Advent 3A
December 11, 2022
Matthew 11:2-11
Isaiah 35:1-10
INTRODUCTION
The third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, or “Rejoice!” Sunday. It offers us a bit of respite from all these difficult, end-times-y texts. Hooray! And so where does the Gospel reading drop us? In prison, obviously, with a doubting John the Baptist.
Last week’s confidence has apparently waned: since we last saw John in the wilderness, he has gotten himself arrested for criticizing King Herod’s marriage practices. And he is starting to wonder why things aren’t looking the way he thought they would. But Jesus’ words, we hope, will set him back on track.
Isaiah is far more joyful. Last week’s reading from Isaiah was from before the exile, as the Assyrians are about to attack. Today’s text is written while the Israelites are in exile, in Babylon, and offers them a vision of healing and restoration – a joyous procession out of Babylon through the blooming desert, and back to Jerusalem and the land promised to their ancestors. It is a truly beautiful text.
Today’s Psalm, you will notice, is not from Psalms, but is from Luke’s Gospel. This is the text known as the Magnificat: it is the song that Mary sings when she visits her cousin Elizabeth to tell her she is pregnant with God. Much of Luke’s Gospel gives the message that Jesus’ presence on earth means a total reversal of the ways of the world, and this song really sets that up: the low are brought high and the high low, the hungry are filled and the rich sent away empty. It is radical! And also, so very beautiful. Our choir will be singing that for us.
Lots going on in these texts. Take them all in, and listen for a word that will speak joy to whatever ails your heart this day. Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was who is to come. Amen.
Several years ago, a video came out that claimed to test people’s awareness. Thinking of myself as a pretty aware person, I clicked on it. “This is an awareness test,” it begins. Two basketball teams are standing there, one dressed in white, the other in black. “How many passes does the white team make?” asks the voiceover. I watched carefully as both teams weaved in and out, passing the ball in a careful choreography. I counted 13. “The answer is 13 passes,” says the voiceover. (“Yes!” I thought, smugly!) “But,” he goes on, “did you notice the moonwalking bear?” Wait, what? I was stunned. A moonwalking bear? How could I miss something like that? Maybe it was just very subtle. But the video rewinds and plays again, and this time, sure enough, a 6ft man dressed as a bear saunters into the middle of the basketball passing, busts a little move, then moonwalks off the screen. At the end of the video, white texts appears against a black background, “It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for.”
I thought of this moonwalking bear this week when I read this story about John the Baptist. Here John sits in prison, and he is struggling – not because he is in prison (though surely also that), but because he is doubting. He has given his life to preparing the way for the messiah. With roots in the prophet Malachi, in particular the idea that the one who prepares the way for the Lord’s coming will refine and purify the people with both soap and fire (3:11), John has preached a message that is heavy on the judgment. And he likely expected that the long-awaited Messiah would be a person to be reckoned with, perhaps a military power like King David, who would defeat Israel’s enemies with strength and might. In fact, that’s what everyone expected, what everyone was looking for, and what John no doubt had in mind when he identified Jesus as the one they were waiting for.
But Jesus has not fit that mold. No, instead of coming with an army, ready to defeat, he comes with love, compassion, and mercy. Instead of judgment, Jesus seeks out “the other,” reaching out to the margins to bring in those who would have been forgotten. Instead of military power, Jesus shares meals with tax collectors and notorious sinners. It’s not what anyone was looking for or expecting.
And so John begins to doubt. And this is where we find him in today’s reading: in prison for saying the right thing at the wrong time about King Herod’s marriage, and now waiting for his death. And he is wondering, “If Jesus is the real deal, why is everything still so broken? Why am I in prison? Why is he eating dinner with sinners and tax collectors, instead of over-throwing the oppressive government?” This is not how he expected things to go. And so he sends a message to Jesus, asking, “Are you the one we’ve been waiting for? Or are we still waiting for someone else?”
