Advent Time: Home for Christmas

photo by Elvis Ripley / flickr

She sat by the door of the Nursing Home. As I came in she looked up and said, “Take me home. Would you take me home.” As I left she was still sitting there looking out the window. And she said, “Take me home…would you please take me home.”

Just say the word home and memories swirl. I can still remember what it all looked like. Little four room house. Porch on the front. You entered the front door and there was the living room. I can still remember where the couch was, where the piano was located, in the corner where the secretary-desk stood. To the right was the bedroom my brother and I slept in. I could tell you to this day where the twin beds were and the dresser and the chifforobe. Behind our room was my parent’s bed-room and behind there was the bathroom with the bathtub resting on those four claws. Across from my parent’s bedroom was the kitchen. We had a chrome kitchen table with the yellow formica top and four matching chairs. A pantry

photo by Yvonne Eijkenduljin / flickr

was in the corner…a gas stove, little sink and a pie safe which held our dishes. Say that word, home and we all are taken back to another time and another place. Do you remember?

If you turn to the book of Isaiah you’ll find some of the same memories. First Assyria had invaded their homeland and in that weakened state Babylon marched in and finished the job. They leveled the temple, they salted down the farm lands, they poisoned the wells. And then they dragged off the smartest and brightest of the Israelites. They took those captives 700 miles across the desert. They were homeless. and cut off from everything they loved and cared for. Gods's people were there for 50 years and they called it exile. The theme runs through book after book in the Old Testament. That cursed word, exile. Psalm after Psalm raised the cry: “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” Translated: How can we sing the Lord’s song so far from home. Hostages. Under the thumb of the cursed Babylonians.  And like that little woman in the nursing home they said it over and over : “I want to go home…I want to go home.”

This was the setting of Isaiah 40-55. Isaiah 1-39 was written before the exile. Isaiah 56-66 was written after the exile ended. But today we turn to that exile time which is found in Isaiah 40-55. And some lone prophet—spoke to all those held captive. What did he say to his brothers and sisters so far from home? Some days they were so homesick thought they would die. And the church has turned to these words year after year and found comfort and hope in the hardest of times. 

photo by Trish / flickr

And these are the words they turned to.“Comfort ye, comfort ye my people says your God…” “In the wilderness prepare the way  of the Lord…” Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain shall be made low; the uneven ground shall become level , and the rough places a plain”. “They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength…” “Do not fear…I have called you by name and you are mine…” “And then those wonderful words: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they will not overwhelm you…” Read the words yourself this Christmas.

Why has the church chosen these particular words Christmas after Christmas? Because Christians in every age have known about exile and dislocation and homesickness. We know it too. Rumors of war once again. Now there is yet another I-Phone to learn. If the other one was not enough. All this talk about sexual harassment everywhere. Have we gone crazy? My wife sent me to the store the other day to get some coffee. Coffee. Simple enough. I stood there before that long line of coffees—stretching on and on. Coffee—which one? And sure enough when I got home said, “This is not the coffee I wanted.” Everything is so complicated. Ever tried to open a jar?

I teach a grief group a couple of times a year. And they sit in a circle and tell me the loved ones they lost. A child…a husband. A wife…a brother or sister. A parent. And life for them will be forever different. People surrounded me when I lost him or her—but weeks, months later nobody comes—and life goes on for them. I tell them it is like an amputation. They say: ”I rattle around in this old house—and I’m all alone. And it is so hard. We know about exile, don’t we. 

And at Christmastime I think we all think about how it was and how everything seems to

photo by climatalk.in / flickr

have has changed. Isaiah spoke to homesickness and heartbreak. And he spoke out of his own heart to a people who had their own separate longings. They looked across the desert to the way it used to be and they would whisper: “Take me home…take me home.” 

And in that time of exile his words would shine like a beacon in the darkness. No darkness could ever put out that light. “Comfort ye…comfort ye my people…Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her warfare is over…” And Isaiah told them the strangest  thing. Exile was only for a season. Babylon will not always endure. Bel and Nebo—their cursed manmade gods—would crumble and fall. Didn't look that way. Still doesn't.

And Isaiah gave those people knee-deep in homesickness two powerful images of God. One is global and one is personal. First, he says, “Your God is a conquering king.” (10) “He comes with might,,,his arms rule for him…his reward is with him…his recompense is before him.” So folks, he said, you can smooth out all the wrinkles and wipe away all your tears. These words are overture—they will form the theme for the next 15 chapters. Over and over again he will say: Your God is with you. And this is Christmas. We all need a glimpse of this vision that Isaiah saw. God really is conquering king. And we need sometime this season to move away from all the noise and hoopla and remember this is the breaking news. Not all that other stuff. God is here and he comes with power and with might.

