Sermon Is. 35:1-10 Lk. 1:47-55

Advent is a time of waiting to see real change, a transformation, and preparing for it. In passing, I mentioned how depressing it is to see the ruins of industrial plants. it is uplifting to see restoration of the beautiful buildings like the IRT or Hilbert theater in Indianapolis.  People who have visited Israel will remark on seeing row after row of fruit crops in the formerly barren desert. In our own country, California is an agricultural giant for one reason:water for irrigation. Up at Trinity Pres in Rushville, the basement was in poor shape. They cleaned up one room and use it as a warehouse to give away shoes to the needy. They gave away almost 100 pairs of shoes last week. I love seeing abandoned lots in cities become community gardens for the poor. One day schools will look like palaces and hospitals will be converted into amusement parks.

life from destruction goes back and forth from nature to us a massive renewal project of all Creation-far to exceed the miracles of the exodus of water from the rock, it imagines a world that looks like a water park.

 

We read the Magnifcat often in Advent, so it has lost the edge of the revolutionary thought of Mary. She sees her pregnancy as vindication of the poor, with her as the representative. If God selects a humble girl such as Mary to be the instrument of a new world order, then anything can happen. Just as the wilderness is imagined as a garden, so will social life be changed. The poor will be safe form the rich; the mighty will no longer have a throne to lord it over others. MLK spoke of the content of our character, not the color of our skin. in a similar way, Mary says that leadership will emerge from a boatload of talent, not just a fat wallet. 

 

Everybody faces emotional and spiritual dry places. It is a mistake to think that somehow we will avoid them. They are part of the course. With all of the frenzied preparations,drooping hands are a common feature of trudging through the holidays. Drooping hands to me signal exhaustion. Even when we feel as if we wander in unfamiliar  wastelands, No human heart can ever dry up. All it needs is a little tending, like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. It may seem as if our very souls have shriveled to the point of being unrecognizable even to ourselves. Every human spirit can flower. You're sick and have a hard time remembering feeling really good. Our passages look toward health, well being and restoration. One day we will not hear the word cancer, just as we no longer hear small pox or polio.

 

Weak knees could come from fear or love, or both, remember how seeing a special someone can get you weak in the knees. . For a while the Christmas landscape seeks to replicate the hope of Is. 35. People actually do sing. We, at least for a moment, obtain joy and gladness in the season. Even for a bit when people sing silent Night by candlelight, sorrow and sighing flee away as fast as any reindeer on a flying sleigh. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas fits the cards in the mailbox, the candles in the windows, but it can live inside us and be glimpsed in our institutions too. I like hearing the bell ringers for the salvation Army. I like that offices have Christmas parties, and that the children get a long break for Christmas. those all light of candle of joy down the line that makes the holiday, the holy day blaze with light.