A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent year A
The Lord will give you a sign --
The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him
Emmanuel. [1]
Take
a look around at the world. All is in
turmoil. A superpower is on the move in the Middle
East. Israel and its neighboring peoples
are caught up in ongoing strife. A
political leader is in the fight of his life, and to survive, some say, he has made
an alliance with an enemy and lost the trust of his allies. No, I’m not talking about Barak Obama, the
United States Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Israeli-Palestinian struggles circa
December, 2010 -- at least, not for the moment.
I am talking about King Ahaz of Judah and his warring neighbors, of the
prophet Isaiah, and the Empire of Assyria -- circa 735 BC.
Here’s a down and dirty geopolitical sketch
of that time and place, which is the setting of today’s Old Testament story. The Assyrian Empire, centered in what is now
northern Iraq, was the superpower of the day in the Middle East. As it expanded westward toward the
Mediterranean, two smaller kingdoms in present-day Syria and northern Palestine
formed an alliance against Assyria to try to preserve their independence.
The Kingdom of Judah, in southern Palestine,
however, refused to join their alliance. Judah’s King Ahaz feared the Assyrians
too much -- and for good reason. Assyria
was the 900 pound gorilla of the day. But
the other two kings wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. They invaded Judah and besieged its capital
Jerusalem. Their plan was to set up a puppet king on Judah’s throne who would
bring that land into their alliance against Assyria. Before we come on the scene today, Isaiah the
prophet had already told the fearful King Ahaz that the invaders would not be
able to conquer Jerusalem. He need only trust in God. [2]
Now, to try to convince Ahaz, Isaiah offers
him an opportunity most of us would kill for -- to name whatever sign from God
he wants that will give him the faith he needs in this crisis: “Ask a sign of
the Lord your God;” Isaiah says to Ahaz. “Let it be as deep as the pit of Sheol or as
high as heaven.” Ahaz’s reply sounds
pious, but it is a mask for his unbelief and disobedience: “I will not ask, and
I will not put the Lord to the test!” [3]
For Isaiah, this refusal of God’s offer is
the final insult. “Isn’t it enough for
you to weary the patience of mortals, that you have to weary my God, also?” “You refuse to ask for a sign, do you? Well, God is going to give you a sign anyway,
whether you want one or not. Look, the
young woman is pregnant and will have a boy, and will name him Emmanuel --
which means God is with us. And by
the time the boy is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong,
the land before whose kings you tremble will be deserted.” [4]
When Isaiah spoke these words, they were a
promise to Ahaz for his time: that in less than the few years its takes a child
to be weaned and start to tell good from bad that the God who was with God’s people would
deliver Judah from its invaders.
Ahaz refused that sign and refused trust in
God. Instead, he sent tribute to the Assyrian King whose army
rescued Ahaz from the invaders -- but who also turned Judah into a vassal state
where the worship of Assyrian idols was demanded. Isaiah’s famous promise of the birth of
Emmanuel, it turns out, was at first simply this -- an unwanted sign to a faithless king in the
midst of a political and military crisis.
Centuries later, Matthew quoted Isaiah’s
words to Ahaz and gave them a new meaning.
To Matthew, the sign that God gave was not the unwanted birth of a boy
in the 8th century BC. It was the birth
of Jesus as Emmanuel -- God with us. [5] Matthew tells us that this sign also was
unwanted by the political powers of his
day. While Jesus Emmanuel was still too
young to know the difference between right and wrong, Herod the King tried to
kill off this sign sent by God. [6]
But whether welcome in this world or not, God comes to be with us.
In the midst of the political and military
crises of our day, what are we to make of this sign Emmanuel, so often unwanted
in similar times past? What might the
birth of God-with-us say to us as war in Afghanistan and Iraq -- which was once
Assyria -- continues, the Middle East peace process unravels yet again, as a
president fights for political survival against emboldened opponents and angry
supporters?
I am no prophet like Isaiah, and have no word
from God calling for a course of political action as he did for Ahaz. But I know that the unwanted and unasked for
sign of Jesus Emmanuel means this at least: that God cares enough about in our
troubled world to show up and be with us -- whether we want God to or not! God will not leave us alone, even in our
worst moments.
God refuses to take our “No” for an answer. Faithless, disobedient, destructive of our own
lives and others’ live as we may be, God with
Republicans and Democrats in Washington; God with Palestinians and God
with Israelis; God with American forces in Afghanistan and God with the Afghan
people, yes, even God with Taliban. God with us to challenge us in our folly, our
dishonesty, our disobedience, our violence, and our unbelief; God with us to
call us to new and better ways of living; God with us, also, as the angel tells
the dreaming Joseph, to save us from our sins;
[7]
God with us no matter what kind of mess
we make of the world and of our lives.
The sign is Emmanuel, God with us, the God
who comes to be with us, the God who comes to love us, whether we want God or
not!
Emmanuel – God with us!
Thanks be to God!
The Rev. Jack Zamboni
December 19, 2010