Friends, we have reached the mid-way point of our Advent journey to Jesus—to the crib, and we rejoice!  Amid the rejoicing though, there is doubt as evidenced by the chosen readings for today’s liturgy.  The two aspects of rejoicing and doubting not only show themselves in our readings today, but, if we are honest, in our lives as well.  Most of us live between the tensions.  We know the hope, for which we live—that Jesus lived, died and rose and that his life changed. Because of him; we know the same is true for us—yet we struggle through our imperfect lives at times.  There are many moments of joy—but there are times of sadness, loneliness, sickness, war, misunderstandings in families, among friends and nations, suffering in the world that we can’t alleviate and we pray—“How long O God—come, Jesus, come—show us how to make life, our world better.”  Isaiah addresses our concerns today—“Courage! Do not be afraid! Look, your God is coming—is coming with justice—is coming to save you.”

This past week, our little Elliot celebrated his 3^rd birthday and we, his family, remember well his precarious entering into life, two months early at 3#2 oz. and of how wonderfully he has grown ever since! The tensions we live between!

This past year has been full with the new and different, the disappointing, the ups and downs, joys and sorrows—our country, for the first time in our history nearly elected its first woman president and because of her courage to take on a system that has never before elected a woman to its highest office, it will be much easier for the next woman to do it!

Each of us has lived through the ups and downs of this past year and could speak to what has been good, what, not so good and how these experiences have changed us.  Hopefully, you and me have come through it all, better,  and knowing that our good God has walked with us.  During this Advent Season, one has to marvel that our God chose to be one of us and become, like us, so fragile, yet so wonderfully made!

And so, even though life isn’t perfect, the human spirit, coupled with the divine within each of us, moves in hope for that time when strife, illness, confusion, poverty, and war, will be no more.  We can take encouragement from our readings today that the human struggle each of us walks with, was the struggle our forebears had too.

Last week we saw the prophet John taking on the Pharisees, calling them to make their “crooked roads straight,”—something each of us is called to at times.  This week we see that same prophet, now in prison, doubting who Jesus truly is. The answer to John’s question, “Is God with us—are you the Messiah?—is the answer that we as Jesus’ followers must hear too in our doubts.  Jesus gave John hope by recounting that, “The blind see, the crippled are walking, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor have the Good News preached to them.

So even though many of us are still recovering from the loss of an election that promised so much for the least among us and walking amid doubts of what our country and world will be now in the hands of billionaires who think of the rich first, we must keep our focus on Jesus, keep following him and trusting that the good we do and the good we see in others, does and will continue to make a difference. When we see all this too; we know that the dream we all hope for has come about—the lamb lying down with the lion and so on.  The dream of a peaceful world, free of suffering has everything to do with each of us—it won’t come without us friends.  We must keep doing our part, keep trusting, and keep believing—hope is our life blood!

In that light, it gives me great joy to share a bit more about the group that Dick Dahl and I have been asked to be part of here in Winona.  This group has endeavored to gather the voices of many different religious backgrounds and of those with no particular religious voice to discuss how “we are more alike than we are different.”  In the new climate that seems to have raised its ugly head during this past presidential campaign, stating basically that those who are perceived as different from white America are less than acceptable; this new group is discussing how we, young and old, can prove this thought, wrong.  Watch for more about this group and some programming  in the near future.

As we keep our eyes on Jesus, walking with him through the ups and downs of his human experience; our own ups and downs have new meaning and purpose.  It has always been truly significant for me to reflect on the struggles of Mary and Joseph to bring forth Jesus and to couple that thought with my own experience during the times that I was pregnant, or the experience of our daughter and son-in-law.  In your own lives as well, whether giving physical or spiritual birth through being there for others—whenever we can combine the divine and the human, the experiences become profound and so much more meaningful.

Friends, Advent calls us to develop an advent heart, learning how to live as we wait, in Joan Chittister’s words. She continues,  “Sometimes random moments of grace help us do this.”  At this time of year, there are examples all around us—of people opening up their closed hearts, letting them expand in the pattern of the Christmas story—an over-the-top giving of love. I think of present initiatives that our parish has been involved in recently—the wonderful clothes and food collection for our sisters and brothers at Standing Rock, that was packed and delivered into the hands of our driver by Michael and Robert this past Friday—of the Winona Warming Center, a project a long time in the making for the homeless in our city.

And even with all of this, faith tells us that this goodness, born out of our love, which is the divine spark within each of us, is more than urpassed by God’s all-encompassing love for each of us!  Friends, we are truly blessed today, even amid all that isn’t right! We must keep on after the model of our brother Jesus, one so strong, yet so fragile, like us!  Amen? Amen!

 

Each year when Advent comes round; I love hearing the words of Isaiah as we have shared and proclaimed them here today, “A herald’s voice in the desert cries—make ready the way of our God”—clear a straight path.

