What Shall We Cry?
David C. Myers
December 7, 2008
Advent - 2
Isaiah 40:1 - 11; 61:1 - 2
Mark 1:1 - 8
Text: "A voice says, 'Cry out!' and I said, 'What shall I cry?'" . . . Isaiah 40:6
A voice says "Cry!"
Do you hear it - the voice? Maybe it's the same voice Isaiah heard, a voice telling him to cry aloud, to shout, to proclaim a message. Isaiah knew Whose voice it was, this voice that said "Cry!" It was the voice of God.
And Isaiah said, "What shall I cry?"
Good question, Isaiah. A very good question. There are days in these tough economic times when people just want to empty their tears. There are days we are faced with so much uncertainty.
But we are not the only ones to have experienced that. We only need be reminded of the old hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." People have cried to the Lord for help almost from the time of creation - but not only cried, they have had faith in the God that "helped" in ages past.
For example, we have nothing on Isaiah. You think we have economic troubles? Isaiah and his people had been banished from their homeland, their beloved capital city and religious center had been destroyed and now they were living in forced exile in Babylon. Isaiah and his people languished in exile, far from his homeland, his beloved city of Jerusalem. His was a time when hopelessness is the accepted norm. So what can you cry, Isaiah, what can you announce? In the wilderness of exile, what is there to say?
And at first, Isaiah's response is a very human one, "All people are grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades; when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass." (Isaiah 40: 6b-7a)
Those are melancholy words, aren't they? Words of someone who has seen the good and the bad of life, someone who has watched the bright promise of youth fade into unfulfilled dreams of mid and later life. They are the words of one who has experienced what disappointment is all about. Above all, they are the words of someone who knows first-hand the frailty of humankind. "Surely the people are grass," says the prophet, and you can picture him saying it with a sad shake of the head.
During Advent, as a people in waiting we, too, hear the voice that says, "Cry!"
No doubt our response could be much like Isaiah's. As we look around us and see our economy shaken to its very foundations we too may be tempted by despair. It is hard to go on when people worry about their jobs, their retirement savings, or whether or not they can educate their children. Sometimes we just go about the everyday routine and feel like we are trapped in a wilderness.
The German theologians have a world for this. "Angst."
And you might answer, "What shall I cry?" Surely the people are grass, surely the world is wasteland; surely life is sour and sad. There is every reason to despair.
So what is the Advent message for today? On our Advent wreaths we light candles that stand for different things. Last week we lit the candle of "hope". This week the candle of "peace". Does this temper the "cry" we make? What shall be our voice in the wilderness? Who is this Lord that we await? What is God's Kingdom really like? What shall we cry?
Isaiah, despite his despair, also pointed to the voice crying in the wilderness saying, "Prepare the way for the Lord. . . . Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain shall be made low. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed."
John the Baptist' cry was that One is coming more powerful than he. "After me," said John, "comes One Who is mightier than I . . . I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." This too is the Advent message.
How do we hear the message of promise and hope that comes in this season of Advent? A message that salvation is on the way, that the glory of the Lord will be revealed, that the mountains of injustice and the valleys of despair will be leveled, that all flesh shall see it together?
If you are like me, sometimes we have to strain to hear that message. There are more homeless now in this country than ever before; we are teetering on an economic tightrope, and we are fighting wars on two fronts. And many say it will get worse before it gets better.
The message of hope is often muffled by the cloak of skepticism we keep wrapped around ourselves. During these tough times; well, let's be blunt - it is not fashionable to hope. Hope seems so naïve, so unrealistic, so . . . well, impossible.
But if that's the bad news, it's time to hear the good news. Who could have guessed that in Isaiah's time that the exile would end and Jerusalem would again become a holy city where the faithful would sing songs in the temple? Sometimes miracles are big!
More often the miracles are not like a neon sign in the sky, but more like the obscure birth of a babe born in poverty in a manger - an animal feeding trough. Who could have guessed that a carpenter's son from the tiny, Podunk-town of Nazareth would turn the world upside down?
But God's hope is undeniable and the seemingly impossible happens, again and again. And each time it confounds our best laid plans, our statistical tables. How else can we explain the "God-with-us" of Christmas, the birth of a child Who would grow to be our Savior?
That birth is a reminder that no one can measure the effect of small, faithful actions. Sometimes, in comparison to the powers of this world, such actions seem pitifully puny. Those who are faithful may feel they indeed that they are voices crying in the wilderness.
Back in the 50's a poor woman in Montgomery, Alabama was tired of always having to sit in the back of the bus, so Rosa Parks - a voice in the wilderness - decided she would sit in the front of the bus. And what that led to was a new chapter in the history of the struggle for equality.
Indeed, the Lord did exalt those of low degree and we continue to learn that we - across the globe - all belong to each other. As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, we are tied together.
" . . . in a single garment of destiny. Whatever effects one directly affects all immediately. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." [ Strength to Love, p. 70]
We belong to one another. The stranger who lives across the ocean and the stranger who lives next door belong to me.
What shall we cry?
Let's hear again the words of the prophet Isaiah - the one who heard God's call to cry - to be a prophet - and plaintively asked what to cry. And after acknowledging all that gives rise to pessimism and skepticism, he cried out a new cry, . . . the words that later became words that define Jesus ministry and mission.
A modern translation of those words reads: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because God gave Me some special Good News to bring to the poor and discouraged folk. To strengthen and uplift all those who are falling down. To let loose every man, woman, and child who is being held back by something. To let them know that this year, 2008, 2009, is the year of the Lord to set things straight."
God came into the world to teach us just this. God came as a baby to peasant, teenage parents of questionable lineage, in a small, forgotten east Podunk type of town called Nazareth. And this baby, in about 30 years, turned the world on its end, and left the mighty rulers of that time as mere footnotes to the history books.
What shall we cry? What shall this church cry out to announce the coming of the Lord? To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord?
Maybe our cry will be about the Christmas Spirit, that spirit of gift-giving and generosity, of goodwill toward all:
• Of Christmas Stockings and carols to shut-ins,
• Of shoeboxes to the children in need,
• To fund a dentist in Nicaragua so the very poor can have teeth with which to chew,
• Of meals to the homeless at Lady of the Lourdes,
• Of cows so women in Nicaragua can sustain a family,
• Of a church that struggles a little harder in tough times to pay all its apportionments so that the connectional ministry of United Methodists can minister across the globe.
That's the truth that runs through all of life. God, through Jesus Christ is love in the flesh, born in the world, born in each and every one of us. God became flesh and dwelt among us.
In this season let's make "peace on earth and goodwill to all" more than just rhetoric. Like Isaiah whose first cry was, "All people are grass, . . . the grass withers, the flower fades, . . . surely the people are grass." We too are weary of all the empty words, weary of all the trumpeting of politicians and their empty promises - but we also know how God works, that small things come to great fruition. That the people of God, working in God's Spirit can make great changes.
And so we cry out, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, for we have been anointed to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, give food to the hungry, clothes to the naked and proclaim that we are working to make this the acceptable year of the Lord."