Sermon on Isaiah 35:1-10
I have a hard message to share with you this morning. It is something I don’t want to say, but I feel called by God to say. It is a message that has been welling up inside me for some time now, and I have been waiting for the right moment to let it out. This may be shocking for some of you, but I feel I must say it: I hate Christmas. I’m a regular Ebenezer Scrooge. Actually, I don’t hate Christmas itself, I hate what we’ve made of it. I love the carols, the beautiful ancient melodies like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” the stirring modern ones like “Come, They Told Me.” But I hate the popular carols, “Jingle Bells,” or, even worse, “Jingle Bell Rock.” I love the smell of a freshly-cut Douglas Fir, but I hate the piped-in chemical smell of fake pine that permeates malls and shopping centers.
I hate that Christmas has become a commercial for fast food gift cards and consumer electronics. I hate that Santa is a far more common sight this time of year than Jesus, infant or otherwise. I hate that, a few years ago, a McDonald’s in Springfield, Missouri, a rather religiously conservative town, had a nativity scene outside using characters from their commercials. The clown was Joseph. The big purple thing was a wise man. I’m surprised they didn’t have a double cheeseburger value meal in the manger as the object of adoration. I hate that no one else found that offensive.
For the past few years, I’ve noticed something odd on Christmas morning, or whatever morning my family actually manages to celebrate Christmas. I’m not excited to open presents or to see which of our gifts were real hits. I’m not excited about spending the time with my family or eating a wonderful meal. I’m just ready to get it over with! I’ve been hearing carols since October, looking at lights since November, and been assaulted with visions of sugar plums and candy-coated iPods for far too long.
If there is a war on Christmas, it isn’t coming from people who want to wipe any mention of Christmas out of the culture. The attacks aren’t from “secular humanists”, whatever they are, or “the media”, whatever that means. Christmas is being destroyed, but it is by those of us who claim Christ as Lord. We are destroying Christmas because we are buying in to the destructive image of greed as good will being sold to us. M&Ms don’t use Santa in their commercials because they care about Christmas. They do it because it makes us, those who claim this as a special day, buy more M&Ms.
And painted over this whole commercialized, irreligious, perhaps even blasphemous cultural phenomenon is a veneer of Christmas cheer. Some Christmas cheer is fake, forced smiles and friendliness by store managers and corporate policy. Some of it is real, but cheap, cause by the addictive rush of spending money we don’t have and fueled by caffeine and sugar. And some of it is truly real, genuine friendliness and care.
But is cheer an authentic, scriptural response to the presence of God among us, God with us, Emmanuel? This morning’s Isaiah passage describes what the coming of the Lord will be like. Out of the barrenness of the desert will bloom abundant life, crocuses, which spring their delicate heads above the wintery earth before other plants, fresh stream of pure water, and even the glory of Lebanon will be made manifest there–Lebanon being known for its enormous, ancient cedars.
There will also be a path that will lead people, all people, fools and wise men, invalids and weak, all people to the house of God. The path will be safe from all the dangers faced by travelers–fierce predators, dead ends, dangerous, rocky places. All people will walk through the beauty of God’s creation along the safety of God’s path into God’s presence.
And the earth will rejoice. It will blossom and put forth life and sing. The trees and plants and animals will rejoice. “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.”
That’s something different from Christmas cheer, isn’t it? Cheer seems to me to be a forced happiness, something exterior we put on, nothing something interior we find. Cheer suggests falseness, maybe because it rhymes with veneer, maybe because “Christmas cheer” is also a euphemism for being drunk, as in, “He’s had a little too much Christmas cheer. Can someone drive him home?” Cheer has to be fed by a constant infusion of egg nog and muzak carols and shopping.
Joy is different. And it is joy that we find in the presence of God. Joy doesn’t mean always being happy, always being on the verge of breaking into song. Joy means being secure in the knowledge that our God is god, the sovereign God of creation, and some day we will walk that path through what used to be a desert, and we will be in the presence of the Lord.
Knowing that our destiny is to be with God, not in death only but in life, our physical bodies in the presence of God, knowing this can make us less than cheerful at times. Truly having faith that this is what we are working for can make the setbacks even more frustrating. The petty annoyances, the major catastrophes, the minor stumblings of those of us who walk this path, the massive victories of evil over good, these things burn all the worse. Hate, violence, selfishness, especially among those claiming to be God’s people, makes us mourn not just because it is contrary to God’s word. It hurts us because we know what it’s keeping us from.
We believe that God will come and make creation into what it was meant to be in the first place–a place of love and abundance, centered on worship. It will be a paradise, where no one will suffer, the sick will be made well, the hungry fed, the oppressed made free. And this can only happen when those who call upon the name of the Lord work together in peace and humility. Only when we stop focusing our attention on trivialities and work for the justice and righteousness of the Kingdom.
Knowing that, when we face setbacks, it can make us angry. We are still joyful in our anger, but we are certainly not cheerful. Our joy comes from being in the presence of the Lord, here and now, from knowing God-with-us. Jesus was still joyful in his anger at the moneychangers in the Temple. Martin Luther King was still joyful in his anger at the evils of segregation, his joy evident in the Kingdom-building work his anger inspired. Joy doesn’t mean always being happy.
It is joy, not happiness, not cheer, not kindness, that is the mark of the presence of God. If our joy is not overflowing into the lives of those around us, whether in the time leading up to Christmas or in the rest of the year, then we have lost the presence of God.
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.” “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.”
This is the joy of the Kingdom. This is the joy of the people of God who live in the presence of God, who call upon the name of God-with-us, Emmanuel. We rejoice with joy and singing. We come to Zion with everlasting joy and singing. This is the sign of the presence of God, joy that transforms the world. Let us be open to that joy, and let us truly be God’s people. Amen.