Wonderful Counselor (Advent Week 1)

Isaiah 2:1-5

Matthew 2:1-12

Well, did everyone survive Thanksgiving?  I saw lots of advice online about strategies for avoiding an all out family feud over politics.  One friend of mine said that his family wandered into political mine-fields, and it got so angry and out of control that his father yelled at the top of his lungs, “WE’RE ALL GOING TO HAVE COOKIES NOW!!!!”

We come today into an Advent season that can be a season of renewal for us.  But it can also be just one more busy, holiday season, full of distractions and obligations.  What can we do to help prepare ourselves for a season in which God meets us and changes us?  How might we approach the next four weeks so that we give the good news of Christ’s birth some chance of penetrating down into our lives and rearranging our desires, our relationships, our plans and prayers for the future?

 

Well, the first thing to say is that God wants to meet you, wants to meet us, in this sacred and special time.  The God who makes a surprising visit to the world in a backwater little corner of Palestine is the same God who promises to visit us, right now and right here, in this place. 

When Mary sang about what the coming of Messiah means, she sang of the way God’s appearance turns the world upside down, dignifying the poor and breaking the pride of the powerful.  God is still doing that.  God is still appearing in unexpected people and places and inspiring a passionate revolution that unstitches all that’s wrong with the world and begins to reweave a world that is more just, more peaceful, and more kind.  And this new rule of God, or kingdom of God, does its work in and through ordinary communities of people like us who open themselves to this fresh arrival of grace and beauty.

Now a story about God’s arrival to love the world back into shape seems like something that all of us would want to cheer for and celebrate.  But we human beings, especially we church folks and religious types, we have a track record of decorating the tree and singing the Christmas carols and lighting the candles, all the while keeping our lives closed, locking the door against a newness that threatens the comfortable familiarity of our lives. 

What if Advent – God’s coming among us in Jesus – what if it brings along with it a call on our lives to walk out into something that is uncomfortable or unfamiliar?  What if it calls us to pack our bags for a long journey – like the one taken by the nations streaming to Jerusalem, or the one taken by the wise teachers from the East to Bethlehem?  What if it calls me to change the ways I earn and spend money?  What if it calls me to friendships with people I generally steer clear of?  What if it calls me to a life that is less busy?  Or to a life that’s more busy?  What if it calls me to free myself from the expectations of my family or closest friends?  What if welcoming this divine visitation will cost me something?  What if “Joy to the World” can only be sung by those who can embrace pain and sacrifice? 

Last week at a conference in San Antonio, Gary Dorrien, a theologian at Union Theological Seminary in New York, made the comment that white churches are good at avoiding issues surrounding race, the problems of racism, and the work towards racial reconciliation.  He said, “So much of white church talk is innocuous; it's about nothing; it's designed to offend no one, because churches can't afford to lose anyone.”

This temptation to insulate ourselves against the sharper edges of the good news is nowhere more true than during the season of Advent and Christmas.  The Bible stories surrounding Jesus’ birth can become precious.  The characters in the story – Joseph and Mary, the shepherds, angels, and wise men – can become sentimental and cute, functioning to provide sweetness and solace to choices and decisions we've already made.  But if we can hear these stories together in the power of the Holy Spirit, God can break open the crusts of our current lives - to the pain, brokenness, & beauty of the world around us.

Our Advent series on “Naming God” is taken from Isaiah 9:6 – “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

These wonderful phrases are imprinted deeply on our imaginations as part of the Advent and Christmas seasons, in no small part because of the beauty and power of Handel’s Messiah.  Now Isaiah was Jewish literature in its own right.  And so we have to do the work of hearing it as Jewish Scripture if we are to then also hear it as Christian Scripture.  And in its own context, these names for God refer to King Hezekiah and the political hopes of Israel for life under a new king in difficult times.  Though the verses seem like a celebration over the birth of the new king, scholars suggest that the words were more likely written for the inauguration ceremony for the new king. And the earliest followers of Jesus found in this political language one framework for understanding and receiving Jesus as God’s long awaited Messiah.

Today we are asking, What does it mean for us to name Jesus the Messiah as Wonderful Counselor?  How does that name help us receive him, trust him, and offer to him our best allegiance and deepest loyalty?

