Scripture: Isaiah 61:1-4; Isaiah 61:8-11; John 14:6 Series: 2020
Third in an Advent series on the four questions of Advent, this Gaudete Sunday sermon asks ‘Why is he coming?’ Pruitt opens with personal stories of his teenage refusal to admit need (living on beans and rice, learning ASCII to avoid repairing a broken laptop) to argue that if you never admit a need, no one—not even Jesus—can save you. He addresses why a savior is still needed in a modern, secularizing world of ‘Nones,’ calling Christians to seek truth and tear down obstacles to belief rather than judge. Drawing on Isaiah 61’s good news to the poor, brokenhearted, captive, and mourning, he insists the world is not as it should be: death, decay, and brokenness touch everyone. God’s answer was not to fix the world with a snap (which would erase human freedom) but to enter it as a needy child, beginning the work of new creation. The ‘why’ is that the world is broken; ongoing brokenness marks not God’s failure but the continuing need for redemption. He commends the Stephen Ministers as a way to be active participants in God’s transformation, closing with joy as gift and the promise that Jesus is coming soon.
Illustrations: teenage-independence-limiting-needs, ascii-charts-broken-laptop, gaudete-sunday-pink-candle, cs-lewis-surprised-by-joy, dominique-collin-event-for-me, maxed-out-retirement-529-plans, needy-newborn-vs-teenager, stephen-ministers-program, god-sized-hole
December 13
Why is he coming
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11
When I was a teenager, I had an independent streak, as most teenagers do in their own way. A period of self-discovery and finding yourself. For different people, this manifests in different ways depending on your circumstance. I have two older siblings who are different from me and they responded in their teenage years in a different way from me. My way of independence, instead of pushing against my parents, instead of breaking curfew or going out all the time was that, i just didn’t do those things. I didn’t go out. I didn’t spend money. I didn’t want money. I realized, if I could limit my needs, I was a lot more free. I wasn’t dependent on people. This continued in college. Instead of getting a college job, I decided to live off of beans and rice. My grandparents and parents had generously supported tuition and housing but my parents expected me to get a job to pay for college activities. Whereas I found the catch by not doing things that cost money. As an example, in college, I spilled coffee on my laptop keyboard, and so instead of going to get it repaired, I taught myself the ASCII charts in order to type term papers without a function b, k, l, or n letter. I thought, “I will stubborn myself through this instead of admitting a need.”
If you never admit you have a need, you can’t let anyone help you. If you never admit you have a need, you can never be forgiven for anything. If you never admit a need, then no one can save you, not even Jesus.
My friends, we are continuing our series on the four questions of advent, about why this season is different. Two weeks ago, we talked about who is coming. How it is Jesus, the anointed one of God. God-with-us. How advent is about the arrival of God into the world, not in power, but in the form of a child. Last week, we talked about when he is coming and how God’s time is different from our time. And how Christ’s coming is not just in the past but in the future. And so today we get to why. Why is he coming?
Another way to ask why is to ask, what is the need for this. Do we really need a savior? Do we still need Jesus in this world? The world is a different place than it was 2000 years ago. The world is a different place than it was 20 years ago. Technology has come a long way. Medicine has come a long way. One of the biggest changes had to do with infant mortality rate. So many children and women died in childbirth in the ancient world in a way that doesn’t happen anymore. How amazing and beautiful and miraculous that is. We have so many people who can live long lives, who can seek fulfillment. It used to be that you had to be in the top 1% of the 1% in order to travel pretty much anywhere. You don’t have to be in that bracket to travel (post-covid). The world is smaller.
As well, people have moved away from church. Fifty years ago in Texas, there was nothing to do on Sunday morning. Now, there are a lot of things to do every morning. A lot of activities for kids that only happen on Sunday morning. Many fewer Gen Xers and Millenials and Zoomers participate in church than folks in prior generations. That is a reality. I have a lot of ideas about why this is the case, both with why the church in the US peaked in 1960 and why kids are not as eager to participate, but we must admit that there is a significant population of Nones in our world and in our community, even in Spicewood, even in western Travis County, that are not interested in church. So why is Jesus necessary? What is the need? Those of you who grew up in the church may not have asked that question very often. Why? Why is Jesus coming? Why does he matter? But it is an important question for us.
Paul writes and tells us to always be able to give an account of our faith. Not to have every answer, but to be able to give an account of the faith that we believe. Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the light.” If we really believe that Jesus is the truth, than seeking the truth is only going to get us closer to Jesus. Seeking the truth in arguments about God, seeking the truth in why people are choosing not to believe today. Seeking the truth will only lead us closer to God.
