Hope in a World of Sixes

I promise not to talk about the impeachment proceedings this morning. You’re welcome. Well, except to mention just one take away from all that news coverage. A strange aspect of human nature was on display in the countless hours of congressional debate. Isn’t it fascinating how people can look at the same thing - an event, a transcript, a constitution, or really just about anything, and reach opposite conclusions about the truth of it and what it means? This ability of ours goes well beyond the current political divide, of course. We live in a world of polarized choices to be made, countless either/ors which require us to take a side and to dig in our heels against the opposition. I’m reminded of the cartoon in which two people are standing across from each other looking down at a number written on the ground, arguing over what the number is. From one side it is clearly a six, but from the other side it’s actually a nine. Each side is confident in its interpretation of what seems so obvious, because how could anything else possibly be true?

As I listened to the partisan debate this week, I started to wonder what it takes for any of us to really consider a different perspective. I’m as stubborn as the next person when it comes to what I think I know to be true. What would it take for me, or for you, to actually change our minds about what’s true or good or right? Most days, it doesn’t seem like any of us wants to budge. And yet, I’m reminded that Jesus was consistently on a mission to get us to see a different way, a different truth. We look at the world and see a particular reality. Let’s say we see a six. It seems so obvious to us. But over and over again, Jesus pointed at the world to show us a nine. That nine was a sign of a deeper truth, about the world, about ourselves, about the past and the future, about God. The nine he revealed to us was a sign of hope that what we see is not all there is. On several occasions he said that the Kingdom of God has come near. In other words, there is more. The question for us then, is how do we go about believing in that something more? 

Our readings this morning are a good place to start, especially Isaiah’s vision. It’s breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a promise of hope to exiles, to people whose world looks fairly bleak. The wilderness, usually so harsh and dry, will rejoice and bloom. People who suffer will be healed – the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Streams will spring up in the desert. And a road will emerge, called the Holy Way, for all of God’s people to find their way back to Zion. No traveler, not even fools, will lose their way. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. It seems too good to be true, but the prophet presents this vision as a reality that will surely unfold. 

From there, fast forward to John the Baptist, who’s in prison. He has heard rumors about Jesus, which leads him to wonder if there is truth beyond what he can see in his prison cell. Is Jesus the one to bring about Isaiah’s vision? Jesus sends messengers to report back to John what they see and hear, not just a hopeful idea but a new reality: “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” Jesus’ very presence in the world has caused Isaiah’s vision to come to life, literally. When Jesus comes near, death in all of its forms is overcome. People’s bodies and spirits are healed, there is even resurrection. He has that effect on the world.

Jesus’ message to incarcerated John is that God’s realm is somehow truer than the limited view we see can around us, and that the kingdom is already unfolding. It’s the same message for us. We could reject the message as wishing thinking, and insist that the world is only what we can see. But there is another truth, not only that there is more to this world, but that there is reason to hope in its unfolding, even reason to rejoice. 

This is the essence of Advent, a time of preparation for this Christ who is the embodiment of everything Isaiah and John hoped for. This time of year, we always seem to find ourselves in a confused world of ominous headlines and twinkling Christmas lights. The world looks like a six. But we are once again invited to throw our faith into a world of nines, into a world where God became flesh to heal it all. “Advent, it is said, is the season when Christians are called to live with more hope than the world thinks is reasonable” (Katherine Jefferts Shori). Our unreasonable hope is echoed in the words of Madeline L’Engle, who wrote: “This is the irrational season/when love blooms bright and wild. /Had Mary been filled with reason/there’d have been no room for the child.” 

The writer Phyllis Tickle was fond of telling a story about the time when a young woman approached her after a lecture with a question about the virgin birth. Phyllis assumed that this young woman would be a cynic, too young or smart or sophisticaed to believe in such quaint ideas. “Oh no,” the young woman replied when asked her position, “it must be true, because it’s so beautiful.” I’m with her. That young woman stands in a long and faithful line from Isaiah, to John the Baptist, to Mary, and to all those who have dreamt of the day when God will heal the world. We may still be waiting this Advent, but we have concrete signs of that redemption in the life and death and resurrection of Christ. The full vision must be true, because it is so beautiful. 

So, my friends, this Advent, embrace a hope that may seem unreasonable. This hope has been offered to us, fulfilled in the incarnation, and yet still anticipated in what God will make of this old world in the time to come. Maybe you could use a little hope this time of year amidst the twinkling Christmas lights. And surely this hope could use our allegiance. The world will tell us to shut it down, that a six is all there is. People will try to sell us cynicism and despair in place of real hope and the divine dream of a nine. But cynicism and despair are nothing compared to the nearly 3,000 year-old wisdom of the prophet Isaiah. “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” That is our unreasonable hope, truer than anything else. If we let our hearts open to it, perhaps it can bloom bright and wild in us.