Our reading from Isaiah 2 helps us begin to name Jesus as Wonderful Counselor.  The words of Isaiah the prophet speak of a future, fresh arrival of God that will make a difference in how the world works.  It is a very public, and very political picture of the effects of this divine visitation.  The hill on which Jerusalem sits will become the highest mountain of all.  The vision isn’t about individuals, one by one, converting to Israel’s religion.  It’s about all the people of every nation streaming to God’s mountain, drawn by the beauty of God’s love and by the rightness of God’s law.

God is pictured as a judge who settles disputes between the nations.  That is to say, God’s fresh arrival will involve the reconciliation of conflict between nations.  God’s fresh arrival will involve a movement away from winner take all, competitive relations, towards an economy that’s good for everyone on the planet.  There won’t be first and third world countries.  There won’t be developed and developing economies.  There won’t be trade partnerships that benefit some and harm others.  There won’t be treaties that fill the coffers of some nations while decimating the natural landscape of others.  That kind of violent, coercive politics, and the wars that create and maintain those unjust relationships, will become a thing of the past. 

When God arrives, weapons like swords and spears – as well as tanks and machine guns, nuclear weapons and fighter jets and carriers and submarines and IED’s and drones - will become worthless.  There will be no use for them.  And so the peoples will become creative and imaginative, reshaping their weapons into tools of production and cultivation.  All the energy and resources that formerly went into the manufacture of weaponry will be reallocated to other creative projects.

Matthew’s gospel goes out its way to tell the story of Jesus’ birth in a way that emphasizes the politics of the situation.  When this new “King of the Jews” was born, the Roman Empire already had a ruler known as Caesar or Emperor.  And that Emperor had appointed King Herod to rule in Galilee, where Jesus was born.  And Matthew invites us to see how this existing political order of the Romans was threatened by the arrival of something new.  When Jesus arrives as God’s light and love, politicians get nervous (and rightly so).  There will be conflict between the hope offered by God’s kingdom and that offered by the political establishment.  And people will be divided on how to best align their efforts and allegiance toward the future.

This story in Matthew’s gospel about the wise men traveling by star to bring gifts to the newborn Jesus is not a complicated story.  The birth of Jesus was so wonderful that even people from far away came to see him.  But King Herod is a dangerous ruler and shouldn’t be trusted.  And those glad to welcome Jesus into the world will have to proceed with caution.  They will have to follow their dreams in a dangerous world.

In an election year like this year, the season of Advent falls between the election of a new president and the coming inauguration.  This time between election and inauguration is always a time of transition.  One regime is ending; another is beginning.  New appointments are being made.  It’s always a time of expectation and anticipation.  What will change?  How will life be different? 

Advent invites us into a season of anticipation as well.  What will life be like, now that Jesus the Wonderful Counselor has arrived in our midst?  What will change for us now that he has taken the government of all creation onto his merciful and compassionate shoulders?  How can we best express our devotion to his loving rule?

I know that in a time of political disagreements, it’s tempting to argue that we should keep politics and religion separate.  But you can see from our readings today that this is impossible.  We need political language to understand what God’s arrival in Jesus means for us and for the world.  The one who was born has been named “Wonderful Counselor.”  He rules his people in a way that brings amazement and wonder.  He organizes life in his realm with wisdom, gentleness, courage, mercy, and hope.  In his kingdom, there aren’t winners and losers.  There are only people experiencing love and healing as they begin to recognize this same love and healing in all others.

Scripture teaches us not to place our hope in powerful governments and economies.  Our own government and the economy of global capitalism certainly look and feel like sacred and unchangeable ways of organizing the world and the circulation of people, goods, and services.  But they aren’t.  They are a contingent, accidental formulation that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.  And Scripture warns that governments and economies will always want us to treat them as idols that can provide our lives with meaning.  And in that sense, they will always be rivals and competitors to God’s good news in Jesus Christ.  They will always be in competition with and a threat to the new way of life that emerges within groups of people learning to follow the Messiah.  And so in this sense, we should be wary of politics, wary of political allegiance, wary of too much excitement about one political leader over another. 

Advent invites us to repent of some of the ways we've misnamed God.  Instead, we are learning to name God in Christ as Wonderful Counselor.  In Messiah, God is the loving King who rules with mercy, inviting even enemies and opponents to join the work.  Advent isn't about our comfort and happiness.  It’s about the arrival of new possibilities in the midst of the old world, and the uncomfortable urgency of turning our lives and energy toward this dawning light.