Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from “The Shaking Reality of Advent,” an essay by Alfred Delp in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas

Note: Alfred Delp was a Jesuit priest who was condemned as a traitor for his opposition to Adolph Hitler. He wrote this piece in a Nazi prison camp shortly before he was hanged in 1945:
There is perhaps nothing we modern people need more than to be genuinely shaken up. Where life is firm we need to sense its firmness; and where it is unstable and uncertain and has no basis, no foundation, we need to know this too and endure it.

We may ask why God has sent us into this time, why God has sent this whirlwind over the earth, why God keeps us in this chaos where all appears hopeless and dark and why there seems to be no end to this in sight. The answer is perhaps that we were living on earth in an utterly false and counterfeit security. And now God strikes the earth till it resounds, now God shakes and shatters; not to pound us with fear, but to teach us one thing—the spirit’s innermost moving and being moved.
We have stood on this earth in false pathos, in false security; in our spiritual insanity we really believed we could, with the power of our own hand and arm, bring the stars down from heaven and kindle flames of eternity in the world. We believed that with our own forces we could avert the dangers and banish night, switch off and halt the internal quaking of the universe. We believed we could harness everything and fit it into a final order that would stand.

Here is the message of Advent: with God facing us, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see God, and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we be able to guard our life from the frights and terrors into which God has let the world sink to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep, as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent, time to change things. It is time to say, “All right, it was night; but let that be over now and let us be ready for the day.” We must do this with a decision that comes out of these very horrors we have experienced and all that is connected with them; and because of this our decision will be unshakable even in uncertainty.

If we want to transform life again, if Advent is truly to come again—the Advent of home and of hearts, the Advent of the people and the nations, a coming of Christ in all this—then the great Advent question for us is whether we come out of these convulsions with this determination: yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. It is time for a waking up to begin somewhere.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1 verses 5 through 25

In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of God. But they had no children, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.

Once when he was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense-offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw the angel, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the God. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for God.” Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”

Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he went to his home.

After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said, “This is what God has done for me when I was looked upon favorably and the disgrace I have endured among my people was taken away.”

This Week's Sermon

Date: December 13, 2009

Title:Waiting for the Light: Shaking Things Up

Message Delivered By: Rev. Dr. Joe McMurray

My sister sent me this story a few years ago, which someone had sent to her, and I think it’s worth passing on to you:

“It's just a small white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas—oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it—the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma—the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else.

Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties, and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike. The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended.

Shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes.

As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, the light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford.

Well, our team ended up walloping them. We were victorious in every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat.

Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them." Mike loved kids—all kids—and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball, and lacrosse.
That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years.

For each Christmas, I followed the tradition—one year sending a group of emotionally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning, and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents.

As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there. You see, we lost Mike a few years ago due to cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad.

The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us. May we all remember Christ, who is the reason for the season, and the true Christmas spirit this year and always.
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Will you pray with me? Dear God, as the season of Christ’s birth draws ever nearer, let us be mindful of the real importance of the season. Let us not be distracted by the busy schedules, the inopportune meetings and appointments, and the endless errands that we force upon ourselves. Instead, let us be concerned with the content of the human heart, especially our own hearts, as we prepare ourselves for the birth of the one whose life we behold, whose life has become our own. And may my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.

The story of the elderly Zechariah and Elizabeth, who are told that a miracle will take place and that Elizabeth, after all her years, will finally bear a son, is one of the precursors of another great miracle story—the visit from the angel that Mary, Elizabeth’s cousin, will also conceive a child whose name will be Jesus.

But Mary and Joseph initially struggled with the news of Mary’s pregnancy, particularly with regard to the manner in which she conceived. Among the issues were how the news of her conception would be accepted by her family, her relatives, the town in which she lived and the religious authority which had very strict laws about unwed mothers.

