Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Isaiah 42:1-9

Have you ever thought about how many lights you use every day? Most obvious are probably the lights we turn on and off in our house – ceiling lights, lamps, night lights, refrigerator light, oven light, microwave light, TVs, cell phones, computers. Then there’s candles, fireplaces, Christmas lights and other outdoor lights, and flashlights. We have lights in our cars and headlights, streetlights and stoplights. And when we go outside in the dark, which isn’t often in winter, we might take a minute to look at the moonlight and the stars, or appreciate the sunlight even on a cold winter’s day.
Most of the time, we are surrounded by light. Our world is full of light, day and night, so many lights we often don’t even think about how much light we use until it’s not there…a bulb burns out, or worse, the power goes out. It’s a jarring surprise when the power is out, you go to flick on the light switch, and nothing happens. It often takes a moment like the power going out for us to notice and appreciate light. When it is dark, or there isn’t much light, have you noticed how everyone’s eyes gravitate toward the light? Sitting around a campfire or the fireplace, it’s hard to take your gaze away from the flickering flames. It is in those moments that we may feel closer to our ancestors, like the people of Isaiah’s day, who knew what it was like to really be in the dark, who treasured the light and the source of their light.
This morning, God promises to send a light, a lighthouse to the nations for people who sit in darkness. It is God’s hope for the world that our eyes will gravitate toward the light of Christ and focus on his light, rather than be distracted by the other artificial lights our world provides: a false sense of security and a fleeting promise of happiness that will not last. It’s quite easy for most of us where we live today to go on with our lives thinking we have enough light in our lives already without the gift of God’s light. We can buy any number of lights, manufacture light so we can see, and even drown out the light of God’s love with our own bright lights of consumerism, self-reliance, individualism, and so on. We very easily convince ourselves that we don’t have much need for God. The light of Christ exposes our false sense of independence and beckons us to rely on his light above anything else.
The Message version of Isaiah 42 describes God’s light as a lighthouse to the nations this morning. In Nebraska, we don’t have too many lighthouses, but if you have ever been on a boat near a coast in the dark, you know that a lighthouse’s light shines more brightly than other lights on the shore. Boats need them to be able to navigate safely into the harbor. Often the light scans the water to illuminate the boat’s path, as well as light up any rocks or other barriers that may stand in the boat’s way. This is God’s promise to us, that Christ will be our lighthouse, showing us the way, shining brighter than any other light in our world. We strive to look and pay attention to that light, this Advent season and always.
It’s important to know that the prophet Isaiah’s words describe God’s servant. We understand this prophecy to be perfectly fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ who became flesh for us at Christmastime as a baby in a manger. The prophet’s words as God’s Word to us were also meant to be timeless – to be about Jesus but not just about Jesus. For the people of Israel in exile, God was calling them to be lights to the nations in a dark time of wandering, for them to continue navigating their lives by God’s light and not foreign gods, and for them to look for a coming messiah. For us today, this passage inspires us to wait and watch for Jesus’ second coming, but also for us to reflect upon how we can reflect the light of Christ in our lives today. How are we also a lighthouse to the nations? This is what God says to us through Isaiah: “I am God. I have called you to live right and well. I have taken responsibility for you, kept you safe. I have set you among my people to bind them to me, and provided you as a lighthouse to the nations, To make a start at bringing people into the open, into light: opening blind eyes, releasing prisoners from dungeons, emptying the dark prisons.”
Too often, I think, we let the artificial light of the twenty-first century drown out the enduring light of Christ that calls us to shine with that same light today. We retell the story of Christmas like a history book of what happened long ago. We read scripture, especially the prophets like Isaiah, looking for predictions of the future so we can tell when Christ will come again. But we don’t reflect much on what God is calling us to be in the present and where God is now.
You’ve probably heard me say this before, and it’s kind of cheesy, but so true, that the greatest present of Christmas is the gift of God’s presence. That is present-tense. Knowing the gift of what God has given to us in the past in the baby Jesus, and knowing the promise of Christ’s coming again in the future, God asks us to relish his presence with us now, God with Us Emmanuel. This present-presence of God can be as simple as a light shining in the darkness, a light that our eyes can’t help but look toward with wonder and amazement. And in the present, God also asks us to let our lights shine, too, as a lighthouse to the nations, the light that we’ve been given because of our faith in Christ.
We have been given a gift of light eternal that never burns out, dims, or can be extinguished. The light of Christ has shone in the past, shines now, and will shine for all to see when he comes again. May we relish the gift of Christ’s presence to us this Christmas and always. This Advent season a poem often comes to my mind that explains so well what I mean by Christ’s present presence with us as we live in the in-between of Christ’s first and second coming. It is the poem Silent Steps by Rabindranath Tagore:
Have you not heard his silent steps?
He comes, comes, ever comes.
Every moment and every age, every day and every
night he comes, comes, ever comes.
Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,
but all their notes have always proclaimed,
“He comes, comes, ever comes.”
In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest
path he comes, comes, ever comes.
In the rainy gloom of July nights on the thundering
chariot of clouds he comes, comes, ever comes.
In sorrow after sorrow it is his steps that press upon my heart,
and it is the golden touch of his feet that makes my joy to shine.
Amen.

