It is always interesting to read what children write. Sometimes they are completely candid. This candor shows in a list someone has made of children’s letters to Santa:
“Dear Santa,
“Could you come early this year? I’ve been really super good, but I don’t know if I can last much longer. Please hurry. Love, Jordan.” Now there’s an honest young man.
“Dear Santa,
“Mommy says that you only bring presents for good little boys. That isn’t fair. (Signed) Brian.” Sounds like Brian has already failed the test for being good.
But the one I like is from Jenny:
“Dear Santa,
“Please give me a doll this year. I would like her to eat, walk, do my homework, and help me clean my room. Thank you. (Signed) Jenny.”
I understand Jenny’s Mom has asked Santa for that identical doll.
Our Advent announcement for this Sunday comes from lips of the Master himself. Jesus was in Galilee where he was already gaining quite a following. Luke tells us he was teaching in the synagogues, and “everyone praised him.”
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found today’s passage from the Old Testament for the third Sunday of Advent, the 18th verse. He read these words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then, says Luke, he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. Then the Master said something breath-taking. He said to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
This was a message that his listeners did not want to hear. Luke tells us that “all the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff” (28-29).
That’s quite a powerful reaction to just a few words. Jesus escaped, but his words generated some powerful emotions. Why? The same reason they still stir powerful emotions today. We want Jesus to stick to religion, not talk about the needs of the poor or people in prison or people with handicapping conditions. If he talked about prayer or reading the Bible, nobody would have cared. But here he was meddling with issues that hit too close to home, and that made people angry. It still does.
These words of our Lord taken from our lesson for the day from Isaiah come as close to anything in the Gospels to being Christ’s mission statement. It consists of a series of announcements, for we could substitute the word announce for proclaim. The announcements declare what he is all about. Christ has been anointed by God’s Spirit to announce good news to the poor, to announce freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. Let’s begin with the first of these announcements: to announce good news to the poor.
Wouldn’t you agree that the poor need some good news whether they live in Afghanistan, in Africa, or even in the United States of America? It’s awful to be poor, particularly at Christmas. If you think the church has too much to say about the plight of the poor, it is because Christ cared so much for them. Besides, if the church doesn’t speak up for the poor, who will? At this season of the year, the plight of the poor ought to be particularly on our mind. Christ calls us to be people of compassion.
Allan C. Emery tells a moving story in his book A Turtle on a Fencepost. It’s about someone who embodied the kind of compassion for others that Christ longs for in us. The person was Emery’s father. Emery tells about a trip his family took on a train when he was a boy. There was a kindly porter on that train, an African-American gentleman. As the porter moved about, young Allan noticed he walked with a limp. The porter told Allan that he had had an ingrown toenail. A chiropodist had worked on it the previous day, but it had become infected. Obviously he was in great pain.
The next morning Allan’s father commented upon the way the porter appeared to be in pain, and Allan explained the reason. After breakfast, much to his surprise Allan saw the porter coming out of his parents’ drawing room.
As the porter walked toward him, Allan saw that he was distressed, and as he passed him, the porter’s face appeared to fracture and he broke out crying great tears cascading down his cheeks onto his white jacket. He went into the men’s lounge, sat down upon a leather bench, put his hands over his face, and cried.
Young Allan was embarrassed to see a grown man cry, but he felt the man needed attention. So he sat beside him and waited until he had quieted down some. He was particularly concerned because the porter had just left his parents’ room. He asked, “Are you crying because your toe hurts?”
The porter replied, “No, it is because of your daddy.” This really concerned Allan, so he pressed for the story.
The porter told Allan that Allan’s mother and father had returned from breakfast and his father had immediately approached him, asking about his toe. His father told the porter that he was not a doctor, but he felt he might be able to help him. The porter was reluctant but, at Mr. Emery’s insistence, he went into the drawing room and exposed a toe, terribly inflamed and swollen. Allan’s father offered to lance it, clean it out, and bandage it to relieve the pain and expedite healing. The porter agreed and, as he told Allan about it, the porter burst out crying again. Allan asked, “Did it hurt that much?”
The porter said, “It didn’t hurt at all, and it feels fine now.”
Young Allan asked, “Then, why are you crying?”
“Well, the porter said, “while he was dressing my toe, your daddy asked me if I loved the Lord Jesus. I told him my mother did but that I did not believe as she did. Then he told me that Jesus loved me and had died for me. As I saw your daddy carefully bandaging my foot, I saw a love that was Jesus’ love and I knew I could believe it. We got down on our knees and we prayed and, now, I know I am important to Jesus and that he loves me.”
With that, says Allan Emery, the porter started crying again, happy and unashamed. When his sobs subsided, he earnestly burst out, “You know, boy, kindness can make you cry.” (1)
Well, kindness can make you cry. I believe we could take this world in a single generation if those who call themselves followers of Jesus would show that kind of compassion to others. This season of the year is a reminder that we are to be kind, particularly to those who are do not have the advantages that we do. The message of Christmas is directly aimed at people who are disadvantaged. The announcement Jesus made about his mission is, first of all, good news to the poor.
