“Looking for Signs”
“Looking for Signs”
Fourth Sunday of Advent YEAR A, December 18, 2022
Isaiah 7:10-16 Matthew 1:18-25
Andrew Kennaly, Sandpoint, Idaho
Isaiah the prophet’s faith is inspired to remain steadfast, to trust God, even through the horrific struggle of siege warfare. The world of Isaiah’s time is in turmoil. He lives in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom Judah, where Ahaz is king in the line of David. The northern kingdom of Israel, with king Pekah forms an alliance with Syria and it’s king, King Rezin. The superpower of the day is Assyria, a constant threat to these smaller kingdoms. The northern kingdom of Israel and Syria decide that if Judah, the southern kingdom, wouldn’t join their alliance, then Judah would be destroyed.
Echoes of this dynamic continue to this day, like nine days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. President George W. Bush gave a speech to special joint session of Congress. Speaking to other nations he called on the Taleban to turn over Osama bin Laden and that leadership organization. He then said the rest of the nations “face a choice. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” (https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2001-09-21-14-bush-66411197/549664.html).
That dualistic, dialectic, either/or thinking leads to a world view of winners and losers, while negating a deeper, human connection. That’s the mindset at work in Isaiah’s time, classic tribalism, and warrior mentality, so here, the two kingdoms attack Judah to the point of a siege on Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is where the Jewish people not only worshiped at the Temple, but because the Ark of the Covenant is there it is assumed that the very presence of God lives in the place of the Holy of Holies. Now, with siege warfare there comes not only a political crisis in this land, but a spiritual crisis too. “The key question becomes: Is God really with the southern kingdom even during siege warfare?” The LORD, God Almighty, speaks to King Ahaz to try and answer this question, and says: “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or the highest heights.” But Ahaz is trembling with fear, the whole city is in a panic. The countryside around them is laid waste by these larger armies, the fields burned, the houses destroyed. They are defeated, and now, inside the city gate, their last and final stronghold, the storehouses of food are running out, and soon, starvation sets in. The inevitable is coming, and everybody knows it.
Ahaz cloaks his fear and anxiety through pious words, he even quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, and says he won’t put the Lord to the test. But Isaiah, who’s confident in God, can see that God is with the people. Through an ordinary thing like the birth of a baby boy, even amid siege warfare, Isaiah sees the sign and claims the promise that a King in the line of David will save God’s people. Immanuel, God with us. Not only that, but Isaiah says God will lay waste to the kingdoms that Ahaz is so afraid of. Indeed, God eventually will even break Assyria itself because superpowers come, and superpowers go as today’s conquerors become tomorrow’s victims. The power of Immanuel answers the question that wonders if God is really with us during the siege; through the sign of Immanuel, God’s face shines. The invitation of faith is to trust this, and even to see it.
The New Interpreter’s Bible takes a small step further into the context of this season by saying, “The power of the Immanuel sign for Christians during Advent is that it calls us to live faithfully in God’s promise to be with us and, indeed, even to have the courage of faith to test that promise when we are under siege. This siege we face may be intellectual, spiritual, or sociopolitical. They occur when we no longer believe that God is able to reverse threatening situations that confront us, even while we mask our unbelief in pious clichés.”
That means we may be more like King Ahaz than we would like to admit. We mask our own unbelief, our own doubt, that God can reverse situations that threaten. We use religious language to make us look good. But advent, an active waiting for Immanuel, calls us to be more like Isaiah, to live with faith in God’s promise to be with us, to recognize God’s living Presence even when this is hard to see, and it will likely be hard to see because we fill our lives with distractions.
With all the turmoil of our own contexts, unless you have some sort of contemplative practice, it’s very difficult to see the divine revealed in all things. Mystical faith trusts other ways of seeing, opens us to the fourth dimension of sensing, or knowing with more than our cognitive functions.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, in her book, Gift from the Sea, says “The problem is: how to remain in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off centre; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel. What is answer? There is no easy answer; no complete answer. I have only clues – shells from the sea. […] One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few; and they are more beautiful if they are few. My life at home […] lacks this quality of significance. The space is scribbled on; the time has been filled. There are so few empty pages in my engagement pad, or empty hours in the day, or empty rooms in my life in which to stand alone and find myself. Too many activities, and people, and things. Too many worthy activities, valuable things and interesting people. For it is not merely the trivial that clutters our lives, but the important as well. We can have [an overabundance] of treasures and excess of shells – where one or two would be significant.” (Quoted from Celtic Daily Prayer, Harper One, 2002 by The Northumbria Community Trust Ltd., pages 410-411).
Did you notice Joseph in Matthew’s gospel? Joseph and Mary are pledged to one another and yet she becomes pregnant. It’s right after this information is disclosed to us readers that Joseph is described as a righteous man. To be righteous means that you are just, committed to justice. The righteous made every attempt to fulfill God’s law perfectly. The unrighteous were accused of ignoring God’s law. But the law says Mary, who is likely a 14 year old young pregnant girl, should be publicly shamed, taken into the street, stoned to death.
But Joseph doesn’t do that. In fact, he decides to divorce her quietly, to spare her from that kind of fate. Even though he comes across as calm, cool, and collected, Joseph is under siege. He knows the righteous letter of the law, and yet chooses to err on the side of mercy. And yet he’s still called righteous. All the external signs would call him unrighteous, and yet that’s not the case.
Timing is everything. That’s when the angel appears in his dream; near the end of this battle of decision; right at the point where he hopes he’s doing the right thing, hopes God would still look favorably upon him, hopes Mary won’t get killed anyway. And what’s the first thing the angel says? “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.” The angel tells him not to be afraid. The presence of God’s messenger casts out fear, it clears up confusion. Joseph now has a clear vision of what God is doing in those days, even in his world with all its dangers.
Similar to how we’d prefer to be like Isaiah rather than King Ahaz, we’d also prefer to be like Joseph. He shows us what it’s like to be a disciple even before Jesus is born. That familiar patter Jesus says is illustrated: “you-have-heard-that-it-was-said-but-I-say-to-you.” There’s tension in that because what God is up to isn’t what is expected.
Joseph decides to obey this unexpected word of God as he now lives out a new and higher righteousness and responds with faith in the living God.
Like I said earlier, with all the turmoil of our own contexts, unless you have some sort of contemplative practice, it’s very difficult to see the divine revealed in all things. Mystical faith trusts other ways of seeing, opens us to sensing, or knowing with more than our cognitive functions or external guides. Joseph and Isaiah teach us a mystical path that learns from visions and subtle intuition, in situations that have stripped away all the familiar landmarks, have simplified the clutter to points of decision. They remain steadfast and trust God in the face of the siege.
God be with us as this Advent Season comes to a close. May we continue to learn the art of letting go so we may receive the beauty of simple gifts held in God’s hand, embraced by God’s love, and embodied in Christ’s presence in all things. Amen.