John from the Gospel today is more of who he is NOT than who he IS. He wasn’t the light; he wasn’t the Messiah; he wasn’t Elijah; he wasn’t the prophet. He was a voice, crying out in the wilderness.
This John is known in other Gospels as John the Baptizer or John the Baptist. But for the writer of John’s Gospel, who is ANOTHER John, this John is John the Witness. John the testifier.
John the Witness testifies to the good news of Jesus Christ. Those two words, witness and testify, are used more than forty-five times in John’s Gospel. “They have their origin in a legal context and imply public testimony to something that one guarantees is absolutely true.
When a witness testifies to something, he or she stakes his or her life on it. Like the man whose name was John, the church is sent into today’s world as a witness.” [1]
In this season, we know that we, too have been called and sent into the world as witnesses, as holy testifiers. Not to point to ourselves, but so that all we do and all we say and all we are might point to the one who has come and will come again.
I wish that it were as simple as it sounds, but the truth is that witnessing to Jesus, testifying to the difference his presence in the world makes, well, that’s a tricky and complex thing. And part of what makes it so complex is that we are, in essence, taking the story of a person, this Jesus, that is centuries old, and speaking of how it matters today. But we are Gospel people. We are bold enough to believe in the truth of the Gospel. And we believe that its truth must be proclaimed. That we must bear witness to the work of God in the world. And that makes us, like John, witnesses. And it leaves us responsible for the answer to the question: Who is Jesus and why does he matter?
Our testimony, of course, comes from this side of the resurrection. Unlike John, no one will confuse us with Jesus. No one will ask if we are God come to earth. And if we claim to be God, then we should hope for a sheriff’s deputy to keep us locked up until we sober up. So what word do we have to say, fellow witnesses, to a world that needs to know of Jesus? How do we speak of Jesus to a world struggling to make sense of the senseless? Of school shootings and racial injustice and end of the year layoffs? Of torture and terrorism and rampant crime. Of homelessness and hunger, not just in our backyard, but in our very pews. Of grief and sorrow that is fresh to those for whom it is new and an all too familiar companion for others. How can we speak of Jesus in the face of all of this? How can we bear witness?
To bear witness, we must remember that this is our call. A call to EACH one of us. Sisters and brothers, the prophet Isaiah tells us how and why we must testify: It is because the spirit of the Lord God is upon us and we have been anointed to bring this news. It is news that will wrap around broken hearts. It is news of freedom to those held captive by fear, addiction, illness, or oppression. It is to remind the powerless of the power of God.
Isaiah offers these stunning images of what bearing witness means in the midst of a community in turmoil. And I want to draw your attention to the images in verse 3. Because they are unfamiliar to us, customs no longer observed in a fast paced, death denying 21st century world. But in the prophet’s days, families in mourning put ashes on themselves as well as sackcloth as a symbol of their grief. Isaiah offers this powerful image as testimony to the presence of the Lord: that those who mourn are given garlands of flowers to wear in place of ashes – not their regular clothes, they don’t return to life as it used to be. That is impossible. But because of the promise of the presence of God, they receive fragrant, beautiful flowers to place around themselves. Joyful signs of the promise of God. And they are given oil to soothe their skin. And their weary, fainting spirits are given a mantle of praise.
Mantles are also an unfamiliar term to us. We have mantles around our fireplaces. But for the prophet and in those days, a mantle was like a full large cloak. They were a sign, a symbol of God’s presence, wrapped around the person for protection, safety, and in the case of the prophets, to indicate the call given to them by God – to be witnesses – to testify.
This is the good news for all of us, called to be witnesses. That in these days when the world cries out for justice, when hope seems absent, when we grieve and mourn for all of the ways we fall short of the glory of God, that the words of the prophet Isaiah reach out and call us back. Back to the promise of God from the beginning. Back to the call on our lives, a call, not to a moral code, but to a new way of being, a way of living in the freedom of the Gospel. A way of trading in our ashes for garlands of flowers – fragrant, amazing, wonderful flowers. A way of wrapping the mantle of praise around our fearful selves and knowing that the love of God, grounded and secured in hope, wraps around us in just such a way.
These are sweet, precious, incredible promises in the midst of the difficult realities of our days. And this was true for Israel in the time of the prophet. And this was true for Israel in the time of John, the Witness. And it has been true in every time. The promise is that the light of Christ makes a difference in the world. And it makes a difference in each life and in each heart. And sometimes it is hard to see how that can possibly be true. How do we speak promise and light to the families of Michael Brown and Darren Wilson? Because like it or not, the promise is for all of us. Each one. How to speak promise to the families of those killed at Columbine, Sandy Hook, Marysville Pilchuck, and to the families of those who walked into those schools and killed them? Because the promise is for all of us. The light shines, even in the darkest places and in some moment of unimaginable beauty and truth, is not overcome, even there.
Thankfully, we are not called to be the light – but to testify to it. And in this way, because of this, we cannot be silent witnesses. Sisters and brothers, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, because the Lord has anointed us, the Lord has sent us to testify to the Light. You come to this table with fragrant flower garlands wrapped around you; you go out into the world with a mantle of praise about your shoulders, reminding you that God is with you. In the hard days, the days of doubt and fear and shame and grief and sadness and sorrow, inhale deeply of the beautiful garland that rests upon your shoulders; be wrapped in the presence of God. Know that you are the ones called. Bear witness to the light.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Powell, Mark Allen