One of the best parts of fatherhood is getting to read all those fun kids’ books! One of my favorites was a Richard Scarry series with Ali Cat, Pickles Pig & friends. One of those friends was Mr. Fixit Fox, the neighborhood handiman who was always rushing off to repair a fender or a washer or a gutter. Something had always been broken! Mr. Fixit’s job was never done.
Scriptures for the Fourth Sunday in Advent talk about our less-than-perfected world, and especially about God’s Big Attempt to make it right. We begin with the prophet Micah, who’s audience was the Kingdom of Judah about 700 years before Jesus’ birth. Things were pretty broken, then: Sennacherib of Assyria had smashed Israel, the Northern Kingdom, and his army was knocking on Jerusalem’s gates. The people had given up hope, and were acting out their survival instincts of “Gimme!” “I want it!” and “I don’t care about anybody!” And Micah has the audacity to announce a new ruler, from Bethlehem of all places, who “shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord….and they shall live secure…and he shall be the one of peace.” (5:4-5) Oh, Micah, really!
MUCH later — almost 800 years later — the unknown writer of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that “it is by God’s will that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (10:10) Sanctified! Made Holy? Is there hope for perfection in my twisted mind, our gun-ridden & selfish culture? Dare we speak of Holiness to our fearful cities and farms? Will “this holy tide of Christmas all others now embrace”? Only by God’s will…
And the final Good News before the Evangel of Christmas Eve is the Song of Mary (Luke1:46 ff). She names the Mighty One as holy, and spells out some of the repairs: he has scattered the proud, brought down the powerful and lifted the lowly, filled the hungry yet turned away the rich — what a change from Business as Usual! Will he do this? Are we to let Messiah take over our impotent lives?
I like what Steven P. Eason, a Presbyterian minister, has to offer: “If we could fix ourselves, we would not need a savior. The hope that the church holds out for the world on this Fourth Sunday of Advent is that God has done something for us that we cannot do for ourselves. Jesus came on a mission to retrieve us.”
God Bless Us, Every One! (Christmas says that indeed God has!)
H B King
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