Advent 2C - "Wait for It"

 

Saint Luke 1:5–23 & 57-80

On Friday, November 1, WLIT-FM which bills itself as “Chicago’s Christmas Music Station,” began playing Christmas music exclusively 24/7. In a press release, Mick Lee, program director and host said:

“93.9 LITE FM listeners have spoken year after year — once Halloween ends, they are ready for Christmas music on 93.9 LITE FM. We’re thrilled to celebrate our 24th year as Chicago’s Christmas station, spreading cheer, unity and warmth all season long!”1

 Now don’t get me wrong and don’t expect the usual harangue one gets from preachers who bemoan the fact that if you start Christmas music on November 1st it does seem that you are rushing headlong into Christmas without giving it a second thought.

There is nothing like a little Christmas music to get you in the spirit but honestly how many times can one listen to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” or Burl Ives’ classic rendition of “Frosty the Snow Man” or even a wonderful choral rendition of “Jesse’s Carol” which, the first couple of times can make me tear up, but after that I just dry my eyes and get on with my day.

For, as my friend and Scotsman, Callum MacLeod, said in a sermon once: “It really seems that a sane person can only listen to ‘Feliz Navidad’ so many times before taking a hammer to the appliance.”2

months worth of Christmas music if it didn’t result in exceptionally high ratings.  But I do have my doubts about politicians who promise that if they get elected we’ll be able to say “Merry Christmas” once again to everybody, even our beloved friends of other faiths and traditions, that makes them feel not quite so beloved.

Or, Nicholas Maduro, the Venesuelian dictator, who decided to hide behind a stolen election, political unrest, and lawless gangs causing countless to flee his country for fear of their lives to decree:

“It’s September, and it already smells like Christmas,” Maduro said Monday night during his weekly television show. “That’s why this year, as a way of paying tribute to you all, and in gratitude to you all, I’m going to decree an early Christmas for October 1.”3

 If you can’t give your people peace and prosperity, at least give them “bread and circuses” or in this case, tinsel and garland, and the promise that they will be able to say “Merry Christmas” to anybody they want whenever they want.

The season of Advent that liturgical churches celebrate so well reminds us in the words of the poet Edwina Gateley:

Advent means we are waiting for something; we are to expect something good and up-lifting to make us feel better. And why not? We struggle so, and we only want peace, security and even a little happiness. We dream of it—like a lost treasure in an empty desert. Then, in the very dying of the Autumn Season, along comes Advent with candles, prayers, songs and promises of new possibilities. And, all tingling with excitement and expectancy, we are seduced into hoping once again.”4

 There are two people, glossed over in the Christmas story by all the surrounding hoopla, who were seduced into hoping once again but before this hope became a reality they had to wait.  And their waiting began in a very strange place – at worship.

There is a name hidden deep in our Gospel reading this morning. It is the name of John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah. 

We know a lot about John.  He may be one of the noisiest characters in all of scripture preaching a message of repentance at the top of his lungs out in the wilderness to any and all who will listen.

But his dad, his father, Zachariah is another matter.  He’s an elderly man, the kind of guy with whom I am having a greater and greater affinity.  His wife is getting up there too and she suffers the ignominy of bearing the cruelest title of all, she is called “barren.”

They are an old couple, a faithful couple, who have long since given up on the idea that they will ever be called mom and dad by a child of their own.  That is until one night at worship something happens.  

Zachariah is a priest and it falls to him, entirely by chance, to go into the temple and be the one to burn incense.  It is to be, as my Episcopal friends call it, “a smoking service” which is something that we here at Saint Luke can relate to.

I can see the old priest, perhaps with a smile on his face, putting the coals in the incense pot, loading spoonful upon spoonful of incense in the censer, and swinging that baby around until the temple bore a striking resemblance to St. Luke on a Pentecost Sunday.

Then, from within the smoke, of all things, an angel appears striking terror into the old guy who may have then wondered, “What’s in this incense anyway? One too many, ‘nose hits’ perhaps?”  

