The text for Sunday was Luke 1:67-80, the Benedictus.
I have no doubt that we’re
sitting in the shadow of death.
This week, a man walked into
Community Christian Church in Tempe, shouting about the gay pride flag hanging
from their belltower. He threatened to pay picketers to come to the church, and
spread rumors about pedophiles in their church. He said he felt empowered to
stop and say something because Trump is the president elect and he knew most
people agreed with him. For those of you who don’t know, our church exists because
of Community Christian Church.
I have no doubt that we’re
sitting in the shadow of death.
Last Sunday, a woman I went to
college with was murdered by her husband, who then committed suicide. They left
a 10 year old, 5 year old and 3 year old behind. The two youngest of the three
girls were later found alone in their home
in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio by the aunt who called 911. Hours later, the
bodies of their parents were found on an access road to a park near their home.
No one knows for sure why it happened. Unlike most of these stories, there was
no history of violence in the family.
I have no doubt that we’re
sitting in the shadow of death.
I spoke with a woman this week
who was looking for a place to give snuggly baby clothes and toys in honor of
her nephew, who died during birth. Her sister has requested that their friends
and family honor and mourn Jacob in this way, by giving items appropriate for
the age he would be had he lived. Last year, Jacob’s mother, Martha, stopped
to give Christmas clothes and toys appropriate for a 3 month old to a charity
when a young woman with an infant came in, asking for clothes and toys. They’d
just entered transitional housing. Martha was sure she saw a glimpse of the
Christ child.
I have no doubt we’re sitting
in the shadow of death.
Undoubtedly, this imagery of
the shadow of death began with the idea of Sheol, the place of the dead where
everyone went, regardless of how their life went. Like the Greek Hades, it was
a shadowy place, never day nor night, just as it was neither good nor bad.
Sheol, for ancient Israelites, was at the end of the waters at the edge of the
world, held back by gates. Shadows literally came with death. We, who I’d guess
have as many thoughts on the afterlife as people in the room, and maybe more,
definitely don’t think about a shadowy place at the end of the world, though
there have been a couple scifi movies who put it at the end of the universe.
And still, I can say: I have no doubt we’re sitting in the shadow of death.
My family is waiting for a
woman who has been part of our family in some way for over thirty years to die.
Her story, including the cancer that is slowly killing her, is a story of
alcohol and drug abuse, of imprisoned partners, of prostitution and jail time. It’s
also why I say she’s part of our family in some way because those ways have
been varied in those thirty years. Both of her sons have nearly died in the
last year from drug-related illnesses. Their livelihood was based in drug
trafficking, so the money has dried up as well. The foster system failed them,
too, removing and returning them to her multiple times in their childhood, but
never getting them somewhere that allowed them to leave their mother’s habits
behind.
I have no doubt we’re sitting
in the shadow of death.
And as I tell these stories I’m
struck by their sheer rawness, and difficulty, and impoliteness. These aren’t
things we talk about often, or together, or publicly. These are the things we
keep quiet and hope they never happen again, knowing they probably will. As I
drive down the road with “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,” coming
from the radio, the song seems wildly out of place in some way, not just
because nothing here looks like Currier & Ives.
We often read from the prophet
Isaiah during Advent. Today, I remind you of the call of Isaiah 64, “Oh that
you would tear open the heavens and come down!”
There’s a fabulous, raw Advent
devotional you can check out, with the #rendtheheavens, drawing from this
prayer from Isaiah, this prayer for something else, for divine intervention
here and now.
Oh that you would tear open the
heavens and come down,
So that the mountains would
quake at your presence—
As when fire kindles brushwood
And the fire causes water to
boil—
To make known your name to your
adversaries,
So that the nations might
tremble at your presence!
Tear open the heavens and come
down! Or as Zechariah puts it: save us from this shadow of death.
It is why we celebrate Advent
before Christmas, after all, hoping that God will tear the heavens open and
come down among us. It’s why we first name the brokenness that means we need a
Savior, rather than jumping ahead to something far more pleasing, like an
infant in a manger.
And here, I am grateful for the
wisdom and goodness of God, who did not opt to give us exactly what we wanted.
Instead, we get these words from Zechariah, upon the birth of his son, John, a
prophet before Jesus:
You,
child, will be called a prophet of the Most High,
for
you will go before the Lord to prepare his way.
You
will tell his people how to be saved
through
the forgiveness of their sins.
Because
of our God’s deep compassion,
the
dawn from heaven will break upon us,
to give light to those who are
sitting in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide us on the path of peace.”
We get the promise of the dawn
from heaven breaking upon us, the dayspring that makes it into many of our
hymns. The shadow of death is chased away, yes, but not in a violent ripping
open to end what is happening now. That’s a solution of brokenness, after all.
That’s like mom coming in thanks to the screams in the bedroom where kids were
playing and no one being happy once it’s over. God’s solution is one of
wholeness: a dawn from heaven, which promises something new rather than
destruction.
It’s a reminder that God
creates, not destroys. And God creates for us, out of deep compassion for us.
We’re promised the opposite of
tearing open the heavens, coming down, and everything trembling at the power of
God: peace, shalom, wholeness
It’s hard to know exactly what
those words mean. We know they point away from violence, and addiction, death
and loss. We know they point toward love. We know they heal what is broken,
replace what is shattered. We need the Christ child to help us understand more
fully. Remaking the world in our own image tends to make things worse, not
better. We rend the heavens; God sends the dawn of a new way of being.
Now, as we sit in the shadow of
death, waiting for the dawn, the coming of Christ, we carry with us this deepest
hope and trust: the shadow of death does not prevail.
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