And Isaiah follows that vision with another word: If that first word is global—this second word is personal. He is not only conquering king—but he is also the Gentle Shepherd. “He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.”

courtesy of flickr

I never really understood this Shepherd thing until I was in a hard place. And I was at a Conference in Washington for a week. It was held on the grounds of the Washington Cathedral. It was a busy week of work and I had almost no time of my own. But toward the end of that week I decided, after breakfast to visit the great Washington Cathedral which was just up the hill. It was early but I thought the Church would be open. It wasn’t. I tried door after door but they were all locked.  I turned around and decided to go back to my room—and walking by the side of the church I saw a sign that said, “The Chapel of the Good Shepherd.” So I went through that door, walked down a hall and thought maybe I could sneak upstairs and see the Cathedral. That inside door was locked. As i started out and saw the sign: “Chapel of the Good Shepherd.” It was a tiny room maybe two or three little pews. I sat down and looked up at the altar and there was this stone carving of The Shepherd holding a sheep in his arms. On that ledge, beside that stature was a tiny vase and someone had placed a sprig of forsythia there. Something happened to me I have never quite understood. As I looked at that rendering of the Good Shepherd with his arms around that lamb—I saw myself. He was the Good Shepherd and he looked down at the little sheep in his arms and I saw something I had never seen before. I had preached a lot of sermons on the 23rd Psalm. But suddenly the words came to life. Looking up I knew he was my Shepherd—and he held me in his arms—and I was safe and somehow everything would be all right. 

This is what Isaiah was saying to a troubled people. He is conquering king but he is more than that to us. He is also the Good Shepherd. And those exiles that really heard his words knew that they were kept and they would somehow make it through whatever came. Why? Because he never let them go. No wonder we call this first candle hope. For in a hard time and in a very dark place—this was not the end.

I thought about the Shepherd and the lamb in an old story that has made the rounds through the years. Three boys and three girls were on a bus, going to Fort Lauderdale for Spring break. They had left the cold and ice of New York and dreamed of sun and sand blue, blue water.

As they passed through New Jersey they noticed a man that said his name was Vingo. He was dressed pretty shabbily and they could tell by his face that life had not been too good. Outside Washington everyone got off at the Howard Johnson’s except Vingo. He just sat on the bus and the young people began to wonder about him. When they got back in the bus one of the girls sat down next to him and slowly he began to tell her his story. He told her that he had been in jail in New York for four years and now he was going home. 

She asked him if he was married and he said he didn’t know. He had been married but when he got arrested he told his wife that he was going to be away for a long time and she didn’t have to wait for him. He loved her but he knew it was going to be very hard for her and their three kids. He told her that she didn’t even have to write. So he had not heard from her in over three years. 

The girl asked, “You’re going home not even knowing?” “Yeah, I know it’s kinda crazy but I’m going anyway. We used to live in Brunswick, just before Jacksonville and there’s a big oak tree everybody could see when you come into town. And after I was paroled, I wrote my wife and said that if she’d take me back, she should put a yellow handkerchief on that tree, and I’d get off and come home. If she didn’t want me, forget it—no handkerchief and I’d go on through.” The girl said, “Wow. Wow.”

She told her buddies and as they got closer and closer to Brunswick they started looking for a big old oak tree. Vingo looked too. They were ten miles from Brunswick and then five, three and then one mile and suddenly all the young people started shouting and screaming and crying. All except Vingo. He just sat there looking out the window. Looking. The oak tree was covered with yellow handkerchiefs—there must have been 20 of them, maybe thirty, maybe even a hundred fluttering in the breeze. As the young people kept shouting, the bus stopped and Vingo got off the bus and made his way home. 

For two thousand years the church has been lighting candles and singing its songs. Why do we keep doing this? Because despite all the exiles and all the Babylons that can break our hearts there is a good news of great joy that has come to all people. We are not alone. Any of us. God is a conquering king. All-powerful. But God is also the Gentle Shepherd. He cares for each one of us. And the good news is that there is a home and we are welcomed and we are loved and we are cared for. And so we light candles and sing songs and decorate our houses. Knowing deep in our hearts that we are not alone ever, ever again.

“To an open house in the evening, 

Home shall a men come,

To an older town than Eden

And a taller town than Rome.

To the end of the way of the wandering star, 

To the things that cannot be and that are

To the place where God is homeless

And all of us are at home.”

   —G.K. Chesterton

photo by Kathy Ponce / flickr

(This sermon was preached at the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church, Sandy Springs, SC , 12-3-17)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com