Brad Sullivan
Advent 3, Year A
Sunday, December 12th, 2010
Emmanuel, Houston
Isaiah 35:1-10
Canticle 15
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
In our letter from James today, he talks about waiting with patience for the coming of the Lord. The second coming of Jesus was something for which they were longing. Is it still? Jesus’ second coming seems often like a dreaded event. Maybe we’ve forgotten who Jesus was and is.
What happened at Jesus’ first coming? The blind received their sight and the lame walked, lepers were cleansed and the deaf heard, and the dead were raised up and the poor had good news preached to them. This in and of itself was lovely, and makes Jesus one heck of a nice guy, but there’s more to Jesus’ statement to John’s disciples than a list of the nice things Jesus was doing. Jesus was referring back to the passage from Isaiah that we heard today.
In this passage, Isaiah prophesied that the wilderness would be glad and the desert would rejoice because the redeemed were going to walk there and the ransomed of the Lord would return. Creation itself was going to rejoice because the people of Israel were going to return from captivity in Babylon. We often refer to this passage as being about the eschaton, the end of all time, when God will restore all of creation, correcting all of the harms done. At the time Isaiah preached, however, this passage was likely about the return of the exiles of Judah from Babylon.
The wilderness and the desert would see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of Israel’s God. The wilderness and the desert would see the ransomed people of Israel and therefore God’s glory and majesty at bringing the people out of bondage in Babylon and into the land of promise. Also in this passage, there was a group told to encourage the captives to take heart, that God would save them from captivity. The blind would see, the deaf hear, the mute speak. Take heart, God will make all things right, and also water would break forth in the wilderness, and the glory of Lebanon would be there.
Well, the glory of Lebanon was its cedar and cypress trees out of which the temple was built. So the desert and the wilderness were going to become a place of worship for God. God’s presence was going to dwell there and a very tangible, real way like in the temple in Jerusalem, as the people were passing through on their way back to Jerusalem. So the people of Israel are told they’re going to have something of the Temple, God’s holy presence with them as they travel through the wilderness on their promised journey from Babylon to Jerusalem. That calls to mind the tent, the Tabernacle that the people of Israel carried around with them during their wandering in the wilderness with Moses during the exodus from Egypt.
Isaiah is calling up images from the exodus to describe their new journey, this new exodus from Babylon, but he also brings new things into it. Even better than the tabernacle, they’ll have the temple with them this time. Now obviously they can’t carry the temple with them, but the presence of God will be with them as thought the temple were with them. The glory of Carmel will be there, possibly a reference to Mount Carmel where Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal. As much as God cared for the people of Israel during the exodus from Egypt, so will God be with the people of Israel in an even greater way in this new exodus from Babylon.
In this exodus, a highway will be there, the Holy Way, and the unclean won’t pass over it. It will be a protected way (by God) for his people. The redeemed will walk there. The ransomed (captives) will return (from Babylon) to Zion (to Jerusalem), and a highway will be where the haunt of jackals was. This haunt of jackals refers back to the previous chapter in which judgment was pronounced on Edom, the land which refused to let the Israelites pass through during the first exodus on their way to the land of Canaan. So, Edom would be turned into a haunt of jackals. Then, the haunt of jackals would become a swamp…and a highway would be there which is exactly what was not available to the Israelites on the first exodus.
God would make their journey far easier than the first wilderness journey after the exodus from Egypt. God’s glory would be with them as they traveled, like in the temple. God would drive everyone out of the way, and water would spring forth in the wilderness. This journey from Babylon would be familiar. It would be like the first exodus, but this second exodus would also be like nothing they had ever seen before.
So now, flash forward to Jesus. John’s disciples ask him if he is the one who is to come, and what does Jesus say? The blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. This list is like the promises made in Isaiah, but it’s also an expanded list. The dead are raised and the poor have good news preached to them. Yes, Jesus was the one who was to come, and he was something new. Jesus was telling John’s disciples that he was fulfilling the passage from Isaiah but obviously in a different way than before. Rather than a prophet proclaiming what would happen or what had happened, Jesus was the embodiment of the prophet’s proclamation.
God becoming human and living among us was nothing that had been seen before, totally new, and yet God had been with the people through Torah, the Temple, the prophets, and other ways. Jesus was the human embodiment of all that had come before: the embodiment of Torah, the temple, the prophets. All that God was and is, and all the ways God had been with the people of Israel were embodied in Jesus. So Jesus, the God-man was something that had never before been seen, and yet there was something very familiar about Jesus.
So now, flash forward to the second coming of Jesus, this cosmic event which James and his readers were anticipating with excitement and joy. They were waiting patiently, wanting it to happen sooner rather than later. We hear about the second coming of Jesus and it may tend to sound a little scary. There will be a thousand years of peace and harmony, but only after a thousand year tribulation. There will be earthquakes and wars and famine, and a great beast will rise. The stars will fall and the heavens will be shaken, and Jesus is going to come down clouds in glory with angels around him and one person will be taken up and another will be left.
Ok, so that doesn’t sound overly wonderful to me, but remember, these are descriptions of something the likes of which have never been seen before. The second coming of Jesus is something totally new and yet Jesus is the one who will be coming. The same Jesus who was here the first time, the same Jesus who was the embodiment of all the ways God had been with the people of Israel before is the same Jesus who will be coming again. So the second coming is something totally new and something very familiar. Of course there is going to be some fear and trembling, there is anytime God shows up, but it’s God who is showing up, not some scary killer demon thing.
At God’s coming, the wilderness and the dry land will be glad and break forth with joy and singing. The people were told, “be strong, fear not!” at God’s coming. So wait with patience the coming of the Lord. Wait with joy, and excitement, and gladness. Be strong, fear not, for the same Lord who came before is the Lord who will come again. The Lord’s coming will be something new, but it will also be something very familiar. Amen.
