First Sunday After Christmas 2010...Pastor Phil Strong

12-26-10

Text: Isaiah 64:1-12

● The essence of today’s celebration is that we are to “Rejoice, the Christ has come!” The longing of Advent has been overwhelmed by God’s arrival.

            I realize that declaration can become annoyingly cliché because often, it doesn’t feel like fulfillment. Such a response feels somewhat contrived; it feels disingenuous. In fact, the announcement of his coming, in the context of all that appears the same, simply fuels our feelings of disillusionment.

            Once again, I seem to need more “advent” time.

Without rehearsing the story, we lose track of who we are.

Isaiah is able to continuously offer us a vision of a world “at peace”, a world “set right”--- with God serving as its rightful king. And, he is able to do so without ignoring the contrasts of the world as it presently exists.

            In the birth narratives, it seems that no sooner have the angels stopped singing that the vision quickly fades; as they disappear into the heavens, so our hope of peace. Time to get back to the “real” world.

Thankfully, the Scriptures (especially) the prophets allow the occasion for us to process such tensions.

● This particular kind of prayer is called a lament. It seems most fitting for the transition from Advent to Christmas and beyond.

Lament- ‘to mourn aloud’; ‘to express sorrow’; ‘to regret strongly’. It’s Christianity’s version of the “blues”. They are gut-wrenching songs which express our agony over what we hoped would be and what we are currently experiencing.

They are prayers prayed from within our pain.

 It’s not simply some “psychological tactic” we utilize, but the raw and unedited means of “experiencing God in HD!”… in the vivid clarity of our circumstances.

They follow a general pattern; an emotive movement:

►First, they get a bit “nostalgic” with God. They rehearse God's acts of the past, not only as a basis of trust, but as an appeal for God’s present intervention.

“come down… rend the heavens… make the mountains tremble…” a traditional, biblical way of saying, “This might be a good time for you to strut your God-stuff!”  It’s an appeal for involvement; for God to act. “Do that, God!”

● When faith becomes purely “nostalgic”, it is no longer dynamic and loses the capacity to impact your life presently; you simply get a faith that’s been “inherited”--- passed down like an old relic that you may or may not desire [e.g. watching kids listen to the previous generation tell stories: know they should feel connected, but the more times they hear it, the more time that lapses, they move from being sentimental to just plain bored!]

What we need is not for God to get “nostalgic” (to show up the way that he did), but for God to come to us in a fresh and relevant way that connects us with the past, but also informs and forms our present life so that we are able to tell our “own” story.

►Next, there is a rather “passive-aggressive” offering of their complaint about the present circumstances, usually highlighting all of the ways we’ve been “unduly victimized”.
             (“…make your name known---your reputation’s on the line here, God; people are beginning to question our God… you wouldn’t want that, would you?”)

►Next, there’s, what I call, the “briefing”. This is where we get God ‘up to speed’ with the situation because he has apparently either been a bit distracted or simply hasn’t been paying attention.

The common imagery of God dwelling in the heavens didn’t imply that people believed that he really lived “out there somewhere”, but it was a poetic means of recognizing his “otherness”: his ultimate authority, as Creator, over all that he had made.

But, they presumed, it might be hard to “keep up with what’s happening down here from on high”!

►Then, there’s the “pivotal” (“pivotal moment”); the posture we take when we are attempting a “shift”. It is typically fairly easy to spot, because it utilizes words such as “nevertheless” or “but” or “yet”. 

In these “pivotal moments”, one of two things happens: we either turn to God in surrender (we become consolable and teachable), or we pivot away from God and become cynical and defiant.

►Eventually, there is “consolation”; the comfort of God’s sovereignty and mercy which renews our hope and offers perspective.

“God… who acts on behalf of those who wait for him…” There it is: we wait. Unfortunately, that is the quality which makes us most recognizable; it’s what we are best known for… waiting on our God.

Historically, the absence of “God’s flair for the dramatic” has caused complacency and indifference to set in. We simply give up believing and hoping in God.

     “You have said, it is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements…” (Malachi 3:4-5)

● Patient, steady, frustrated, cynical, persistent, hopeful waiting. In fact, much, if not most, of the Bible deals with living in the “interlude”.

‘interlude’ combines (2) thoughts: “inter”- in the midst, “ludus”- play… in the midst of a play.

Musically, it’s a smaller composition in the midst of a larger piece. It’s also used “transitionally”: something inserted to advance the story without altering the narrative.

● The interlude becomes “sacred space”; it’s where you recognize that you are in the presence of something  other than yourself; something bigger than the circumstance itself. The interlude is where the transformation happens.

If you recognize it and perhaps gain the courage to embrace it, it just might be the place where you discover who you really are, who God really is and what really matters in your life.

● If you remain defiant, it’s “wasted space”. As we look to the future (as a place of hope), we must not overlook (learn to accept) the present as the place God has chosen to do a transformational work in our lives.

To ignore this space is to miss the shalom that God desires to work in you there.

The lament is what helps keep our faith viable and credible.

            Doesn’t our propensity to sing only celebratory type songs seem to lose its relevance if we never sing about our struggles?           

● What I love about reading the Psalms (especially the laments) is what I “don’t read” in the Psalms. No clever arguments, no clichéd responses, no info-mmercial remedies… just expressions of our fatigue, our frustration and our discouragement, voiced candidly before our God.

● If you are like me, you have all genres of music in your collection. I would suggest that you keep the lament as part of your “faith-repertoire”.