It is also freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind. Jesus’ aim was to set the oppressed free. The words “prisoners” and “the blind” are much broader than simply those who are behind bars and those whose eyes are damaged. Prisoners can be captive to a host of oppressors. People who are addicted to drugs are certainly prisoners. You can be imprisoned by self-hatred or guilt or fear or prejudice.
People can be spiritually blind just as easily as they can be physically blind, blind to the needs of those around us, blind to the ministry God has purposed for our life. Sometimes we are blind to our connection to all the rest of God’s children.
The Rev. Harry H. Pritchett, an Episcopal rector, tells an important and heart-warming story about a Christmas party that he was once a part of. The women of his church each year would invite a special education class of children with cerebral palsy for a Christmas party. These boys and girls with disabilities came to the Christmas party as guests, so that the children of the parish who were all quite healthy could put on a pageant for them. The guest children were served cookies and refreshments made by the women of the church. One of the men dressed up as Santa Claus and came to give out Christmas presents.
After two years into this project, one of the teachers in the cerebral palsy class suggested that perhaps her students could return some of the church’s generosity and hence participate in a shared Christmas festivity. Even though, says Rev. Pritchett, the church folks were tentative at first about this approach (after all, they were supposed to be helping and giving to those less fortunate at Christmas) the brave women of the church agreed to this experiment.
It was a cold, bitter rainy day when the cerebral palsy class performed the Christmas pageant at their church. There was Mary and Joseph, one little black boy and one little white girl, in wheel chairs. The angel could not keep her arms from flying in the air. The shepherds came on crutches. The Wise Men took a very long time to get from the back of the parish hall to the manger with their arms waving so, pushing their wheelchairs. It was almost impossible to understand the narrator because of her speech impediment, but everybody knew the story anyway. “No one tried to help anyone else,” reports Rev. Pritchett, “and no one felt embarrassed. It was quiet at first and then there was laughter and sometimes there were tears. The simple truth from the manger was clear some of us have cerebral palsy and some of us do not. Some of us are children and some of us are adults. Some of us are black and some of us are white. Some of us are poor and some of us are rich. But we are all human beings and we are peculiarly separate while being peculiarly united. One thing is for sure, we are all vulnerable, we are all fragile much like a baby . . .” (2)
This was a learning experience for that congregation. Some people are imprisoned by their disabilities. But other people are imprisoned by their inability to put themselves in the shoes of someone who is just as valuable to God, but has obstacles to overcome. Jesus came to announce good news to the poor, to announce freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free. And one thing more.
Christ came to announce the year of the Lord’s favor. What does that mean, “the year of the Lord’s favor”? A complete answer to that question would take more than a mere sermon. Obviously it is related to the Old Testament idea of the “Year of Jubilee” mentioned in Leviticus 25 when slaves would be freed, debts cancelled, land rested, and compassionate help would be given to those in need. To paraphrase biblical scholar N.T. Wright, Jubilee was a time when God would hit the reset button to release and rescue from everything that has crippled human life. (3)
The year of the Lord’s favor also had to do, quite obviously, with the Kingdom of God that Christ was introducing, a time when God would reign in every heart. But it also suggested the concept of grace that Christ made available to humankind. Humanity’s whole relationship was moving from an atmosphere of fear to an atmosphere of love.
As we noted, Christ’s words came from our lesson for the day from Isaiah 61. But, it’s interesting, he didn’t complete Isaiah’s thought. Listen as I read from Isaiah and see if you hear something that Jesus didn’t say, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God . . .”
Did you catch that? Jesus left off the part about “the day of vengeance of our God . . .” Do you suppose that was an accident or could this be part of his mission to correct how humanity sees God? Could this have anything to do with the fact that Jesus taught us to call God “Daddy”? Unless you had a very warped father which does sometimes happen it’s very difficult to reconcile “Daddy” and “the vengeance of God.”
Could it be that Christ’s coming was partially for the purpose of resetting our understanding of who God is? I heard about two children who were talking about the Bible. One of them was quite upset about some of the atrocities that are found in the Old Testament. The other of them, a little girl, thought for a moment and then said, “Those things must have happened before God became a Christian.”
Well, in a sense, that’s true. How can you fear the vengeance of God who wraps Himself up in a babe in a manger? Our lesson for this third Sunday of Advent is from Isaiah, but our understanding of this passage is from Christ himself. We are living in the year of the Lord’s favor. We are living in the light of the star of Bethlehem. The message of Advent and Christmas is and will always be Good News for the poor, for the disadvantaged, for the marginalized, for the oppressed, for the captive in short for all humankind. A new thing came into the world with Jesus. Welcome, my friend, to the year of the Lord’s favor.
1. Allan C. Emery with Billy Graham (W Publishing Group, 1980), pp. 45-46.
2. The Protestant Hour. Cited in the December 1998 Issue Sermon Mall, webedit@theology.org.
3. Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1996).