But unlike Mary and Joseph, Zechariah and Elizabeth’s news had come at a time and place in their lives when they could not have expected an answer to their prayer. This was an answer to a prayer. The angel, Gabriel, said to Zechariah: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard.”

Zechariah was filled with such disbelief, that the first thing out of his mouth was, “How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” Now, it might be understandable to us why Zechariah had difficulty believing what the angel said. In fact, if I were Zechariah, the first thing out of my mouth might have been a rather sarcastic, “What took you so long?”

But because of his disbelief, Zechariah was punished. He lost his ability to speak until after the child was born. Elizabeth probably was overjoyed by this situation, but that’s just a guess on my part.

The strangest element of this story to me is that Zechariah doubted the result of the very thing he had been praying for. Was his prayer sincere? Did he actually know what it was he was asking? Did he believe at all that his prayer could be answered? Or was his prayer not so much for the delivery of a child as it was that he and his wife would no longer suffer from the stigma of her barrenness?

In those days, it was considered a punishment to an individual or a family if a woman was barren. However, the shame was not only directed at the woman, but at her husband, who was the head of the household, according to both the religious and the secular law.
In fact, there was also a stigma for a man and his wife not to have male children. Again, this was considered a curse from God because of bad behavior or violating the religious law.

What was Zechariah praying for that when what he asked was delivered to him, he doubted its veracity, and therefore lost his ability to speak?

In what Zechariah perhaps should have eagerly anticipated, there also came a disclaimer: be happy with what you got—especially if it’s what you asked for. Perhaps Zechariah had prayed for this miracle for so long, he forgot what it would mean to have his prayer answered in his elder years.

Regardless, the point is that Zechariah and Elizabeth, even in a time of joy, were shaken to the very foundations of their core. It took a miracle—an earthquake of huge proportion—to move them from the security of the foundation they had enjoyed for many years to a new foundation: laying a path for their son, John, the one whom they were to groom; the one who would prepare the way for the coming of the anointed one.

Zechariah and Elizabeth’s lives were shaken up at a time when they were preparing to rest, as much as they could rest, in their golden years together.

Though Alfred Delp was writing about the atrocities of his time, he may as well have been writing about the times in which we live.

Here is a man, about to be executed by a totalitarian regime that was responsible for the genocide of millions of people, who actually uses the last few precious moments of his life to write about “shaking things up” during Advent. That alone is reason enough to pay attention, though there’s much, much more value than that to what he has to say.

I’m sure Alfred Delp was tempted many times to ask God “why?” Why would you let a madman gain so much power that he could destroy such a huge part of humanity? Why would you allow such atrocities to be committed among the human race which you created?

Delp says the answer is this: we’d been living our lives under false pretenses. We believed we could best God. We believed that we could be greater than God, and that our human creations could outshine all that God had created.
We actually began to believe in our own power and negate the impact that God has on us and on the earth. We have believed in our own false securities—that somehow we could protect ourselves from the natural evolution of things—that we could live forever and sustain ourselves without end.

In some ways, a very tragic example of this might be the attack on the World Trade Center and other targets on 9/11. For so long we believed our borders were impenetrable. We no longer felt vulnerable in a world that actually thrives and sustains itself through its own vulnerability. We clung to a sense of false security, so that no matter what happened, we felt we would always be invincible.

There are many reasons why the atrocious acts of 9/11 happened. I don’t intend to oversimplify them here. Still, it should give us pause when we seek remedies to ensure that things like 9/11 never happen again. Perhaps it isn’t enough to build a bigger wall to keep people out; perhaps the signal from God is that we should follow the teaching of the one God sent to us in that very first Advent—and remove the walls; and invite people in.

Perhaps we can experience Advent in a new way—by accepting what Alfred Delp suggests: that “It is time to awaken from sleep. It is time for a waking up to begin somewhere” again.

When we become complacent, we disallow God to work through us. Sometimes we wait a lifetime to be shaken enough that it prompts us to action. And so, may we be shaken from our slumber, and may continue to follow where God is leading. Amen.