Advent is all about the expectant waiting.  We can think of the times we have waited for a loved one’s return, from a trip, coming home from school—our kids were 6 hours away, so only came home at the holidays and “expectant waiting” described the feeling well at seeing them again.  The arrival of a new baby is another occasion that comes under the category of expectant waiting.  For Isaiah, it is a longing for all that this expected one will bring—peace and justice that he speaks of in another scriptural passage where he announced the coming of John the Baptist who will call the people to prepare.

In Luke’s gospel which we didn’t read today, there is a longer account of who John would be and of his call to the people for what would be needed from them. We read, “Every valley will be filled in—every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight—the rough ways smooth.”  Nothing will, nor should get in the way of Jesus’ coming—neither at that first appearance nor now, in our hearts this Christmas season.

God wants to get close to us—come into our hearts and reside there, help us to find our way, living our lives to the fullest.  But often, the path to our heart isn’t straight, it is cluttered with “rocks and dead wood”—the obstacles that we put in the way,  just like the woods on our farm used to be before we made trails. It is hard for God to get through when we throw up barriers.  We need to look often into our lives and check where our focus is—our way isn’t cleared once and for all—but needs constant checking.  Are we always busy with things?–always keeping active so that no time is available for quiet reflecting, having a talk with God about the bigger issues? Even though this is a busy time, I am simply asking us all to consider balance between the “busy-ness” and the quiet.

A friend of mine told me that he takes 10 minutes or so of quiet each day, with his coffee, lights a candle, and goes to the “basement of his heart” as we spoke of last week and checks  in with the Source of All Life. He says that it makes all the difference in his days.

The beautiful reading from Isaiah today gives us a wonderfully concise picture of just who “this shoot from the stump of Jesse” will be—that in fact we should keep our focus on.  The Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, counsel, strength and reverence for God will reside in this One, we are told.  Justice will gird him and his care for all the poor and lowly will be evident.  Those who are not about justice, love and mercy will be put in their place.

There is something wonderful in the air it seems at Christmas time when folks tend to reach out unlike other times of the year—I so long to make that Christmas feeling extend throughout the year!   I believe that Isaiah was speaking of a future, peaceful time such as this; that the world only got a glimpse of when Jesus walked the earth—the wolf lying down with the lamb, the cow and bear as neighbors and so on.

All this peace and good will are our challenges my friends to bring about in our world; one small step at a time—one act of kindness at a time. We all love the stories of “paying it forward” when someone does us a kindness and we want to give them something back and instead are told, “Do something good for someone else!”

Advent also calls us to look at our world and its people with bigger eyes and larger hearts and to get at what causes people to suffer.  I was having a conversation with a family member on Thanksgiving and shared about the collection we are doing for Standing Rock and it got me to thinking—wouldn’t it be great if there were no reservations, if we all could truly be one, living together in peace—that, truly would be “the lion lying down with the lamb!”  Our country has a like opportunity right now with the “Water Savers” at Standing Rock in North Dakota.

Paul reinforces Isaiah’s message of peace and justice toward all in his letter to the Romans. He lets them and we know that our strength comes from our loving God who will stand with us, and be for us, in our pursuit of goodness, kindness, peace, mercy and justice.  We never have to do it alone.

We are moving into a season in the Church Year that for many of us; if not all of us, is that one time each year that we really manage to open up our hearts, if they have been closed, even if just for a day or two, a week or two, and that is why this holy day/holiday is loved by many. We all as individuals, peoples, nations, want, more than we would say or admit perhaps, to live in a world that truly responds in love, care, joy, belief in others, gratitude, peace, generosity, justice, regardless of what we heard in the past political campaign.  That is what Christmas is all about, extending our best selves to others, to our world and this is what truly “makes America great!”

In tribute to a prophet of our times, who died this past year, Fr. Ed Hays, who founded the Shantivanam Prayer Community in Kansas many years back; I would once again like to share his notion that the Christmas Crib and Santa Claus should go together.  I have always felt this idea to be right, even before I discovered he felt that way too! Great minds I guess….

Ed Hays was a gifted artist and writer along with being a fine human being and several Christmases ago, he designed a card depicting both the baby Jesus and Santa.   A baby was born out of love and self-giving and ever since, followers of Jesus have celebrated his coming among us by generously and lovingly giving to others at Christmas time.

I have heard some people who try to separate the two, Jesus and Santa and while I understand the intent, I don’t agree with the action. What I would say is needed, is again—balance. We should not have Santa without Jesus, nor should we have Jesus without Santa. When we balance the two we have love that is expressed. If we have Jesus and no Santa—then we fail to respond to God’s great act of love freely given—we simply must respond! If we have Santa and no Jesus, we have forgotten the reason for the celebration and our gift-giving is hollow.

Therefore Friends, my prayer for each of us is that we strive for that balance this Advent Season—make our ways straight, let nothing get in the way of our God coming into our hearts this Christmas Season, and be close to us then throughout the year, responding with love as we reach out to everyone we meet!  May God bless us all, and give us the strength to be true followers of Jesus, the Christ, our Brother and Friend.