Heralds of Glad Tidings

Sunday, Dec 04 2011

Speakers: Rev. James M. Rand

Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8

You know something’s afoot when Isaiah offers comfort & John the Baptizer brings good news.

John’s going to lose his head one day for leveling with King Herod.  Leveling mountains & valleys apparently wasn’t enough.  And last week, Isaiah begged God to tear open the heavens so the mountains would quake & nations tremble (Isa. 64).

These are not poster boys for “nice.”  They are unlikely bearers of comfort & gladness.  Neither one will go into the high school yearbook hall of fame as “most likely to succeed.”  Schmoozing isn’t their thing. You wouldn’t set a place for either of them at your holiday dinner.

John dresses in camel skin.  His teeth crawl with black specks.  His breath smells like the bottom of a rock in a muddy field. His favorite hors d’oeuvre? Raw locust, scented with honey.

As for Isaiah?  He just spent 39 chapters pointing out Israel’s sins, telling them they were taken to Babylonian exile because they “call evil good & good evil … & rejected the instruction of the Lord …” (Isa. 5)

Isaiah is uncouth.  And he knows it!  When God calls him to be a prophet, he fesses up: “I am a man of unclean lips, & I live among people of unclean lips” (Isa. 6).

Would you turn to those lips for comfort?

A biblical scholar might point out that the Isaiah of chapters 1-39 is different from the one who begins speaking today in chapter 40.  That’s true.  As many as three prophets wrote in Isaiah’s name, with all their words gathered in one book.

But the discovery of multiple Isaiahs is fairly recent.  Ancient Israelites & early Christians thought there was only one.

So I think it’s okay for us to take the same pre-Enlightenment attitude, & be surprised when Isaiah suddenly speaks in a gentle, reassuring voice.  The change of tone grabs our attention.

 * *

Actually, I should be careful about that.  In today’s reading it isn’t the prophet, strictly, who talks. He’s eavesdropping on a conversation in the heavenly council, & reporting back what he hears.

What he hears is God talking.  God gives instructions to divine messengers, sending them out like medieval town criers to the street corners with good news. (“Hear ye, hear ye!”)  After years of exile & lament, loss, trouble, anxiety & economic downturn, God brings a new word to the people: a word of comfort & hope.

Picture God as publisher of the world’s largest newspaper, sitting in an oak-paneled office high above the city.  Bright-eyed newsboys are huddled around.  World War II just ended & he’s breaking the news to them.  “Here’s my headline, boys: ‘War’s Over.’  No more suffering or dying or living far from home.  It’s peacetime for the world.  It’s homecoming day for the nations.’  Go out there & sell it.  When you leave this building, tell ’em they don’t have to worry or be afraid any more.  Up & down the block, let ’em hear you say, ‘Comfort, O comfort ye, my people.”

“Comfort ye, my people.”  A classical composer could do okay with that line, don’t you think?  “’Comfort ye … comfort ye, my people.”  And a little later: “Every valley …”

Imagine a composer like (it would take the right person) … someone like maybe Beethoven? I know you want me to say: H-H-Hadyn!  Franz Joseph Hadyn!  Yeah, he could do it.

Or George Frideric Handel.

The amazing thing is, before Handel’s “Messiah,” there’s Isaiah.  A cantankerous, crotchety prophet … suddenly offering “comfort.”

* *

So what does comfort look like?

First & foremost in this passage, it is the comfort of homecoming.  People that lived in exile are promised a road home.  It will be a road where the journey is not too hard.  It’s a doable trip, because the mountains & valleys have been leveled.  The stones in the road have been swept aside – rough places made smooth.  And the dangerous twists & turns where someone might go speeding off into a ditch … those have been re-engineered safely, & made straight.

 People who travel on business all week know what homecoming is like.  No more living out of a suitcase.  No more hotels that all look blandly the same.  No more waiting in airports, or the humiliation of emptying pockets & taking off shoes at security.  No more fast food on the run between meetings.  No more hotel staffers, who glance at their computer monitors before calling you by name (as if they really care about you).

Homecoming is the chance, not only to hear your name, but feel an embrace.  It’s a chance to sit in your own chair, sleep in your own bed, eat comfort food with family – food baked in the oven & cooked on the stove in anticipation of your return – & whose aroma greets you as you walk in the door.

Young adults returning from college for Christmas – they know homecoming.  So do the parents who eagerly await them.

What about a soldier returning from Iraq?  Homecoming is the comfort of letting down your guard, easing back on the adrenaline rush that was pulsing for months.  It’s the comfort of seeing loved ones in person again, flag in hand, & tear-stained cheeks, snapping photos as your platoon stands in formation, waiting to be thanked and dismissed from its mission, so you can go home together.

