Ps 89 for Advent

 Maybe the preacher could take on the role of Ethan the Ezrahite. It could be useful to think of him within the words given us, or the entire corpus  of the psalm. It ends book 3 of the Psalms (a la Leviticus???).

Our broken selections start out with the steadfast love (hesed) /loyalty/fidelity of God. Later the psalm struggles with the seeming end of the promise, given the demise of the monarchy.

Clearly, well to me at least, this psalm is a pastiche of different materials from different times that then serve to ask deep abiding questions about God’s engagement with our lives and times. In that sense it is a great Advent selection.

Son of God had a royal referent to the king as God’s representative, or image, on earth in the Near East. How well do we capture it with Christ the King? 

How could we continue to use this idea of divine representative to examine Jesus Christ? See Douglas John Hall on Christ as representative in the 2nd volume of his trilogy, Professing the Faith.

This psalm refers to the national trauma of the fall of Jerusalem. Much work has occurred in trauma studies and good be a good entry point for this psalm, including the virus.

The father son language could be explored. While I concur with our current look for other divine role relationships and divine metaphors, we may well be in a time to assess this language in light of new conceptions of fatherhood. Clearly our psalm does not consider a biological relationship. So, what would be some  good ways to explore Jesus Christ as Son of God?

One could examine the ways that we could read Christ into the words of the psalm that we have been assigned, in both sections but especially lining it up with the gospels.

I would think a Lutheran would be able to use this to discuss theology of glory and theology of the cross.

At v. 19, we have a good deal of disagreement in translating faithful one/holy one or faithful people.

The creation v. chaos material on river and sea could be an allusion to Christ on the sea.

One could also explore this element of the mythic background of the OT, as other nations employed similar notions.

2 Samuel 7 for Advent 4

 Messianic promise in 2 Sam 7 Just a note on the hope here. We do not know how much hope was placed in a new David, a Messiah over the years. Our passage goes back 1000 years before the birth of Christ. If Luke is using it, others must have continued to hold the promise dear for many years.

Qumran had a dual messiah, a priestly one to reform the temple and a political one. Indeed some  more mystical Jewish sects had a deep messianic expectation of their leader just recently in New York. Followers of Moon see him as a new Christ  figure. 

From the reading on David, we get a good sense of how expectations can change over time. the word messiah and therefore Christ means anointed one. In Reformed tradition we notice that priests, prophets, and kings were anointed. 

This is a good Advent text as it links, past, present, future. I like how God, with a moreover, reverses David’s request and decides to be the giver, not receiver of gifts. Again, the issue of giving or receiving gifts is a good piece for spiritual growth.

The promise fell with the temple and the monarchy, no? It took some real interpretive magic to recast the messianic hope.

God treads lightly here with David’s desire to link church and state as a legitimation tool. If one feels bold, the right wing church embrace of the president fits into this passage.

God prefers the nobility of the tabernacle. One could work with this image as Jesus himself is a mobile tabernacle of divine presence.

One could go further and link God’s mobility to Emmanuel quite directly. The evocation of God’s solidarity offer  a great way to mention current events and seek  the divine presence within them, or over and under them

Ps. 126 for Advent 3

 Psalms of ascent may have been recited one at a time on the Temple steps. They may also be examples of internal steps within a psalm, perhaps as an aid to memory.

James L. Mays sees the psalm as “joy remembered and joy anticipated.” It is a psalm perfect for Advent in a tension between past and future.

The translation of restoration/release from captivity/returning are nettlesome and depend on which verb we are using from Hebrew. (see working preacher 20  ).

The alarm goes off. You murmur to yourself, but I was having such a good dream. (I won’t dream of going into any detail about the content of an especially good dream for some of us) Ps. 126 imagines what it would be if life could look like a Christmas dream. (A Christmas dream could make for a good sermon).

This is a dream not only of the future but one that would make up for a missed past, for the hurts, wrongs, pain of the past. It imagines a great reversal where tears are replaced by laughter. Instead of being paralyzed by fear, they act to do one of the great acts of confidence in a future to be willing to go out and sow seed., like contemporary farmers facing the crop for next year.

We try to decorate our lives now with so much tinsel, to act as a cover for troubles. Sometimes I think we want a white Christmas to cover over our sins and disappointments with a holiday that cannot bear the weight we place on it. 

It may take the position that the future  has happened in the first verses, but then pleads for change at the end. I like that perspective on prayer that one day a better future will be our past.

The emphasis here of the joy of a dream come true is linked to the English etymology of rejoice where re may have been an intensive for joy. See McCann’s refections in the NIB.

He also finds a link to Joel that never occurred to me

Is. 61 for Advent 3

I'm not going to judge if this is indeed a different section following 40-55, in making clear demarcations in the edited book that is the final form of the prophet. It clearly is in deep conversation with those preceding chapters. If you see this as separate in 3rd Isaiah, then this section speaks to people disappointed that the Promised Land being returned is a not an Eden.

