This sermon was preached at Canoe Ridge Lutheran Church and Aase Haugen Home, Decorah, Iowa on December 15, 2019. Those following the lectionary will note that it’s based on texts for the 4th Sunday of Advent: Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 and Matthew 1:18-25. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson.
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1Hear, O Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock;
shine forth, you that are enthroned upon the cherubim.
2In the presence of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh,
stir up your strength and come to help us.
3Restore us, O God; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
4O Lord God of hosts, how long will your anger fume when your people pray?
5You have fed them with the bread of tears;
you have given them bowls of tears to drink.
6You have made us the derision of our neighbors,
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.
7Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
17Let your hand be upon the one at your right hand,
the one you have made so strong for yourself.
18And so will we never turn away from you; give us life, that we may call upon your name.
19Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
Matthew 1:18-25
18Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.”24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Restore us, O God; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
Once again, the psalmist keeps it real. In a culture that relentlessly insists on happiness—rushing ahead to a consumer-driven Christmas in a futile attempt to keep doubt and dis-ease at bay—we pause this morning to acknowledge that all is not well.
The psalmist gives us words to confront God: O Lord, how long will your anger fume when your people pray? You have fed them with the bread of tears; you have given them bowls of tears to drink.
Bread of tears. Bowls of tears to drink. It feels like this some days, doesn’t it? It feels as though tears are your food and your drink, tears are all there is, tears are all that God is providing for you even though you’re begging for daily bread.
Sometimes, when we’re feeling this way, it seems to make as much sense as anything else to just give up on God. Why keep praying if all it amounts to is more heartache?
But the psalmist models another response. When it feels as though tears are all God is giving you, when God seems distant and maybe even downright angry, pray all the more.
Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
Comfort food won’t save us.
Alcohol won’t relieve our pain.
Retail therapy isn’t therapy at all.
What we need is God. We need God’s face shining upon us, looking on us with love. We need God to hear our prayers and to answer them. We need God to stir up his strength—stir up her strength—and come to save us.
I read a piece this week written by Vance Morgan, a professor of philosophy at Providence College. He was reflecting on a sabbatical he spent at the Collegeville Institute on the campus of Saint John’s University, run by the Benedictine order of Catholic monks, in Collegeville, Minnesota. This is what he has written of that experience:
My academic plans were set; a well-defined book project was ready to be written. But upon arrival, it gradually became clear to me that something else was going on. For most of my then fifty-plus years, I struggled with the conservative, fundamentalist Protestant Christianity in which I was raised. What became clear to me in Minnesota was that what I thought was a long-term, low-grade spiritual dissatisfaction had become, without my being aware of it, a full-blown spiritual crisis…
As I tested the waters of daily prayer with the monks at Saint John’s Abbey, I noticed a space of silence and peace slowly opening inside of me that I had never known. No voices, no visions, no miracles—but I was writing differently. The low-grade anger that had accompanied me for most of my life began to dissipate. I felt more and more like a whole person instead of a cardboard cutout of one. The world looked different…1
As I read Morgan’s piece, I was so struck by his description of feeling more and more like a whole person instead of a cardboard cutout of one. I, too, have had that kind of experience. And maybe you have as well. For me, it did come from a time of crisis and a deepening awareness of God’s persistent presence in my life and in the life of the world.
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts; let your face shine upon us, and we shall be saved.
This is our prayer: for ourselves, for our loved ones, for a world in need. We want to live as more than cardboard cutouts going through the motions. We want to know real peace and not just the numbing we try to achieve on our own. We want to know real life—real joy—not just fake smiles and fleeting happiness.
And how does God answer our prayer? What is the word to which we cling in this Advent season?
Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.”
God is with us.
We are not alone with our tears, with our anger, with our worries. We are not alone with our yearning for things to be different.
God comes to earth in a baby born for us. In the words of a favorite Christmas carol, light and life to all he brings. And when we put him to death, when we do our best to silence his radical love for all creation—he rises with healing in his wings so that we might rise too.
No more death. No more sorrow. No more bread of tears. No more bowls of tears to drink.
The baby’s name is Emmanuel. God is with us.
Amen.
1 https://collegevilleinstitute.org/bearings/what-may-we-hope-for/