December 14, 2008 Message

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28
“If Not The Messiah, Who Then?”

The lessons of the last two weeks have been: Advent is about hope when everything seems lost; it’s about waiting when help is on the way. Advent is about the peace in knowing the good news is already begun in the anticipation of and the preparation for the Christ – the one who brings us to the Father. Today’s Advent lesson focuses on the joy that comes from living in Christ and the vocation to which each of us is called.

“The spirit of God is upon me, because God has appointed me to bring good news.” The words of the prophet Isaiah, later repeated by Jesus as he claimed his vocation as God’s messenger to the world, invite us to think about our vocations in light of the Advent coming of One who will usher in God’s kingdom. Frederick Buechner says it is important to, “Listen to your life.” Discover the part your life is to play; your vocation.

Bruce Epperly, professor of practical theology at Lancaster Theological Seminary, suggest that “our callings and vocations in life – which aim toward the future - are determined by a number of things: our environment, DNA, religious upbringing, past choices, and other factors, including God’s emerging vision for our lives.” He says our growth as Christians is shaped by our visions and dreams for the future.

Our vocations come about from the interplay of God’s call and our response in the unique context in which we find ourselves. It isn’t so much that God has a plan for our life as it is that God continually provides ‘options’ from which we might choose to be in partnership with God. You see, God is always calling us to partnership that then leads to fuller relationship with God.
Isaiah has been ‘called’ to speak to his community, although it is ‘the Spirit of God’ that is the source of what he says. He has been anointed by God to proclaim the good news of God’s freedom for people who are oppressed in a foreign land to the point of hopelessness. This is God’s vision for the people. It is something that IS going to happen!

And when God’s vision for us - this vocation or calling if your will - becomes clear, everything changes. Life is no longer the same. There is more energy, less apprehension when facing a challenge, more possibilities imagined. There is a greater ‘connectedness’ or wholeness of purpose, all toward where God is leading us.

Professor Epperly suggest this ‘call’ is basically the same for all of us, prophets or not. He says, “We can, as the stories of ordinary people who were called to extraordinary things show, do great things for God, if we are open to the possibilities and willing to risk new behaviors.”

When we can actually visualize what might be if God’s great adventure included us, we take the first steps toward transformation.

So, what future can we imagine for ourselves? What mission can we envision for this church? And what new images of hope can we see for this community and the world? Today’s text challenges us to grow into our vocations, whatever they may be. What is it then, during this Advent season and beyond, you are being called to become?

John the Baptist is all about vocation. He knows who he is and who he is not. He says, “I am not the Messiah.” “I’m not here to save you or to free you. I’m not here to fix things and make things right. I’m just here to point the way to the one who is. Jesus is the one! He is greater than me.” His vocation is to testify to Jesus being the Christ, the Lamb of God, and “the light.” John makes that clear when he says, “I am not the messiah.”

John’s clarity of vocation applies to us as well. We are not to be the Messiah either, but we are to fulfill our vocation for this time and place. John the Baptist said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.” Through our vocation, whatever that may be, we can ‘witness to the light’ as well so others might believe. If our vocation, our calling, is how we are to ‘witness to the light,’ how might ‘our light shine’ in the darkness of this world?

Author and pastor, John Stendahl, of Newton Centre, Mass. says this, “We are anointed people. We have been chosen and called, all of us. We are in Christ and he lives in us. We are his agents, his hands in the world. We are called to emulate him and to offer Christ’s love to the world. We are to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners. As Luther said, “We are to be little Christs.” All that means is that we are called to do what Jesus would be doing if he were here, that’s all.

John the Baptist’s denial (of being the messiah) points out an important truth for all of us. Regardless of those times we might like to be, or have expectations of others being the Messiah – the truth is, we are not the Messiah! Nor are they! Yet that is what can happen when we seek too much from others or hope to be too much to them. Our wanting to rescue or be rescued can deter us from our true vocation.

We are called to do great things for God. And even though it doesn’t include being the Messiah, it may mean our involvement in his work and mission, yet in humility, like John the Baptist, pointing the way to “the light” and the one who IS THE MESSIAH, Jesus Christ. Our vocation may be “making straight the way of the Lord.”

The church is to be a storehouse of spiritual gifts nurturing one another. Heaven forbid we ‘quench the Spirit’ – which the author of 1 Thessalonians says is a definite no-no.

We are to live out our vocations, rejoicing, praying and giving thanks always. These spiritual practices of joy, prayer, and gratitude work will energize us and expand our vision of possibilities.

Realizing our vocation requires our full commitment. It includes every aspect of our life, each contributing to the vocation to which we have been called. Advent challenges us to look beyond our limitations and fears in order to imagine God’s new possibilities – and then to live them out. Where will God call us? Toward what Advent adventures are we being led? What great things would God have us do? If not the Messiah, who then?


Bruce Epperly, Holy Adventure: Forty-one Days of Audacious Living, Upper Room, 2008.)
The Christian Century, December 2, 2008, Reflections on the Lectionary by author and pastor, John Stendahl, Newton Centre, Mass.