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Esther 4:1-17

It may seem a little strange to be reflecting on Esther’s story this morning, on this second Sunday of Advent. Esther’s story is traditionally celebrated with the Jewish festival of Purim, which will be in March this coming year – it has nothing to do with Hanukkah. And, you may have heard this before, but Esther is the one book of the Bible where God is not ever specifically named. So, before I get into explaining why we’re talking about Esther this morning, let me review the full story of Esther for you, which is not that long. In fact, it might make sense for you to go home tonight or later this week and read the whole book all at once. It is not very long – it took me probably ten or fifteen minutes.
The book of Esther comes at the end of the historical books in the Old Testament. Persia is in control of the region of Israel, and many Jews have been allowed to return home and rebuild the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. Many Jews, however, are still living in exile. King Xerxes of Persia finds a new wife for himself in Esther, a Jewish orphan being raised by her cousin Mordecai in his winter palace in the city of Susa. Haman, the king’s highest official, has plotted to kill all the Jewish people living in Susa. Haman and the king do not know that Queen Esther is a Jew. And yet, as we heard in chapter four this morning, Esther risks her own life in going before the king to ask him to revoke Haman’s order to kill all the Jews, saving all of her people as well as herself. You’ll have to read the rest of the book to find out what happens to Haman, but I’ll give you a hint…it’s not good.
So even to this day, we honor and remember Queen Esther, a religious and ethnic minority, an orphan and a woman, truly a nobody, whom God places in the right place at the right time to save her people, God’s people. Mordecai gives Esther a sense of God-given purpose in a subtle but significant way. He says, “Who knows? Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.” And this, I think, is why we are learning about Esther this morning on the second Sunday of Advent: to remember that all that happens in our lives is dependent on God’s timing, and not on our own.
We pay special attention to time this season. We light a candle here at church, and I encourage you to do so also at home, or use an Advent calendar, to mark the days as we get closer and closer to Christmas. Speaking of calendars, a lot of ours are fuller than usual with Christmas parties, family celebrations, church and other special events, and the list of to-dos with extra baking, cooking, shopping, wrapping, mailing, and so on. We find other ways to pass the time this season that help the cold long nights and short days be filled with lights, laughter, and love. Some of this time of year may bring sadness as we remember loved ones no longer with us and the special traditions we can no longer celebrate with them. Some of this time brings joy and feelings of closeness to family near and far. Whatever our emotions, it is a holy time, “the most wonderful time of the year,” for many of us! Singing Christmas carols by candlelight, enjoying a special meal with family recipes, watching favorite movies, selecting gifts that light up our loved-ones faces. There are so many moments to treasure and thank God for especially this time of year.
Mordecai’s question to Esther is a good one for us to ponder as well as we reflect on the preparation time, the waiting time of this Advent season: Could it be that we are called by God for such a time as this? What is God calling us to do, or to be? What is this time actually about, anyway, and how do we savor this time and not squander it by trying to keep up with the Jones’s with our Christmas light displays, holiday baking, compete with the other grandmas for best present ever, and so on?
One of my favorite distinctions in the New Testament Greek language is the two words the New Testament uses for time, which we don’t have in English. In Greek, there is chronos time, where we get the word “chronological.” Chronos is time that helps us keep track of what day or year or hour it is. Then there is Kairos time, which means the right time. The Bible is full of Kairos moments, the “right time” for someone to respond to God’s call and act. We have heard about many of them this fall: Noah – it’s time to build a boat, because a flood is coming! Abraham and Sarah – God’s timing for them to have baby Isaac, not based on the right biological age to have children. Moses knowing the right time to speak to Pharoah to let God’s people go. Joshua seizing the moment to lead God’s people into the promised land. Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah, prophets who spoke God’s truth to the people when they didn’t necessarily want to hear it, yet they knew it was the right time for them to hear God’s words. Esther – time to let the king know she was a Jew so that all of her people would be saved.
For me, of course, one of the most miraculous pieces of the Christmas story is about God’s impeccable timing in sending the baby Jesus, the son of God, to Mary and Joseph, peasant teenagers in first century Palestine, under Roman occupation. Think about it, why didn’t God send Jesus earlier, or later – when Jesus could fly by plane to easily get anywhere in the world, or cure cancer, or FaceTime with everyone on the planet in five minute increments? Christmas, the incarnation, was the world’s greatest Kairos moment – God knew it was the right time for the Savior of the world to be born, to become flesh. The world has never been the same since, and the world will never be the same.
We look for signs still today for the next “right time,” when Christ will come again, when we will know God’s saving grace fully in the redemption of the whole world. In between Christ’s first and second coming, we mark chronos time with calendars and reminder apps on our phones, with smartwatches and alarm clocks. The book of Esther reminds us today to also look for smaller Kairos moments, for the “right time” to stay a few minutes longer or hug family just a little bit bigger. To see God at work in the world and to strive to be Christ to others because the opportunity presents itself. In the list of all of those biblical characters I named, it is important to know that all of them were ordinary people until they responded to God at just the right time to work with God to do some pretty amazing things. Moses was an adopted slave boy destined for death. Jeremiah was young. Micah was a small-town guy. Again, remember that Esther was a foreigner, an orphan, and a woman. Jesus himself was born to poor unwed teenage parents in a feeding trough for animals because no innkeeper in that town would give them the dignity of a nicer place to stay. The Bible is full of stories of nobodies from nowhere who pay attention to God’s perfect timing. Sometimes all they do is show up. For Esther, it was one sentence to the king that made all the difference. In our watching and waiting for Jesus, may we remember that we are not just nobodies from nowhere to God – we are so loved that God gives us his very own son. We are called to be co-workers with God in his kingdom, for such a time as this. Amen.