We must have a willingness to have conversations with our friends and our kids and our grandkids and not be judgmental or dismissive of their points of view. Jesus never says, “Judge everyone who disagrees with you.” Pretty much the opposite. As well, my why is not going to be your why for Jesus. As Dominique Collin wrote, “to be a Christian is to believe that the event opened up by the Good News of Jesus Christ can also become an event for me.”
The Holy Spirit is the one inside of us moving us with our past experiences, moving us, drawing us closer to God, even those who don’t yet believe. Our job as Christians is not to prove the existence of God beyond a shadow of a doubt, but instead to work, as we can, to tear down obstacles to belief, assumptions about Christians that are not true to who Jesus is.
So we get to the why. Today, I want us to hold on to the why that Isaiah points to. Isaiah 61:1-4
The Lord God’s spirit is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, And there are poor in this world, my brothers and sisters. There are people who are poor who lack resources of money, but also lack resources of hope and peace. There are people who lack resources of love. to bind up the brokenhearted, And, oh boy, are there brokenhearted people in this world. Brokenhearted around the world. to proclaim release for captives, and liberation for prisoners, As well, there are people who are captive to many, many things, my brothers and sisters. People who are captive to their own ideology. People who are captive to their own expectations about who they should be, about what they should look like. About what they should get in this world. And they are being pulled apart in that captivity. to comfort all who mourn, We are still mourning in 2020. We are mourning for a lot. And there is a deep need for comfort.
Isaiah points out this deep need. That even if you have your life altogether. If all your retirements are maxed out, all of your grandkids have maxed out 529 plans, you still cannot save yourself. In this broken world, death is coming. Decay and hurt and brokenness that we see. And the rain falls on the just as well as the unjust. This brokenness and captivity and poverty that impacts us all.
So what can Jesus do about it? How does this child born 2000 years ago make any impact on this brokenness. Because, looking around, there is still brokenness. There is still hurt. There are still people starving in the streets. There are still children getting sick. There are still families breaking up and people losing jobs and people suffering from addiction and depression and deprivation.
I can’t answer this fully today. We can’t even attempt the answer, though, if we don’t admit the question. The answer begins by admitting, whoever you are and whatever faith you have, that this world is not what it could be. This world is not as it should be. Something needs to change.
For Christians, that something that needs to happen in order to heal this brokenness has already begun. Jesus came to heal this brokenness and we see glimpses of Christ’s healing in the joys we are able to find. We should not be surprised by pain but surprised by joy, as CS Lewis wrote. Joy does not come because we work hard enough for it or because we deserve it. Today is Gaudete Sunday, the day of rejoicing. The pink candle. Joy is a gift. When we admit the need for healing in this world, that the world is. It what it could be, we can see joy as a gift. Peace as a gift.
True rest, true peace, does not come from our own work but from the God who created everything, and the God who created everything did not see fit to change the world at the proverbial snap of a fingers, which would eradicate the image of God in us, our freedom and identity. But instead, God entered into the world as a needy child. And unlike teenagers, newborns let us know their need. God became a needy infant in order to fill our need for God. God became man to dwell among us. To begin the process of new creation, of redemption, to bring about the kingdom of God here. So that we can see now our future together in God’s new creation with people who are drawn together, not because we like each other, but because we admit that we are imperfect people. We admit that we need something. And that there is no political party, there is no sports team, there is no job, there is no lifestyle that can fill the God-sized whole inside of us. The why is that this world is broken.
Thanks be to God that Jesus came. Thanks be to God that his work is not finished, that the brokenness we still see today is not a mark of God’s failure but a mark of the continuing need for redemption and transformation.
One of the things the coming of Christ offers us is not just to be passive recipients of God’s mercy, but active participants in God’s transformation. This is what the life of the church is about. Receiving mercy and going out to seek justice. Worshipping God and loving neighbor. One of the ways we are able to do this in this congregation is through the Stephen Ministers program. Stephen Ministers walk with people, they don’t try to fix brokenness. They stand with others. They listen. They pray. If you know someone in your life who is going through some acute brokenness in this season, some sorrow, some grief. Please consider talking to them or to me about a Stephen Minister or about becoming one. The training takes time and is serious because the work is serious. Caring for folks who are hurting is serious, but is worthwhile. As Christians, we are not asked to fix the world or to fix others but to point in our lives to the one who does.
The ‘why’ is that this world is broken. The who is Jesus Christ, son of the living God. God took on our sin, took on our hurt, took on our brokenness to start the transformation of everything. May God give you peace this advent season. Jesus is coming soon.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.