Let’s not forget the prisoner exchange in October, where hundreds of Palestinians were sent home, so that one Israeli, held captive by Hamas for five arduous years, could be reunited with loved ones & neighbors, accompanied by dancing in the streets.

Isaiah’s homecoming, however, is different.  It isn’t quite like any of those examples.

Unlike the drawdown of troops in the Middle East, or a prisoner swap, Isaiah’s homecoming pronouncement is not based on astute political analysis.  And unlike the end of a business trip, there’s no calculation of a final financial payoff, either.

Isaiah’s homecoming doesn’t depend on politics or money, but poetic imagination & prophetic freedom.  Isaiah sees things others miss.  He doesn’t so much describe a new social reality.  He wills it.

He speaks.  And it becomes possible.

* *

He speaks.  And others join in.  At least 500 years passed from Isaiah to John, & more like 600.  But look how Isaiah’s words are picked up & repeated by the baptizer at the Jordan!  One herald of good news transfers to the next.

It’s as if a baton is passed from one runner to the next in a relay.  That’s always the most exciting & tense moment of a race – isn’t it – when the handoff takes place?  There’s a shift from the old to the new, from the tired to the fresh, from the exhausted to the limber-legged.  There’s a chance the baton will drop … & be picked up too late.

John takes the prophetic mantle from Isaiah.  He carries the message.  He applies old words to new circumstances.

Like a runner, he receives the scroll of the prophet & dashes off.  He knows he won’t carry it too long.  Already, as he grabs the baton, he sees the next runner waiting, just ahead of the curve in the track.  “After me,” he says, “comes one whose Nike shoelaces I’m not fit to tie.”  After me comes one who will run more smoothly & beautifully than I.  Watch him, not me.  After me comes one who will set a record that will stand for the ages.

What John doesn’t say in the opening verses of Mark’s Gospel, is that Jesus too will hand off the baton.  The good news won’t end there either.

I take that back.  Maybe John (or Mark) hints at it.  Because that Gospel starts with a racing, verb-less first verse: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ …”  What follows in the rest of Mark is only part of the story.  Later, the baton will be passed again.  When Jesus has run his race & completed his work, he will say (in Matthew), “Go & baptize in my name, making disciples …”

Who are the heralds of good news?  Not Isaiah or John.  They were.  But we are.  After all the others, we are charged with carrying the good news for God.

* *

If you arrived this morning already worn out, run down, unable to put one foot in front of the other, know this: the race we run as heralds of good news is less a sprint than a journey.  Like the Tour de France bicycle race every summer, it is a long haul.  But there is time to stop & rest & refresh on the way.  There are breaks, including food … a homecoming feast regularly set, that we call Communion.  There is bread & wine for the journey, a homecoming feast on our way home to the place we call God’s “kingdom” – a place that is as much here as in heaven.

And we don’t go alone.  We go with town criers & newsboys of earlier days … business travelers & soldiers & college students & their loved ones … making our way to a place we have never been, though we know it as home … a place we do not yet see, but recognize clearly through the powers of poetic imagination & prophetic insight.

In terms of baggage for this journey, all we take is the truth that God has comfort for us.  Comfort that can save us from misguided consumerism in this holiday season. (Those who have comfort don’t need to buy & buy & buy, incurring the crushing load of debt, to show that they are loving & loved.)  We carry with us comfort that will see us through the hard times, certain that God accompanies us on this homecoming road.  Comfort, God brings, that won’t weigh us down or make the trip hard, but whose yoke is easy & burden light.

Following Isaiah & John & Jesus & myriad others, we run & move & have our being as heralds in such a way that others don’t even need us to speak it for them.  They can see the good news in our movement, because a few chapters later (52:7), Isaiah will say:

How beautiful upon the mountains

are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,

who brings good news, who announces salvation.

He means: you can always tell what kind of news is coming your way by watching how the runner runs.

And indeed, we run with lightness in our step during Advent, with a hearty skip in our stride, & bounding trust that when we come to the city, the gate will be open, the ruins will be under construction, the children fed & educated & nestled close to their loved ones.  We run as those who believe after 39 chapters & countless years of aching, comfort is now close at hand … because Christ our Savior is close too.

So, as Isaiah says toward the end of today’s chapter, we will …

run & do not grow weary, walk & not faint.

We rise up on wings like eagles

& renew our strength while waiting for the one who comes

in this season of Advent yearning.

And we will be heralds of good news by word & by deed …

In the love of Jesus Christ & to the glory of God.