December 1998 Issue

This text has spawned a variety of interesting sermons. John Wesley preached a sermon based on verse nine ("for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord") with an evangelistic appeal. Wesley lamented over the condition of the world and calculated by existing demographic methods that "only five in thirty are so much as nominally Christian." He wondered how the earth could ever be "full of the knowledge of the Lord?" In a kind of hopeful challenge, he pointed his listeners to evidence in his time of new awakenings of evangelistic fervor. In this sermon, one gets a taste of the intense missionary spirit that drove this giant of the church.¹

Phillips Brooks encouraged by the phrase "and a little child shall lead them" delivered a sermon titled The Child's Leadership. Brooks pointed to the honesty and purity of childlikeness. He saw in the child the primary and fundamental impulses of life, the simplest principals and powers of existence. This elementary guiding force, he contended, is hard to submit to "but in submission to which all the best of life comes." Brooks saw a personal and universal peace which came from the child within and spread to the world around. "It is a peace under the control of the gentlest and most benignant of human powers. It is man in his simplest, his least elaborate, his most unsophisticated existence; man not artificial and complicated, but man in his intrinsic humanness; man with those principles and impulses that belong to his humanity; man in the form of a little child, that is to be the leader and harmonizer of the world."²

On the Protestant Hour in 1963, Theodore A. Gill shared a skillfully crafted sermon A Second Look at Jesus Saves. The phrase "Jesus Saves" beams out at us from road signs and bumper stickers, but "what does it mean?", asks Gill. "And if Jesus does save, then from what?", he wonders. The phrase is a cliche that bears truth, but we hear it so much it has lost its meaning.

Many contend that Jesus saves us from the devil or the world. The speaker thought that Jesus might save him from an even greater danger "one Theodore A. Gill." The hope he has in Jesus saves him from his own fears and anxieties that would limit and maybe even paralyze him. Countering despondent claims that "life is but a walking shadow" and that life is but a "tale told by an idiot," Gill declared "God certified to me in the life of Jesus a God with a will and a way...who refused to throw the world and me onto the trashpile of his contempt." From this experience, Gill took comfort that "God cherishes me and the world...I matter."

In closing, Gill declared that "no day would be long enough to complete the list of the ways Jesus saves." Gill tied his message to the text by saying that as Jesus saves us from more than just the devil (also the self) that "likewise more than just we are saved" and "not just the ones who walk certain sawdust trails or adhere to certain doctrines of the atonement." Jesus also saves society and culture; they too are intended for salvation and are "waiting to be redeemed by the redeemed." There is an even wider salvation of nature and universe which we cannot fully understand but "can accept as the outer context of our life."

On New Year's eve in 1973, James A. Wharton humorously began a Protestant Hour sermon by saying that the text describes a "picture of the world not written from the lion's point of view." The reference in the text to the "adder's den" reminded Wharton of a boyhood experience when he nearly stepped on a cottonmouth snake in a riverbottom and was terribly frightened. More immediately, he interpreted the dangerous animals and vipers in the text to stand for the "deadly realities" in our lives. Even worse, we have more deadly terrors around us today. It would be a relief only to worry about the wolf and the leopard rather than submarines cruising off our shores with nuclear devastation ready to be unleashed!

Just as Isaiah was aware of the realities in his day, so must we be aware of them today. Wharton insists however that all of Isaiah's words in the text are "now" words and that the transformation toward peace is already under way, now, and that "peace is coming." The preacher reflects on Edward Hicks' painting of the Peaceable Kingdom and on the reconciling work of William Penn depicted in the painting . Wharton insists that what we see are "not the marks of the kingdom but the credentials of the King," and that we can work for peace not because we have "see the full kingdom but because we have seen the King!" And like William Penn we should not settle for strife, but begin to embody the "peaceable kingdom."

