This week’s sermon. We are working through a worship series in Advent titled “On Earth as it is in Heaven”

You can follow this link to Good Shepherd’s website where the audio is posted.

Isaiah 11:1-10 • Matthew 3:1-12 • December 5, 2010

Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
This passage in Isaiah is one of my favorites. It paints a picture with some of my deepest hopes and dreams for the world and communities in which we live. Even though Isaiah’s vision is probably not the reality in which most of us live. We long for a world in which the wolf can live in harmony with the lamb; the cow and the bear graze peacefully together in the meadow; an infant is playfully hanging out with one of the most deadly snakes know to humankind – simply enjoying each others’ company. A cast of natural enemies that no longer see themselves as enemies at all.
Isaiah’s time is full of extreme unrest and war. Just when things seem to appear completely lost and the future holds little hope of anything good ever existing again, this prophet comes along and offer a promise from God that includes someone being sent who will rule with justice toward all, and with mercy toward the most vulnerable. We hear of this one rising like the branch that grows from the root of the stump of a tree. The stump of the tree that looks dead and lifeless with no meaning and no hope for anything in the future. And out of this desolation new life comes.
It’s difficult to think of the desolation that Isaiah speaks of at this time of the year. We are bombarded with one happy Christmas scene after another. There seems to be an endless stream of Christmas movies and songs. I actually stopped long enough to watch one of my favorites Christmas movies the other day. A Charlie Brown Christmas. As I was watching this movie and thinking about our worship together today, I remembered a different Charlie Brown movie – one that has this great scene where the wonderful theologian Snoopy is working feverishly on a new novel. He begins his story in the same way he begins every story he writes, “It was a dark and stormy night…” Lucy happens to walk into the scene and takes one look at what Snoopy has written and goes crazy about the ridiculous way his story is beginning. She shouts back at Snoopy, “Don’t you know that all good stories start with, “Once upon a time…”
So our wise theologian Snoopy starts his story again. He writes, “Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night…”
Don’t you just feel like that some times? No matter how you try to begin your story with “once upon a time,” it often begins with, “It was a dark and stormy night.”
Isaiah gives us a picture of a “once upon a time” world that is nothing like the “dark and stormy night” world in which he lives. The gospel writer of Matthew introduces us very quickly to the “Once upon a time…” story of Jesus birth – in a few short verses at the beginning of his gospel – and quickly transports the story to the “it was a dark and stormy night” world in which the wild and crazy preacher and baptizer John the Baptist was living.
One of my favorite pastors and theologians is Henri Nouwen. Nouwen once wrote, “The small child of Bethlehem, the unknown young man of Nazareth, the rejected preacher, the naked man on the cross, HE asks for my full attention. The work of our salvation takes place in the midst of a world that continues to shout, scream, and overwhelm us with it claims and promises. But the promise is hidden in the shoot that sprouts from the stump, a shoot that hardly anyone notices.”
Our faith does not just challenge us with what we see right in front of us. It challenges our very identity as living creatures in the world. It challenges us to believe in something that we do not yet see. At least, something that we do not think we see. It takes faith to believe that God is really at work in this broken world, making it right, shedding a little “once upon a time…” into our stories when all we seem to see before us are stories that begin with “it was a dark and stormy night.”
Advent sheds light on the new hope of God’s activity in our lives. God’s coming to us in Jesus breaks through every “dark and stormy night…” that may cause thoughts or deeds or actions to separate us from each other and from God. John the Baptist may sound a little excited and crazy and even a bit angry and out of control. God coming to us in Jesus is a big deal. It should cause us to scream and shout just a little bit. With the arrival of Jesus that John is proclaiming, newness has come into the world that radically changes everything forever. New life that emerges from the stump of a tree that nobody noticed before as anything but a dead tree. I think Snoopy was on to something.
We live today as a congregation celebrating the “once upon a time, it was a dark and story night…” stories that we share in the second of our three 50th Anniversary celebrations today. Jesus’ presence among us as a community of faith has caused our story to change a time or two along the way. The stories that we share have at times begun with “It was a dark and stormy night.” But we also celebrate the many “once upon a time” stories when the wolf has lain down with the lamb and the cow and the bear have shared a meal together. There are countless times when Jesus’ presence in our congregation has caused unexpected and amazing things to happen, just like a shoot growing from a stump that we thought was dead.
During Advent, we wait and hope and pray for the one to come who will change us forever and restore peace and justice to this world. My hope is that we don’t forget how the story begins and just how incredible that beginning was, how incredible that beginning is for the world in which we live today, and how incredible that beginning will be for the world that is to come. The Apostle Paul in the book of Romans writes, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” As people of faith, we confidently live believing that our “once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night” stories are always filled with the hope and light, and justice and peace, of the coming Savior – on Earth as it is in Heaven. Amen.

