What Do You See? What Do You Hear?

Throughout my neighborhood are signs of despair. Some call them “Christmas lights”, a gesture of neighborly appearance; but very few folks really believe that salvation is at hand… “We walk as a people in danger, a people unconvinced that [Jesus’] time is nearly here…” (Donna Schaper, STIR UP YOUR POWER) But this Third weekend in Advent is the recognition of Joy (Gaudete Sunday), in which we celebrate the places and persons who give us Joy… Is the Incarnation event one of them? O, the stress of Santa!

ISAIAH 35:1-10 celebrates the actions of God even as the distressed of Jerusalem are threatened by the Babylonians. “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom….Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God…!'” What a good message for the Church to bring to those many who surround us in this season of doubt! Here is a reversal of the norm, a passage that speaks of restoration even in a time of chaos. Some are frustrated by the distances our families have scattered; others of my own generation mourn the friends who have died. But “in Isaiah’s poem, it looks like coming home, and it sounds like singing.” (Stacey Simpson Duke, FEASTING on the WORD A 1:54)

The Epistle comes from the hand of JAMES, 5:7-10. We are urged to “be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord”. This patience is pictured as the farmer/gardener who has planted and who now anxiously awaits the seeds’ germination and growth. The Day of the Lord–a second Christmas?–will come when the desert is ready to receive it. The trick is not to bemoan the current desert as much as to offer a vision of a growing presence as Creation is restored.

The Gospel portrays the mature Jesus as responding to his incarcerated cousin, John the Baptizer: “Go and tell John what you hear and see…” Healing, relief for the poor, and restoration of the dead/dying are all indications that the one for whom we wait has really come. Celebrating this newness in the Bleak Mid-Winter reinforces our concept that God is at work reversing lives and reclaiming systems even in the face of despair and the arid culture it has fed.

Even from this cynic’s corner, there is much to restore our Joy. The music of the Season has played a great part in my spiritual formation; trimming the hearth and setting the table; unpacking tree decorations from friendships long lost–all of these help me to hear the mirthful songs of midnight angels. What do YOU see? What do YOU hear?

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

P.S.– Vestal Community Band offers sounds of Christmas on Thursday, December 8 at Vestal Valley View Alliance Church; and again on December 15 at J C Penney’s at Oakdale Mall. Both concerts begin at 7:00.

Please join me every Tuesday to be met by Scriptures to be read during the upcoming weekend–at horacebrownking.com