A Liberating Love

A sermon for the third Sunday of Advent preached at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on December 11, 2011.

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
Luke 1:47-55
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

Exile is not the end

Upon returning to their homeland after 150 years of displacement, the people of Israel were confronted with a picture of hopeless desolation.

Here is a land that does not look at all like the stories that were told and passed on through the generations in Babylon.

Here is a land of ruins. A land of devastation.

But the prophet sees beyond this.
“What is” is not “what must be”

We are tempted at times when looking at devastations and difficulties in our midst to become resigned to the necessity and inevitability of painful destruction and tragedy.

The prophet looks at the world and grieves what it is – but receives new vision of the hope of God’s love:

“They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” (Isaiah 61:4)

God will do this. God who is faithful to continue the work of redeeming and transforming what everyone else may call a “lost cause.”

This is the shape of God’s love.

In Advent we take part in the expectant waiting for God’s coming to us.

We sing with longing – O come O come Emmanuel.

Emmanuel. God with us.

Light in the midst of our darkness.

Hope in the midst of our despair.

Rest in the midst of our anxious toil.

God with us. Emmanuel.

Our lives, our communities at times become unrecognizable to us.
They become ruins which faintly point to what once was.

Perhaps they’ve been weather-worn – years of economic or personal difficulties, family tragedies, family feuds.

Perhaps they’ve become disfigured by hatred or anger that never sought resolution.

Perhaps they’ve become enslaved to fear: fear of becoming an object of hate or anger by saying or doing the “wrong thing” and receiving public reaction.

We look around at our own lives and the life of this community and see so many good people with so many good things to contribute to the future of this place.

But we also see a shadow that hangs over these people. The shadow of fear, the shadow of entrenched hatred – resentment bitterness complaint after complaint.

This shadow of fear and hatred clouds our vision as members of this community. This darkness needs to be revealed and chased away by the light of truthful and loving action.

We must be in this place, in this community, in this nation, in this world – we must be in this place, the light of God’s love.

The church has a role in the community. The church is to be God’s love to the community. To remind the community that there is a better way.

In our text today from the prophet Isaiah we read the prophet’s declaration of what God is calling him to do through the power of the Holy Spirit:

It is a mission of love.

“he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,”
to those who have felt the oppression of fear and anger and hate in themselves or from others – God is giving good news: love will triumph over hate – perfect love drives away fear –

“to bind up the brokenhearted,”
those who have been hurt or insulted or been beat down by circumstances of loss or tragedy – God calls us to comfort – to be God’s comfort to them just as we have received comfort from God
as we read in 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

“to proclaim liberty to the captives,”
those who feel enslaved to fear of people, fear of the uncertainty of the future
those who are enslaved to sins or addictions or literally enslaved to the will of another – God calls us to proclaim liberty, the new possibilities, the new road in the desert that God’s Spirit of grace can make. The liberty of love to free us from the bondage to our guilt, our hatreds and bitterness.

“and release to the prisoners;”
those who are weighed down by circumstances, imprisoned by debts that they cannot repay social, economic, or otherwise – God calls us to proclaim release, to be the love of God in the world is to consider the needs of the “least of these my brethren” and to seek their release from the imprisonment of circumstance and the imprisonment of their own fear or shame.

There are many around us and many of us who grieve and mourn the ruins we see around us and it does no good to ignore the presence of darkness in the world and it does no good to be silent in the midst of it. Let us join with the prophet in proclaiming good news.

But before we can proclaim God’s words of liberation and be God’s love to others, we must in a new way be reminded of that love and feel afresh that liberation.

God’s good news to our own oppression, God’s binding up to our own brokenheartedness, God’s liberty to our own captivity, and God’s release to our own imprisonment.

As we hear God’s liberation, let us rejoice in God’s love.
The new possibilities, the freedom to change ourselves and the world in which we live.

Hear and receive God’s love today. For the first time or hear it and let it renew your spirit.

It is only as we have been comforted that we can be a comfort to others. It is only as we learn the radical nature of God’s all-forgiving, all-renewing love that we can teach that love by the example of our lives.

Just as God has come to our mourning, our frustration, our despair and given us the comfort of God’s hope and the new possibilities through God’s love poured into our hearts, so let us proclaim God’s comfort to others “who mourn…to give them” in the words of the prophet, “a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. “

May all of us here, as we receive God’s radical love and breathe afresh God’s grace toward all of our sins and past failings and God’s promise of hope in the midst of ruins,
May all of us here become “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.” – the glory of God’s new life, of God’s transforming love.

In this season of Advent let us see the full character of Emmanuel, God with us.

God is not distant. God is here in our midst, pouring God’s love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

Let us not ignore God or resist God’s love.

And then let us take up the prophet’s call to announce this good news in word and deed to one another and to this community.

Love can give new life to us, love can give new life to our relationships with others, love can give new life to this community.

Let God’s love give us a new vision of who we are and who we can be as individuals and as a community.

“For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.”

Come, Emmanuel, Come.

Amen.