“But the angel spoke to him, ‘Do not be afraid, Zacharias; your prayers have been heard. Elisabeth your wife will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. This will be joy and delight to you and many more will be glad because he is born.’”5

 Now one would think the Zachariah would be overjoyed at the news but instead of listening to the angel and rejoicing over the message he snaps back at the angel. “Do you expect me to believe this? I’m an old man and my wife is an old woman.”6

Stop and think about this for a second.  He’s spent years of praying.  He’s spent years of hoping perhaps followed by years of sad resignation that he and his wife would never be parents and an angel shows up, in the temple no less, right in the middle of worship, and tells him that his prayers have been answered and Zachariah is acting like somebody who has either spent too much time in seminary or too much time around other old priests.

He wants to talk about it. Discuss the offer the angel is making. Determine the biological probabilities.

But the angel Gabriel has better, more important things to do.  So instead of listening to the old boy hem and haw and go on and on, the angels just takes away his power to speak.  

A priest who can’t speak! How long have many of you been praying for exactly that?  You may even be praying for that now.

Kathleen Norris, in her book Amazing Grace, writes: 

When the angel strikes Zachariah dumb he is given a pregnancy of his own. I read Zachariah’s punishment as a grace in that he couldn’t say anything to compound his initial arrogance when confronted with mystery. When he does speak again it is to praise God.  It’s just that he needed nine months to think it over.7

When the baby is born his pondering is over and everybody gathered around the mother and the child thinks the little guy should be named after his father. However, Elizabeth and Zechariah make a stunning announcement. They are going to name their son John.

“What?” [the relatives, neighbours, and friends] exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.”  To affirm his wife’s decision the happy father motions for “a piece of paper and to everyone’s surprise writes, ‘His name is John!’ Instantly Zacharias could speak again, and he began praising God.”8

As Dr. John Buchanan reminded us in a sermon when “old Zechariah finds his voice ... the first words out of his mouth are a kind of joyful poem; the birth of a child turns fathers into poets. Whatever he said, Luke arranges it in a canticle, which the church has loved for twenty centuries, the Benedictus: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people.”

[Then,] “as new fathers are inclined to do, Zechariah can’t resist a little boasting: “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High.”

And then the most beautiful images I know: “By the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”9

Our temptation is to rush headlong into Christmas.  To, by our own power and might, make rough places smooth and paths straight.  Our temptation may be to crank up the carols as soon as we can even though we know that it won’t be long before we tire of hearing them over and over.

Our temptation may even be to use Christmas as a tool to fool people into believing that everything is okay and if they just rush around a little more, or buy a little more, or pretend a little more that everything will be alright. 

But not so cleverly hidden in the Advent celebration are real people like Elizabeth and Zachariah, John’s parents, and Mary and Joseph, who simply had to wait.

And you and I, here and now, wait for that moment when we can celebrate the birth him whose coming marks the day when the dawn from on high will appear once again the and tender mercies of the one for whom we wait will break upon us.

Wait for it!  For it is something worth waiting for.

________________

1. Kelly Bauer, “Nonstop Christmas Music Is Back on 93.9 Lite FM Starting Friday,” Block Club Chicago, October 30, 2024, https://blockclubchicago.org/2024/10/30/nonstop-christmas-music-is-back-on-93-9-lite-fm-starting-friday/.

2. Calum I. MacLeod, “A Christmas Eve Sermon.” Sermon preached at The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, December 24, 2012.

3. Jorge Rueda, “Christmas in Venezuela Kicks off in October, President Maduro Has Declared,” AP News, September 4, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-christmas-october-maduro-elections-tensions-2889fbab6a6a063d1f3bfe9d0afd33ba.

4. Edwina Gately, “Advent.” https://www.journeywithjesus.net/poemsandprayers/3776-advent

5. St. Luke 1:5-17. (PHILLIPS) [PHILLIPS=J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (London, ENG: HarperCollins, 2000).]

6. St. Luke 1:18. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE:Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).

7. Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc, 2003).

8. St. John 1:61-63. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 1971.)]

9. John M. Buchanan, “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. December 6, 2009