The traditional Advent hymn, “People Look East,” has been running through my head. It comes to mind because it captures the mood and images of today’s readings.
Isaiah 11:1-10
Isaiah has been preaching of the “storm to come” from invasion by the Assyrians. The people of Judah have been spared—for the moment. Yet the threats remain real. Storm clouds of disaster remain on the horizon. Against this background, Isaiah now writes exquisite poetry of goodness to come. He speaks of the coming Messiah, of how God’s Holy Spirit will rest on him, and what a difference that will make in how life is.
Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures the word for the Holy Spirit is “ruah.” It is the breath of God that creates and sustains life, confronts evil, promotes holiness, speaks prophecy, and generally does what the Holy Spirit does in the New Testament: it brings God into the ordinary lives of people to make the people and their lives different. “Ruah” is mentioned 388 times in the Hebrew Scriptures.
If the list of characteristics of “Ruah” in today’s reading sounds familiar, that’s because six of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit are named—Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Courage, Knowledge, and Fear of the Lord. (Piety is the gift not mentioned, if you are wondering).
When the Messiah comes, life will be different. The Messiah will rule with justice that protects the poor, the weak, and the needy from dominance and destruction by the powerful. There will be no more survival of the fittest. The lion and the calf will eat grass together. The bear and the cow will be neighbors. And the line that most strikes me: “the wolf will be the guest of the lamb.”
What has to happen for a lamb to be safe with a wolf as guest in her house? Stories of Little Red Riding Hood and the Three Little Pigs come to mind. From childhood, we learn not to trust the wolf, not to let the wolf in.
It is in this sense that the words of “People Look East” come to mind, “Love, the guest, is on the way.” What would make the wolf a guest who loves? What would make it safe for the bear and the cow to be neighbors?
The answer: John the Baptist tells us.
Matthew 3:1-12
Each year, at least one Sunday during Advent the Gospel is about John the Baptist. In Cycle A, written by Matthew, the tax collector turned apostle, John is center stage in the Gospel on both the second and third Sundays of Advent. The goodness of repentance that changes who you are, as well as what you do, is a strong theme throughout Matthew’s Gospel.
Matthew, the public sinner tax collector, must have intensely known the difference of living in the Messiah’s Kingdom of God from living in the survival of the fittest natural world. He had been near the top of the food chain in the Roman-Jewish world of his day. Yet, he repented, left it all, and followed Jesus.
We know from other Gospels that Peter, Andrew, James, and John had gone to the Jordan to hear John the Baptist preach. They most likely got in line, went down in the water, and came out intending to be part of the necessary righteous in Israel who would create the conditions that would enable the Messiah to come.
Did Matthew also go to hear John? We don’t know. His description today of what John looked like, how he dressed, what he ate, what he said, and who was there—all those details make me believe Matthew went to the Jordon. He heard John. Yet we also know Jesus called him from his tax collector station, so Matthew must either have not gone down into the water of repentance or John’s power to elicit repentance didn’t last in him.
But Matthew is clear, John said repent. “Repent, brood of vipers.” “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Hmm. The vipers (snakes) were described by Isaiah as made harmless by the Holy Spirit resting on the Messiah, “The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm….”
No harm? Again, my mind goes back, this time to Adam, Eve, and the viper/adder/snake-in-the-grass temptation in Eden. The Messiah was going to change the power of the serpent to do harm as he established the Kingdom of God on the earth. He would be sent to do that.
The Kingdom of God led by the Holy Spirit would depend on humans turning away from temptation to power, deception, selfishness. The justice coming from the Messiah would make that possible.
Romans 15:4-9
As this next-to-last chapter of Romans begins, Paul says, “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him. For Christ did not please himself.” (Romans 15:1-3a) His reference to “whatever was written in former days” seems to refer to the Law. Paul is writing to help a community of Jews and Gentiles get past their differences to become a unified Christian community.
In the context of that problem, Paul says, “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” He is telling the Romans to be hospitable to Love, the guest, even if that guest has, in the past, wounded, judged, or rejected them. He is encouraging them to see each other as guests in their houses–and offer hospitality.
Applications
Some of my prayer this week led me to consider: who has hurt me deeply, that I might want to be my neighbor in heaven? In heaven, the full, permanent Kingdom of God, the person who was wolf or lion or snake to me here would not be wolf or lion or snake still. We do not take our sins to heaven. I do not get to take mine. People who have caused me harm do not get to take theirs. In heaven, we live by God’s Kingdom of God rules:
“Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips….There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain;”
In heaven, the Holy Spirit dwells in every house, in every person. All the time. In heaven, because we do not take our sins, we no longer work and live from the wounds of life that make us lame, deaf, blind, and prone to keep sinning here below. In heaven, we have repented, God has healed us, and we are no longer dangerous to each other.
The Messiah came and made the way for me to live by the Kingdom of God rules NOW. I have to wait for heaven for everyone to live that way (yes, true, those who refuse to live that way won’t be in heaven), but I don’t have to wait to repent, to be Love, the guest, in anyone’s house.
Not easy. But possible. Possible for Matthew and the other disciples/apostles. Possible, at least some days, for me. Come, Lord Jesus.
Prayer:
People, look East, the time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look East and sing today Love, the Guest, is on the way