As always, Jesus’ answer flips the question on its head. “Go and tell John what you see and hear,” he tells the messenger. “Those who lacked understanding are finding clarity. Those who were crippled are able to walk. Those who were ill are healed, those who couldn’t receive the good news have their hearts opened, those whose lives were ending are finding new life. The poor have good news brought to them.” In other words, help John to turn his attention away from what he expects to see, and tell him what you see happening. Stop counting the passes. Watch instead for the moonwalking bear. Because it is easy to miss something you’re not looking for.
Now, I don’t want to get down on John. He was doing the job he was called to do, and doing a biblical job of it, fulfilling the scriptures. Yet he was so focused on the judgment, that he missed what Jesus was really doing, not with strength, but with love: bringing life, healing, and restoration. Like what Isaiah describes in our first reading today – the desert in full blossom, strengthening of the weak, understanding to the perplexed, a song of rejoicing for those who had no song to sing, a highway where there was previously no way. Jesus’ work may be less obvious or glamorous than some impressive battle that puts all the bad guys in their place and delivers a win for the good guys. But his is the work of peace, of mercy, and of lasting life.
Now, if John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, can miss what’s going on, what Jesus is doing, I have to wonder if it can and does happen to us – that is, do we get so caught up in what we think we are looking for that we miss the true life that God is offering to us?
Further, I wonder if we even know what the thing we’re looking for looks like? What does life look like? That’s not to say we aren’t looking for it. I think we are all looking for life, for people and activities and being that truly fill us with life. But I also think we are looking for life in all the wrong places. We think life comes from feeling we have the power in a situation, but exerting our power hinders the opportunity for connection. Or maybe we think life comes from cramming our days full of Very Important Activities, and constant movement, but these activities, rather than filling us up leave us feeling depleted. Or maybe we think life looks like mindless escape through social media or TV or exercise, but these are only that, an escape from the very things that are sucking our life from us.
But none of that’s not what Jesus is about! So what are we looking for? What would, or what does life really look like, feel like, to you? This is an awareness test: what form of life is moonwalking through your game of daily living, and are you noticing it?
For me, what I recognize as true life, the sort of life that Jesus brings, always comes with joy. And by joy I don’t mean the feeling of happiness, which is so often fleeting and circumstantial. I mean the deep and lasting state of joy, that feeling we get when we feel a genuine and even vulnerable connection with another (whether through a shared laugh or even a shared cry), or perhaps a connection with nature, or certainly a with God. Joy comes with connection, and with joy comes life.
At our last Mom Group gathering, we talked a bit about this. In this season that is so full of “joy,” we sometimes work ourselves to the bone trying to make that joy happen – with lights, and cookies, and ALL the special traditions and memory-making activities. But all that manufactured joy can be so exhausting that it has the opposite effect! It doesn’t give life; it sucks the life out of us. So in our Mom Group, we committed first, to make sure we found some time just to play – whether with our kids or alone – to do something that was purely for the fun of it.
And second, we committed to be willing to let go of some “shoulds.” This second one is especially difficult, at least for me. But it is also so important. Because giving ourselves space – not space that we immediately fill with something else, but that we actually keep free – is what leaves our hearts open to God surprising us with those life-giving signs that God is working, in and around us and the world. Those open spaces are what free us up not to count the 13 passes, but to see the moonwalking bear, strutting into our hearts and busting a move. Those open spaces allow us to see the Messiah bringing sight to the blind, healing to the crippled, good news to the poor. They allow us to see and be a part of the kingdom work of healing and restoration. They allow the dead, those whose life and joy have drained out of them, to feel once again alive – not by their own power, but by the power of the one who will come and save us.
Let us pray… Life-giving God, it is easy to miss something we’re not looking for, even when that thing is exactly what will bring us life. Open our eyes and our hearts, and help us to leave them open, so that there would be space to receive all the ways you are giving us the life and joy that we crave. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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