Walter C. Huffman of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Augsburg Sermons uses this text but focuses mainly on John the Baptist in his Advent sermon. According to Huffman, Isaiah's image of the Messiah helps us not to lose touch with Jesus' origin, the "shoot from the stump of Jesse." Isaiah provided insights into the nature of the Messiah which John proclaimed. Like Wharton, Huffman also referred to the Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks who painted more than 50 versions of this theme. The typical scene has William Penn making covenant with the Indians while nearby woods reveal beasts and reptiles and a small child playing in peace. In another variation on this same theme, Hicks partially conceals the "peaceable kingdom" in the trees of the forest which Huffman elaborates on as a hint of the hidden nature of the kingdom of peace and the "transforming nature of God's reign." The preacher concludes decisively with these words "Isaiah calls us to ponder anew the Kingdom, the power, the glory of the coming King. Advent invites us to praise God for the gift who was, who is and who is to come...."³

In an atypical but intriguing fashion, David H. C. Read of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York City shared a story on the National Radio Pulpit in 1982. Read insists that we need to use our imaginations to see what really happened at Christmas, and he proceeds to do just that in his sermon. The sermon is titled the Poodle in the Stable which Read also claims is A Christmas Tale For All Ages. Read begins by explaining that during each Advent he likes to part with his typical sermonic style and share a Christmas story with his congregation. He proceeds to share a delightful story of a conversation he had with his dog, Patches, who sleeps in a basket beside his desk where his sermons are composed. Patches rather improbably insists that he knows some details of the Christmas story unknown to humans. Patches describes three animal characters who were in Bethlehem to witness the birth of Jesus. Actually, they got in the way. An ox, named Hector, blocked the road to Bethlehem. Read interrupted his eloquent canine friend to say that he knew people who are like that and get in the way. Not to miss an opportunity, Patches pointed out that the Reverend Read could also get in the way at times. Droopy was a donkey who almost kept the couple from gaining entrance to the stable because of his territorialism. And wouldn't you know it, according to Patches, there was also a poodle in the stable who was curled up in the manger of all places and defiantly refused to budge even though the Messiah was about to be born. Read was quick to point out once again that there are people like that. Patches with another opportunity to make a point confronts Read with the reality that he (Read) gets all absorbed with himself when he has a sore throat and doesn't notice the irritating tick under Patches' belly! Not everyone can preach this kind of playful, imaginative sermon, but Read has that ability through his nearly poetic style which I am sure is a delightful change of pace for his congregation during the unusually hurried and frantic pace of Advent and Christmas.

Elizabeth Achtemeier, in her usual outstanding style, preached Romanticism, Reality, and the Christmas Child in Harvard Memorial Church on the Second Sunday of Advent, December 1978. She began by acknowledging that we do "tend to romanticize Christmas," even with the hurriedness of it all. Still, she rightly questions, "And yet, Christmas gets at us, doesn't it?" Our deep hope is for the kind of world described in the text with the child playing over the hole of the asp, and this hope was intensified in the coming of the Christ child. Achtemeier makes some interesting points concerning the figure of the child in the Bible. The symbol of the child is more than just the symbol of hope. "Very often throughout the Old Testament, the child is also the figure of the Lord's coming judgment." She refers to the meanings of the names of the children of Hosea and Isaiah. "A babe can be an occasion for judgment or for salvation."

The preacher points out the plight of the child in society today. Children are no longer seen as innocent and harmless. Children are now associated with drugs, sex and crime. In films, children are often the bearers of evil (The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby). Many parents today are disappointed in their children, and according to a Dear Abby poll, seven out of ten parents would not choose to have children if they had it to do over again. Achtemeier says this to make a point: "But that is not a judgment on the children as much as it is a judgment on the parents...There is some sickness in this society we have made which is infecting our very offspring...The child has become the symbol of judgment on our culture and on you and me." Likewise, the Christmas child rather than being the focus of unrealistic romanticism can be the source of judgment ("Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel." Luke 2:34). Achtemeier elaborates on two positions for us where the Christmas child can become the occasion for our own destruction. First, we might believe that we have "no lasting responsibility toward him" and that we might dismiss him from our lives except at Christmas and Easter. Achtemeier points out however that this is a child we are not going to be able to ignore. "This is in fact the eternal child--the one Herod's soldiers could not slaughter and the Roman empire could not bury." Second, we might believe that we are "immune from that judgment" and that somehow we have something at our own disposal (goodness, status or even faith) that makes us okay in the eyes of God. If we believe this, we need only look to the purity and righteousness of the Christ child to see that our efforts are all quite insufficient.

In a challenging homiletical move, Achtemeier suggests that Advent and Christmas rather than being a time for romanticism can actually be a season when we could be most realistic! She insists that this realism comes only through repentance. "It is only in humbling ourselves that we may be exalted." The Christmas child comes not just for the fall but also for the rise of many. The vision of Isaiah is a possibility, but first, there must be a coming to terms with the reality, which is longed for in our romanticism, that through this Child we and our world can be redeemed and transformed.⁴

David Howell