Here is my sermon from this past weekend. I’m planning to post each sermon on the blog in text form. You can follow this link to Good Shepherd’s website where the audio is posted. I’m not sure how to post audio files into the blog page yet. 🙂

Advent blessings to all of you,

Craig

Advent Peace!

Isaiah 2:1-5 • November 28, 2010
Brothers and sisters in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, the light and peace of world. Amen.
I believe very strongly that it is through community that we live out our faith. Being alive in Christ is not something that we do alone – it always includes community. At times these communities are great blessings that bring joy and peace. And at other times these communities bring anger, violence, and mis-trust to our lives that is anything but peaceful.
Our Advent worship this year celebrates faith in community with the theme “On Earth as it is in Heaven” today, we’ll take a little time and walk through our Old Testament scripture from the prophet Isaiah which gets us started on our Advent journey.
The prophet Isaiah, whose names literally means “the Lord saves!,” arrives on the biblical scene about 7 centuries before Jesus’ birth. Isaiah’s prophetic message is direct and very clear. One such message is that the desire of God’s heart is for all people to live in peace with God, peace with one another, and to worship God and experience the transforming presence of God.
Isaiah is identified in verse 1 of our text today, “The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.” And verse 2 begins this prophecy of Isaiah, “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.”
Frequently God meets people on a mountain in the Bible. Here is another example of that in the mountain of the Lord’s house or Jerusalem. But Isaiah is not saying Jerusalem is or will be the highest point of elevation in the world, rather, that Jerusalem will be the place where the heavens and earth intersect. The meeting place of God and all humanity. A meeting place of peace for the entire community, no longer a meeting place of war.
We continue with verse 3, “Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob (or Israel in this case if you remember to the later part of the book of Genesis); that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
This is a not a time of peace in the world. The Assyrians and Babylonians are great powers and war is common place. Isaiah’s prophecy calls nations who were known to be at war to come to the house of the Lord, not to kill and conquer one another, but to learn God’s ways.
Verse 4, “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
The mediator here is not the United Nations or the Supreme Court, or even Isaiah. It is God. It is not humankind.
Finally, verse 5, “O house of Jacob (or Israel), come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”
Isaiah’s prophecy is not a vision of being transformed in the past tense – a onetime mountain top experience. It is a vision of being transformed continually. Transformation that brings light into the world making it possible for us to follow. To follow a path toward the light of Christ. God coming to us.
I think all of us would agree that this prophecy of Isaiah is still a work in progress. In fact, it often challenges our imagination whether or not any progress has taken place. Last time I checked, people are still being killed in war. It may be hard for us to imagine war fought with swords and shields in the world today where war is fought with long range missiles and computer technology. But the result of war is much the same as it was in the time of Isaiah. Or what about the war we experience between families or members of our congregation right here in Bismarck. The warring nations of the Assyrians and Babylonians of Isaiah’s time may be hard for our imagination to grasp, but the warring nations of the Anderson and Jones families within our communities is very easy for us to imagine.
The transformation that God is calling us to follow, challenges our imagination. God is bringing about this transformation right now. A transformation that extends beyond you and me in order for the light of Christ to shine for others and for the peace of God to freely be shared with all. Here are just a few ways I see this happening.

God is transforming hands that can cause abuse physically and emotionally into hands of peace and joy for the homeless in Bismarck-Mandan through service projects like decorating for Christmas at the Ruth Meier’s Hospitality House that our 6th Grade God Rocks team will offer this week.
God is transforming a time of uncertainty and anxiety into renewed hope and excitement for the future of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church’s mission and ministry through the tireless work taking place between our congregation’s Church Council, our Bishop and his staff, and many other leaders in this congregation.
God is transforming wealth that can be used to manipulate and control others into wealth that brings comfort and hope to our neighbor in need whom we may never meet through Good Shepherd’s annual participation in projects like Operation Christmas Child & the Angel Tree,
God is transforming words that can be used to hurt and attack others into glorious sounds that bring worship and praise to our God through our Adult Choir’s annual Christmas Cantata, our Church School students Christmas programs, and our worship together celebrating the birth of Jesus on Christmas in congregations around the world.
The peace we seek during this Advent season destroys all weapons of war, and prepares the way for the One who brings peace. God is transforming communities of faith like Good Shepherd, and communities in which you and I work or go to school or play a game of volleyball. God is transforming these communities into be mountains of peace.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, during this first week of Advent, let us pray for peace. Amen.