One of my favorite Old Testament scholars, Walter Bruegemann, reflecting on Isaiah 35, commented that “Israel’s doxologies are characteristically against the data.” I love that. In other words… The data…what’s really going on in their world…simply wouldn’t have automatically raised doxologies…or songs of praise from most folks. But Israel? That’s what Israel does…again and again. Raise their songs of praise just when it seems there is absolutely nothing to be joyful about. For instance…If you read Isaiah 34….you realize the situation Israel is in stinks. Literally. It talks about the stench of slaughtered corpses and mountains flowing with the blood of the wounded and the earth’s soil turned to poisonous sulfur. Things appear to be rotten to the core. Yet, right there…in the midst of that desolation…we get the breathtakingly beautiful words of hope in chapter 35.
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear!
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand (that sulphurous soil) shall become a pool,
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
There is simply no data in the state of national affairs to support this hope. There is no justification for joy in their circumstances. Yet….they do it anyway. As Bruggemann says… this is a basic characteristic of who Israel is. In the face of all that is bad…they praise God for being good. They dare to rejoice….to sing a doxology of praise…anyway.
Well, my friends…the data is bad. OUR data is bad. The earth is choking on the poisons we put in our air and water and soil. The human carnage worldwide continues…with nearly 50,000 killed just this year in Syria alone…and many more in Iraq, Sudan, Burma, Afghanistan, and more. Cancer and other diseases ravage millions around the planet. 65 million people in our world are refugees….they have been forced to flee their homes and communities in the face of unthinkable crises. Think about that — 1 in every 113 people worldwide is a refugee. People are still homeless in our own communities. People are hungry. People are out of work. And in the meantime, Hate and Fear and Anger and Lies run rampant on our televisions and radios and computers. Yes, the data is bad. It stinks.
Yet, this Sunday is “Gaudete” Sunday in Advent…and we are encouraged to “rejoice” anyway. In spite of the data. We are encouraged to praise God, and dare to rejoice in a future that we can’t see yet…but that we believe will come. A future where the earth is restored from its devastation and waters flow clean and flowers bloom … a future where those who are injured in body and mind and spirit find healing…a future where no one loses their way — not even the foolish – where no one is misled by greed or insecurity or suspicion….a future where people do not use violence to solve problems. That is the future God holds for us…the future we believe in…and on this Sunday, we have the audacity to live as if it were already true. We sing a song of joy…against the data.
In his book, Orbiting Jupiter, Gary Schmidt writes a wonderful description of this kind of hope…that persists despite the circumstances. In the midst of a heartbreaking narrative, he relates an experience two boys have with their horse, Quintus Sertorius, on a sunny day in the midst of winter. Jack, the 12 year old who narrates the story, says — “The sun was out and the sky too bright a blue to look at as the snow melted off the yews and came clumping down. The cows were as restless as spring, thinking there might be new grass out in the fields, even though the snow was still pretty deep.
And Quintus Sertorius would not stay in his stall, so after school Joseph and I took him out of the paddock to let him walk around … Quintus Sertorius snorted and nickered and swished his tail high and did everything he could to tell us how happy he was that spring was coming, even though it was still a long way off.
Sometimes it’s like that. You know something good is coming, and even though it’s not there yet, still, just knowing its coming is enough to make you snort and nicker. Sort of.”
Yeah…just knowing its coming is enough to make you snort and nicker…sort of. Gaudete Sunday is our time to snort and nicker in the midst of the winter cold…because we know something good is coming. God is coming. Indeed, God has come…”God with us”…born to Mary and Joseph in a poor Middle Eastern village…to heal the sick and forgive the unforgiveable and raise the dead and love the unlovable and save the world. And God who still comes to be ”God with us” today… in the Middle East – in Syria and Iraq … in our hospital rooms and homeless shelters…. with the refugees…with the fearful and anxious, the abused and the despised, the rejected and the violated. God comes to our world….to save us. God IS with us. And that is why, in the face of the data…we strengthen our weak hands, make firm our feeble knees….we cast aside the timidity that would have us cower in the face of the future. And we declare to the world – “Be strong…and do not fear! God is HERE.” Drop your news feed. Turn off the TV and the radio. Strengthen your weak hands and make firm your knees…roll up your sleeves and love your neighbors and sing a song of praise because this is who we are. This is what characterizes people of faith. Make it so THIS is what characterizes YOU. God will right what is wrong. God will heal what is broken. God will gently care for the foolish. God will keep us safe. And the flowers WILL bloom. So we rejoice…we snort and snicker and prance – sort of — because we trust in God. Data be damned.
Amen
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