This forms most of the "mission statement" of the inaugural sermon of Jesus in Lk. 4

The Spirit is allied with the servant, (see 42:1-4). Anointing has messianic meaning for 

many, as the word itself attests.. Priest, prophets, kings were anointed-anoint is related to the noun, messiah/christ/anointed one. repair and restoration key words at v. 4. this is a joint project. they act because they are empowered by the spirit.

Look, at this season, to whom the work is directed. It is not destructive work but healing and liberating work. Oppressed=anawim that could also be afflicted or quite simply the poor. Release can't help but bring up thoughts of Jubilee (see the Mary Chapin Carpenter song) from Lev. 25.

The year of the Lord's favor could be directed to this or to 49:8 that the time of favor/grace has come. In v. 4, it seems to lead to rebuilding, but notice the sense of age, many generations-the year of the Lord’s favor could be jubilee. the word vengeance could also be rescue perhaps?

 

All of the recipients are in trouble. Most of them are political/governmental victims, but brokenhearted stands out to me. It reminds me of Lincoln speaking of binding up our nation;s wounds. This is a hard time of year for the grieiving-look at what is offered them in this passage. We want the holidays to be free from trouble and grief, a vagrant hope certainly. Notice how mourning takes up vv 2,3. On the other hand, v. 3 and 10 have decorations of the heart and spirit for the season don;’t they?

 

I like this phrase-oaks of righteousness-especially when we recall that it is a relational word more than following strictures.  

 

The lectionary then skips, for some reasons, but one can always restore the verses, to v. 8. Textual issues it could be wrongdoing or it could be robbery with an offering, that would be a nice entry into worship v. social justice. Also God loves justice. Note the word, not charity, but justice.

Shame is a sense of public exposure, so it is being transformed by public acclaim.

v.10 If one wants to talk about holiday spirit, the sense of one's whole being exulting is a good place to start. Clothing image in v. ten is often picked in the NT as baptismal imagery. This reflects bridal imagery of ch. 52.

We have a natural image of new growth, a victory garden (see William brown in his cosmos book) Please note the agricultural metaphor in v. 11. In v. 3 we have plantings. This is a victory garden, see Brown's Ethos of the Cosmos

Christians are wearing our baptismal robes of the new self. Here the servant/prophet is clothed in salvation and righteousness. These are not burdens but festive garments.

 

Please note the agricultural metaphor in v. 11. In v. 3 we have plantings. This is a victory garden, see Brown's Ethos of the Cosmos

Now we have a great reversal. I am not sure who the object of derision is foreign oppressors alone or maybe internal tricksters. Notice the character of God here loving justice, hating wrongdoing.

We may be unfaithful. God remains faithful. The God of creation is continuing to be creative and will continue to pay attention to getting people back on their feet to exercise power for themselves.

Mark 1:1-8 notes

 

1.  Mark does not mess around. He announces good news/gospel. One could easily focus on needing good news in the face of lies and fake news and propaganda.

2. With son of God and no birth story, I assume he is working off the OT images in Ps, 2, 89, 110 of a representative, an image of God in our world.

3. Messiah=anointed=Christ. Calvin points to the anointed tripartite office of priest, prophet, king.

4.  The quote attributed to Isaiah is a composite quote from the Septuagint. Regard well the dirty little secret that the NT usually quotes the Greek OT, not the Hebrew. Mark uses Both Ex.23 :20 and Mal. 3:1 to create the first passage (for this see Hays in Echoes....in the Gospels: ). Both of these passage offer hope for a better future after judgement is threatened or occurs. This may be a touch on what some see as the new exodus theme in Isaiah, although this has been questioned. Mark slightly alters the Greek text to allow him to link the Lord with Jesus, but also continuing the promise of the presence of God through the wilderness.To what extent can the gospel be ready as amplifying the liberating and comforting concerns of Is. 40? The promised deliverance is not embodied in Jesus.

II Peter 3:8-15

 I just read a piece in working preacher that does not see this as apocalyptically charged. I don’t buy it, but I do agree that it touches on moral life in the long interim between the two advents of Jesus Christ. Rather, the writer here has an intersection between apocalyptic and moral life. The time gap between the promise and its fulfillment of God’s agenda is to give us time to live properly in anticipation and embrace of God’s way in the world. In that way, it has a sense of Judaism that we are to practice tikkun olam, the healing of all to make the world ready for Messiah.

I see this as an apocalyptic text since it uses elements of it to alert the reader to the oncoming, onrushing new age. 

At the same time, it may be adopting Stoic ideas and transforming them into the emerging Chrsitan context. (Some date this letter as late as 140-160). They held, after all, that the worlds begin and end in a cycle of fire. Indeed, they also linked ethics and physics into a system.

Advent is a reflection on time, and we get a vital one here on God’s sense of time (and timing) in relation to our own. Adopting Ps. 90, it shows that the divine conception of time differs from ours. If one is feeling ambitions, one could go into chronos v. kairos times a la Tillich.

Here we get some Advent virtues to live pure, blameless, peaceful lives. One could put some meat on those bones and make a fine ethical sermon for this time of year.