How do you get ready for Christmas?
Well,
I don’t know about you but for me, certain things that have to happen: the tree
goes up. The box of decorations comes up from the basement. Certain recipes are
brought out. And we break out the Christmas music. I love it.
Don’t
tell the Advent Police, but I think it’s kind of cool to go into a store and
hear some pop singer sing “hear the news the angels bring.” I want to shout “Yay,
team!”
Just
the same, I must admit that, it is hard for the Good News to rise above all the
noise about dancing snowmen and sleigh bells ringing. One of my antidotes to
endless arrangements of the same old secular holiday fare is to drag out my CDs
and find the Messiah by
George Frederick Handel (1685–1759).
Handel
composed the oratorio in just three weeks, from August 22 until
September 14, 1741. He put the music together with the libretto prepared
by Charles Jennens, which is nothing more or less than Old and New Testament
passages from the King James Version of the Bible—then only 130 years old. It
opens with poetry from Isaiah—the same passage we just heard today:
"Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye tenderly to Jerusalem, and
cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is
pardoned" (Isaiah 40:1–2).
This
is also where Gospel of Mark begins.
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God” are the first words in the Gospel. From there Mark
heads straight to the prophet Isaiah, who speaks of one who would come to make
straight the paths before the coming of the Lord.
The Good News of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of
God begins with John, the one who is preparing the way. He brings words of
comfort and hope: `Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'"
Words of comfort imply that there are people
who need comforting. Words of hope mean that there were people without hope. When
John spoke those words, he was speaking to first century Jews and he quoted
their own scriptures. He reminds them of something that God has already done.
About five to six hundred years before John the
Baptizer and Jesus, in 587 BC, the Jewish people experienced a devastating trauma.
The Babylonian Empire came and conquered Israel and razed Jerusalem, including
Solomon’s Temple. They sent the Jews into exile hoping to wipe out all memory
of this once-great nation.
But
50 years later, along came Cyrus, the ruler of the Persians who conquered the
Babylonians. Cyrus allowed the Jewish people to return to Jerusalem and Judea
and resume their customs and traditions. This
is where we get the words that Mark uses to open his gospel. We hear these
words of hope in Handel’s oratorio.
Prepare the way for the Lord! This is the
message of John the Baptist brings more than five centuries after Isaiah. John
prepares the way for Jesus, who through his incarnation, life, death and
resurrection closes the gap and restores all of us to unity with God, each
other and creation. But keep in mind: John knew he was preparing for something, he just didn’t know what. He would not live to see what he
was preparing for unfold but would only catch a glimpse. John brought a message
of forgiveness and hope. And he brought a message of change. He called people
to turn away from sin and turn towards God.
A few years ago, I heard an extraordinary story
of a person who leveled the way, who showed off the reign of God and the
possibility of new life. When I heard it was like music to my ears. Maybe you
heard too. It begins with a subway trip in New York City.
Every night, Julio Diaz, a 31-year-old social
worker rode the subway to his home in the Bronx. And he always got off one stop
early so he can eat at his favorite diner. But one night, his evening took an
unexpected turn when Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty
platform. He was confronted a teenage boy who pulled out a knife and demanded
money.
Diaz gave him his wallet, but as the teen
started to turn and run away, Diaz called out, "Hey, wait a minute. You
forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the
night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be
victim strangely and he asked him 'Why are you doing this?'" Diaz told him
that "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I
guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner
and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.”
So the teen and Diaz went into the diner and
sat in a booth, where, of course, Diaz knows everybody. The manager, the
dishwashers, and the waiters all come by to say hi. The teen is perplexed. “You
know everybody here,” he asks. “Do you own this place?'" Nah, Diaz says,
he just eats there a lot.
“But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been
taught you should be nice to everybody?"
"Yeah, but I didn't think people actually
behaved that way," the teen said.
As they talked, Diaz asked him what he wanted
out of life. The teen was silent, answering only with a sad face.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen,
"Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have
my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll
gladly treat you."
Without hesitation the teen returned the
wallet. Diaz paid for dinner and then gave him $20 figuring maybe it'll help
him. There was only one thing Dias asked for in return: the teen's knife.
We don’t know what happened to the teen who
tried to mug Julio Diaz. But we can see from this moment—from this risky, “kids
don’t try this at home,” outside the box, moment—that we all have the power in
how we live to cooperate with God and herald the coming of Christ.
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