December 7, 2014
Longing- From Wilderness to Incarnation
- Isaiah 40:1-11
- Dr. Teri Thomas
December 7, 2014
Longing- From Wilderness to Incarnation Advent 2B
Isaiah 40:1-11 and 2 Peter 3:8-15a
The wilderness is a place that reoccurs over and over in scripture.
A place that reoccurs as we travel- to the desert, to the mountains, to the forest.
The wilderness is a place that reoccurs in the landscape of our souls.
The wilderness is a place of danger and unspeakable beauty;
of demons, wild beasts, roaming spirits, and temptation,
the desert also hosts ministering angels
and offers an unhindered space for an encounter with God. (S. Guthrie)
It was from wilderness that God created the world.
In the wilderness God called Abraham and Sara.
In the wilderness God made a covenant with the people of Israel.
In the wilderness Elijah took refuge,
David hid from his enemies, Jesus came to be tested. (S.Guthrie)
Now the prophet Isaiah writes to the Israelites who have been exiled in Babylon.
He invites them to return to the wilderness, to come through it, to come home,
to return to their God.
He wanted them to forget the hardship of their ancestors’ 40 years of wandering
and remember the sweet taste of manna and the refreshment of the desert spring that God provided.
Remember that God forgot the golden calf and the disobedience and the complaints
and called the people to return. He called them with promise and with love.
God says-
forget the terror and the loneliness of your wilderness
remember I am there and you will be with me.
The wilderness is a place of longing.
When we find ourselves lost in our own wilderness, we long.
What are you longing for?
A longing is a strong, persistent desire or craving, pining, , hungry, thirsty, long unfulfilled desire for something that promises pleasure of some kind.
This is more than just wanting.
We want to go out to dinner tonight. We long for a deep and meaningful relationship with our partner.
We wish for an A on the next exam. We long for meaning and value and satisfaction in our lives.
We want to have a nice Christmas. We long for love and a sense of belonging.
Longing can be discouraging. Yet Isaiah promises us comfort.
God hears our longing. God will answer our prayers.
God will make us whole- complete- full
That is what shalom means in Hebrew- wholeness, completeness, oneness with God
reconciled with God and with our neighbors and our family and our lovers and the world.
God hears our longing and God sends us peace
we need only wait for the coming of the promised prince of peace.
Peace is that for which we long.
But we wait.
Because peace is not something we can create or invent.
We sentimentalize peace.
Thinking peace is like a warm blanket or a hot bath or a sedative.
We compartmentalize peace.
In the land where the prince of peace was born, there is little peace.
People think we could have peace if we just separated the people we like
from the people we don't like.
But peace is a right relationship with God.
And a right relationship with God always places us into a right relationship with each other.
We do not make it a right relationship.
God has already done that.
God has already made peace with the world.
Our time of longing is a time of transition.
In Isaiah, the prophet speaks of a transition.
The season of punishment has ended;
now is the time of restoration and renewal.
Receive God’s peace he pleads.
"Comfort the people with this good news," the prophet says.
Go to the top of a mountain and shout it out for all to hear.
Those who have been wounded are now the very ones who will comfort others.
In 2 Peter, there is a further reflection on this transition.
A thousand years is like a day with God.
The transition from longing to peace seems slow in coming.
We wait for this gift, but it does not appear.
We want this promised peace, but where is it?
God is not slow, the scripture reminds us,
but God is patient.
God is interested in our readiness to receive the gift.
Henri Nouwen spoke of
Waiting, in the Gospel,
as waiting with a sense of promise.
A promise already begun in us.
So our waiting is never a movement from nothing to something.
People who wait have received a promise that allows them to wait.
They have received something that is at work in them,
like a seed that has started to grow.
We long for God’s peace and are able to wait
because we have glimpsed it here and there,
now and then.
Something is already growing in us,
a hunger and a thirst for more.
We "wait with a sense of promise."
We are in a time of transition,
making our way slowly and sometimes painfully through the wilderness.
We wait with a sense of promise.
Do not be demoralized if the world does not seem to be a very peaceful place.
Do not be discouraged if anxiety rules within your heart
and confusion pervades your mind.
Those who walked with God before us
knew this same dissonance,
and yet they listened for assurance,
they trusted a promise,
they took the bread and the cup into their hands as grace,
they gathered for worship with fellow believers,
they discerned a truth that was the joy of their desire,
they dreamed about a peace the world could neither give nor take away,
a gift, about to be revealed to us:
peace, to satisfy our longing.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Resources:
Our Patience, God's Peace, sermon by Bishop Kenneth Carter, UMC, December 07, 2008
Edge of Enclosure, Suzanne Guthrie, Advent 2B