& for a while things were cold

they were scared down in their holes
 


I'm tired;
I'm tired of another school shooting,
I'm tired of the short, dark days,
I'm tired of the Christmas ads peddling the faux-good news of consumerism,
I'm tired of fighting with the furnace,
I'm tired of worrying about the budget,
I'm tired to watching people work hard, do the right thing, and struggle day in and day out,
I'm tired of all the disappointed hopes,
I'm tired of how it seems to get harder and harder just to keep up hope,
I'm tired of how Christmas always promises more than it delivers;

because the truth is;
the same promises of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All which prompt us to rejoice during these cold, dark days of Advent,
are the very-same promises that make this time so difficult.

I'm just tired,
and at the end of the day, I guess what I'm truly tired of is wondering if Jesus is the one...


I'm tired, sisters and brothers,
and today of all days, all I wanted was a reprieve,
I wanted to sing 'Joy to the World,'
I mean, for heaven's sake, the budget got pushed to its limits buying presents,
in an already busy week I tried to clear enough time to get the tree and lights up,
and in the paper I had to read about yet another senseless school shooting.


So, yes, I'm tired.
I'm tired and I've given everything I have to just put on a smile and get here,
so in light of all that keep us exhausted, today's gospel practically feels like an insult;
today we hear about John pacing in his dank, dark prison cell wondering if Jesus is the one!


Couldn't this reading have come earlier, or couldn’t we just pretend it isn't in the Bible at all?!?!

Couldn't we all just pretend these days of waiting are easier; that we're not all struggling in one way or another?


The thing, though, is that often the gospel is more truthful about ourselves than we are.

As we do our best to paste a smile on and go to yet another holiday party,
as we come celebrate Gaudete, or joy, Saturday/Sunday pretending our last thread of hope isn’t about to snap,
the Gospel refuses to play along with the charade.


Instead of insisting we sing 'Silent Night' today,
Matthew holds up a mirror to our world that isn't silent so much as it is screaming,
Matthew holds up a mirror to all our doubt, our worry, our fear...
 
As much as we may want to avoid the ghastly reflection of our frailty, our feeble knees, our brokenness, our weak hands,
Matthew's testimony to God's Good News will allow us not shallow salvation,
Matthew's testimony will not proclaim a God who can't meet all of our hopes and fears.

So today we meet again the man we heard last week confidently proclaiming, 'Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees,"
now, however, this confident preacher has landed in the clink;
and doubt is lying precariously close to his fearful heart,
and the ax has, apparently, been moved from the root to John's neck...

That's not what we want to hear so close to Christmas,
for pete's sake, Christmas Eve is less than 10 days away!

Can't the messiah just pick up the sword and vanquish the enemies of the Good News already?!?


Because the terrible truth is, the same forces that have the power to simply toss aside this John,
are at this very moment rising up against this Jesus we hope will save us...

That isn't the only terrible truth, either;
despite all the years that separate us from Jesus' life,
the same forces that put John in his cell are bearing down on us too; aren't they?

For as safe as we like to pretend our life is at the end of the day,
for as freely as we come and go,
we know John's prison,
his doubts,
his anxieties,
his fears...

There's an Advent expression, "Watch & Wait,"
but the truth is, these days it feels more like "Wonder & Worry."
Worry and Wonder...


Because behind all those twinkling lights we've put on the tree,
behind even the millionth playing of 'Sing We Merrily'
are more than enough doubts and fears,
doubts and fears we worry we'll never be delivered from.


The truth is, our life isn't as put together as the family picture we send out with the Christmas cards;
the truth is our world isn't as bright and cheerful as the Christmas ads;
the truth is we know less about 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' than we do about the cry, "O' Come, O' Come Emmanuel,"
because we need God to come and save us...

The truth is, for as much as we may pretend otherwise,
we know John's prison cell,
we know the dull ache of feeble knees from pacing all day,
we know the raw, weak hands from chewed nails.

 
The truth is, we wish Jesus would have given John a straight answer, not a response that seems to draw all our questions into question.

'Go and tell John what you hear and see;'
Jesus said.
"(T)hat the blind see, the lame walk, leapers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the wretched have Good News brought to them.'


The truth is, behind all those twinkling lights we've strung,
we're the wretched;
the truth is that although we may be able to see, we're the blind;
although we may be able to walk, we're the lame;
although we may be Zestfully clean, as the old ad went, we're leapers,
although we may be able to hear, we're the deaf,
and although we may be able to breath, we're the dead...

 
We're the dead,
& we need to be given life because all we've managed to do on our own is extinguish it;
so no amount of eggnog,
Holiday door-busters,
or stations playing Christmas music nonstop can revive us...

 
That's the truth,
the truth of Advent,
the truth of why it's so hard to wait,
the truth of why today's Gospel makes us so uncomfortable.

Over and over again we've heard promises of 'peace on earth' and goodwill to all,
but what we see doesn't fit with all those refrains we hear.

Despite our best efforts, we've done little to herald 'glory to the newborn king.'
That last gift we didn't really need but purchased anyway didn't bring peace any closer than an overdraft fee,
that last Christmas special we watched yet again didn't create anymore goodwill than ad revenue...


And that, I'm telling you, is why we're all so tired;
we've had purchasable good news hocked to us by corporation after corporation since Halloween;
and hopeless creatures that we are, we've taken these companies at their word, and they've just taken our money in response.

We've traded our hard earned money for some toy that can never grant us sight, legs to stand upon, cleansed hearts, or ears to hear;
we've given our faith to a corporation that will never give us what we really need,
our lives raised from death...

That, finally, is the good news of today's challenging Gospel;
unlike the ads which only depict the perfect life and have no ability to deliver such a promise,
the Gospel depicts a savior who goes to those places that will never make it into a commercial but we have to live in day in and day out;
and delivers us from that place we need to be saved from;
the places we can't bear to look at,
the places that take our legs out from under us,
the places that dirty our Christmas ensemble,
the places we can't bear to hear the cries rising from,
the places that take our life,
the places that, finally, reveal we are the wretched;

and from that very place where only Jesus dares to go and says even here good news can come,
from those places Jesus declares to us what Isaiah said so long before him,
strengthen the weak hands,
make firm the feeble knees,
declare to our fearful hearts,
"hear this:
Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
Your God is here to save you."


Here
where we live,
where we need the good news to come.
 
As much as we'd rather look into the television, broadcasting another Christmas special,
the Good News today is that the Gospel is true,
not a too good for life studio-set.
 
The good news today is that in the messy world where we wait, day in and day out, for the good news to come,
is the very world where God does come,
O' Come, O' Come Emmanuel;
Emmanuel God with Us,
God for us.
Amen

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