Sunday, December 3, 2023
Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, Lincoln, NE
Second Sunday of Advent
(narrative lectionary)
watch this service online (reading starts around 24:16; children’s sermon starts around 25:59; sermon starts around 32:05)
Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11
In today’s children’s sermon, the kids and I got a bit philosophical. I asked them to tell me what peace is, and what sort of things they picture when they think about peace. We talked about peace as the absence of conflict and fighting and war, and imagined peace as things like a gentle snowfall or a sunset or a quiet river.
I then gave them a hypothetical scenario: imagine you and one of your siblings are arguing about something (very difficult to imagine, I know 😜). Things get heated, and eventually your sibling shoves you really hard. What do you do? You shove them right back! Unfortunately, right at that moment, one of your parents walks in the room and sees you shove your sibling. You both get sent to your rooms for fighting, but for you, your parent takes the extra step of taking away your tech (tablet, phone, etc.) too. So now it’s quiet in the house; there’s no more fighting. For your parents, it’s peaceful; for your sibling, it’s probably pretty peaceful even though they’re in their room. But how do you think you’d feel? Would it feel like peace to you? Probably not!
When there’s only peace for some, but not for everyone, it’s not really peace at all. And we talked about the important role that justice plays in bringing about peace. God is interested in true peace, and that’s what Isaiah is talking about in our reading for today: Comfort, O comfort my people, he says, and he describes God like a shepherd who carries the lambs tenderly in their arms and leads the mama sheep. God’s peace is tender and loving; it is forever and for everyone.
My parents took me on my very first camping trip when I was only two months old. My family went camping for fun quite a lot when I was growing up. We lived about 40 minutes south of Gavin’s Point up in South Dakota; and in the summers, we’d pack up the van and go up and fish in the Missouri and swim and canoe in Lake Yankton and, as often as not, we’d camp out in the recreational area up there by the river.
Now, when you think about going camping, you might be imagining one of those camper trailers that you pull along behind your truck, or even a full on RV, with beds and even a bathroom inside. Alas, small me would have been very envious to have such things. We never had a camper. What we had was this old, rickety, musty-smelling tent in shades of tan and orange. I have no idea what era this tent was from, but my family had had it since at least before I was born.
I imagine that at one point in life there were instructions for how to assemble this tent correctly; but if such instructions existed, they had been long lost to history by the time I came along. See, it didn’t have those kind of long, bendy fiberglass poles that keep most modern tents up. Instead, this tent had an assortment of hollow metal poles of varying lengths that you had to fit together somehow to make the tent frame. So you could never be completely confident that you’d put it together right – and it felt like the configuration changed slightly every time we set it up. You’d just say a prayer before going to bed that you wouldn’t be awoken in the middle of the night by having a tent fall on you. I guess it was just part of what made family camping trips an adventure. (lol)
Anyway, when we were old enough, my sister and I started going camping with our Girl Scout troop. We’d go over to Ponca or up to Niobrara, and everywhere we went, the orange and tan tent went too. It was unmistakable at our campsites. All the tents the other girls brought were these nice, rounded shapes, in shades of green and gray and blue. It was impossible not to notice the weird, angular orange sihouette of our tent, that always looked like it was a breath away from collapsing in on itself.
One summer, we were camping out – I want to say somewhere near Verdigre, but I don’t remember for sure. We got our tents and our campsite all set up and then we all went into town to do whatever activities we had planned to do that day. While we were in town, a massive thunderstorm blew through the area, with high speed winds and just pouring rain.
We dashed back to our campsite as soon as the storm let up – and we arrived to a scene of devastation. There were downed tree branches, garbage cans knocked over and trash strewn everywhere. And the storm had blown down or ripped up every single one of our tents. Well… every single tent, that is, except one. By some strange miracle, that old orange and tan tent held its own against the storm and managed to stay standing. So while all the other girls had to sort through their soaking wet belongings, my sister’s stuff and mine stayed safe and dry tucked away in the old orange and tan tent.
_
“The grass withers; the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” – sometimes, against all odds. Flesh fails and people pass away, but God abides.
Silly stories about tents aside, this passage Isaiah writes about the impermanence of “all flesh” – including people – isn’t necessarily the most immediately appealing or uplifting thing to read, especially this time of year. And there’s a lot more like it in the rest of chapter 40. Heh, I guess nothing says “holiday cheer” quite like blunt reminders of our own mortality. But you can imagine how hopeful these words might have sounded to the people of ancient Israel.
You might remember our reading from Jeremiah from last week. We talked about how the Babylonians burned down the city of Jerusalem and completely destroyed the temple. It was an unthinkable tragedy for the Israelites: the temple was huge and made of stone – they had built it to be a permanent replacement for the tent they had previously used! – and it was designed to stand the test of time. It was built to be the literal dwelling place of God on earth. The loss of the temple was devastating to the Israelites. And now – weak, defeated, and scattered – they felt like their hopes for the future of their people had collapsed, kind of like a rickety tent in a storm.
The Israelites ended up in this position due to a combination of poor leadership – like we talked about last week – and the fact that they lived in a place surrounded by adversaries who were much stronger than they were. They faced struggles and threats on every side. And so, in the face of these overwhelming forces, it was extremely comforting and good news to them to be reminded that the God in whom they placed their faith is greater than any power in creation. It was uplifting to know that the word of God will stand for all time, regardless of whether the temple does or not.
And, of course, it was uplifting to know that this everlasting word is a word of peace – of true peace. “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says God. “I will feed my flock like a shepherd. I will gather the lambs in my arms and gently lead the mother sheep.” Later in the chapter, Isaiah goes on:
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. God does not faint or grow weary… God gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted, but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:28-31
God reigns over the cosmos, not with the militant violence of a dictator, but with the gentle peace of a shepherd. The great power with which God is able to vanquish enemies isn’t brutality or warfare, but instead is mercy and compassion and peace. After all, this is the same God who not only chooses to take on flesh and live among mortals as a human, but who chooses to show up not as some mighty warrior, but as a tiny, newborn child. This is our God, a God of everlasting peace, a God whose strategy for redeeming and reconciling the earth begins and ends with love.
Now, we know all too well that peace and love are often not the ways of this earth. We see in our country, in our state, sometimes even in our own families, what kind of power division and resentment and prejudice can wield. We’ve seen the devastating impacts of war, both abroad and at home. And in the face of troubles like these, who among us could realistically imagine that peace and love could stand firm, let alone make a difference and change the world? We are called to practice God’s peace and love as the body of Christ, and yet sometimes the church itself feels as fragile as an old, rickety tent, about to come crashing down at any moment.
But God’s word remains. And God’s love is the one thing that can withstand the storms of time. While the grass withers and flowers fade, while wars may come and go, and temples may fall, the word of God – the peace of God – will abide forever.
This is the Day 
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