Releasing our Expectations of the Christ Isaiah 351-10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11 December 12, 2004, Year A Third Sunday of Advent The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi More than any church season, in Advent we encounter God's messengers: angels telling Mary she will be the mother of the Messiah or Joseph he is to share with Mary the responsibility of raising the child Jesus, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah telling that God is going to transform the world and New Testament prophet John the Baptist telling of the coming Messiah. Frequently folks ask me why God no longer sends messengers. My personal opinion is that we think this because we take Scripture too literally and fail to understand God's messengers do not have wings or glow in the dark nor have a giant P printed on their chests. Prophets are often blunt, and we resent bluntness. A couple of weeks ago, I was preparing the evening meal. You must understand that when I cook, I tend to be messy and do not necessarily clean up well. Most often when I cook, Diane is not around, however, that evening she was. When my messiness exceeded her tolerance level, she began her rebuke with, "I'm going to be blunt." It probably didn't help when I responded with, "After 27 years of marriage, and you tell me you are going to be blunt, is that supposed to mean this is something new?" We won't track that conversation any further. Just leave it that I said it with humor and was very fortunate she heard it that way. But we do reject bluntness and, no more than first century Pharisees, want to be called a brood of vipers as we heard John the Baptist do last week. Prophetic messages continue to turn the world we create upside down. In mid-November, Martin Noah, a Sudanese refugee who worships with us told his story of starting at age 7 leaving his family and living in refugee camps in which soldiers came at night and took children into fields and shot them. After hearing his story some were moved to assist Martin with health insurance and other essentials. Martin, who has not seen his mother since he was 7, wrote in response, "I no longer feel like a child with no parents when I have family who cares for me this way." Ever so briefly, we are moved by such prophetic messages, but soon we are distracted by advertisements for giant, flat screen HDTVs, the latest computer games, decorating for Christmas and planning our holiday feasts. We fail to recognize prophets for the same reason they were not recognized in biblical times. Prophetic messages are always different than our expectations. We don't like prophetic bluntness. We really don't want our world turned upside down. However, this is the nature of the God we worship - a God who offers reversals of things as we expect them to be. Today, Isaiah describes God's kingdom as a reversal of the natural. The desert will bear fruit, the physically challenged will be healed and the fearful will be encouraged to trust in God. The imagery here involves a way through the wilderness for God's people to come to God. But the startling thing is that God first comes to us to prepare the way for us. Ironically, the author of Matthew reminds us that even God's prophets must not set expectations on how God is to operate. Last Sunday we heard John the Baptist's expectation that the Messiah would lay the ax to the root and bring God's wrath. Is it any wonder he asks (this Sunday) if Jesus is the Messiah, this Jesus who heals, restores, and preaches good news. Notice Jesus does not give a "yes" or "no" answer, but the message he sent back to John was about the blind receiving their sight, the lame walking, the lepers being cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised, and the poor having good news brought to them. Does this sound familiar? Jesus is saying, the reversal of expectations of Isaiah is being fulfilled. Jesus transforms John's question based on expectation into an act of fulfilling it. To say that Jesus is the Christ is not only say something about Jesus, but to transform the meaning of Christ as well. John, the one who had baptized Jesus, seen the Holy Spirit descend upon him and who proclaimed Jesus to the world had his own expectations of what this meant. When Jesus reversed John's expectations of who the Messiah would be, then John, too, had his doubts. Nor can we assume salvation to be a static possession but must be open to the movement of God, accepting that the Christ may reverse our expectations of who the Christ is. Faith does not grow from our testing Jesus against our criteria to see if he measures up, but from our allowing our expectations of who he is to be transformed. It continues today, when Christ comes, he's seldom what we expected! Therefore, John's question may be our question. When we limit what we are looking for, we limit what we might find. Can we accept him as he is and not what we would have him be? For those of who have once been sure of our faith but have not had things go our way or question the way we see the Church or the world going, we may question is God really in charge any more. For those who find solace in worship and are attracted to Jesus' teachings, we may wonder if any of this gives us a clue to the ultimate meaning of things. For some, as the daily news brings war into our living rooms and we see the ever growing wealth of the greedy, we may wonder whether the way of gentleness and non-retaliation can ever really work in a world where a few have most of the power. The pressure of events and the ways of the world force such questions on honest minds: Is there really a God who knows and cares? Does this God have a plan for the world? For me? If so, is Jesus the definitive revelation of that God, or should we look elsewhere for answers to ultimate questions? Those who seriously ask such questions may be closer to the kingdom than those who say that, of course God exists and, of course, Jesus is God's Son, and so fully expecting they know what that means. John expected a mighty one and was confused at the gentle, healing Jesus. Does God always come into your life the way you expect? This Advent, for whose coming are we waiting? Have we confused faith with expectation. Faith puts God in charge. Expectation puts us in charge. Faith allows God to surprise us. Expectation does not. To ask whether Jesus is the one who is to come is to ask what it is all about. Jesus did not give John a straight answer. He still doesn't run around with a long cape and a big M on his chest. The gospel message still includes a cross for Jesus and imprisonment and death for John. Jesus asked those around him, "What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? Someone from a palace in soft robes?" The wilderness in which John preached had reeds. Masada, one of Herod's palaces was in the same area. It was so easy to hear the voice of the prophet in the wilderness but to easily be distracted by the world around them. Is it any different today? When we live in a world that uses religion to bash one another and celebrates Christmas with opulence it is so easy to have expectations that have nothing to do with the fact that we worship a God who came into this world in a country ravaged by centuries of internal conflict and being run over by more powerful nations, in the most meager conditions, to powerless parents; a God who walked among royalty, but was a gentle soul who continually reversed the understanding of the world and of God; a God who died willingly, obediently upon a cross, a form of death created both for its physical pain as well its humiliation. Until we understand this nature of God, until we accept that God may come in the least expected manner and may reverse all of our expectations of how things should be, we will never comprehend that this Christ can transform our lives and the second coming directly reverse the ways of the world. God still sends messengers. Perhaps in the form of a parent sharing a story with a child, a child who questions when our words and actions are inconsistent, a loved one who resorts to bluntness to get our attention, a young Sudanese man who claims he's no longer an orphan, perhaps, but less likely one who wears a clerical collar, or, yes, perhaps a wild-eyed crazy man standing knee deep in the river. God still reverses the order of things. The question is not what the messenger will look like. The question is what expectations do you need to release?