The Shining Face of God
(Rutgers, December 20, 1998; 4th Sunday of Advent, Year A; Christmas Joy Offering)
Psalm 80:1–7, 17–19 (OT, p. 598); Matthew 1:18–25 (NT, pp. 1–2)
Quite frankly, this Fourth Sunday of Advent, 1998, is not an easy one
on which to be a preacher in America.
The calendar of the Christian Church is telling us
that the theme for this last Sunday before Christmas is hope—
hope for God's transforming presence in the world.
Yet as Representative John Lewis of Georgia observed
during Friday's House debate on the Articles of Impeachment:
"America is sick. Her heart is heavy.
Her soul is aching, and her spirit is low."
For the calendar of politics is telling us
that the theme for this historic Sunday is,
to quote the lead editorial in Friday's New York Times:
"War at Home and Abroad."
I suspect that most of you at Rutgers Church today
have brought with you to this service deep feelings of foreboding—
foreboding about our nation's battle over impeachment;
and foreboding about our nation's bombing of Iraq.
I suspect that most of you share my apprehension
that somehow we're being swept up
into a pair of national tragedies of epic proportions,
that somehow we're being caught up
into not just one but two major crises
for the solving of which there are on the horizon
no identifiable heroes—
no leaders who've demonstrated in the midst of crisis
even a minimal capacity for growing in stature,
let alone the capacity for saving the day.
Here at home,
how completely disappointing and disillusioning
are the likes of Bill Clinton and Henry Hyde,
Dick Gephardt and Bob Livingston,
Trent Lott and Tom Daschle!
One is tempted to say, "A pox on both your houses—
on both Congress and the White House!"
For these national political leaders, instead of
weaving the threads of humane ideals and far-sighted programs
into a majestic tapestry of liberty and justice for all—
these national leaders have used their seam rippers of
tawdry deeds, slippery arguments, and vengeful votes
to tear out the threads holding together the very fabric
of effective, civil, bipartisan government in America.
And, as a result, on a day when Americans
should be calling out to each other such unifying greetings as,
"Blessed Ramadan," and "Happy Chanukkah,"
and "Merry Christmas,"
Americans are instead waving such divisive placards as,
"Blessed Impeachment," and "Happy Inquisition,"
and "Merry Coup d'Etat."
And that's just the chaos our leaders have created in domestic issues.
There is also the chaos of international affairs
created by the absence both at home and in the world
of inspired, charismatic leadership.
Where is the leader who's proposed a plan
that's both workable and moral
to neutralize the menacing evil of Saddam Hussein's power?
There has been none:
not George Bush nor Bill Clinton,
not Jim Baker nor Madeleine Albright,
not Kofi Annan nor Tony Blair,
not Yevgeny Primakov nor Jacques Chirac,
not Hosni Mubarak nor Benjamin Netanyahu.
So, as a result, while Salvation Army bells
were ringing outside of Bloomingdale's to gather
shoppers' spare Christmas change for the poor and destitute,
U.S. Army missiles and bombs were falling around Baghdad
at a cost to us of at least a half billion dollars.
& after all our "smart" bombing + muscle flexing has come to an end
and most Americans "have come to feel a lot better
about our national virility,"
Saddam Hussein is still in power,
and, according to many experts,
will be more free of international constraints than ever
to develop his chemical weapons
and instruments of mass destruction.
This is a dour day indeed—
an appropriate day for singing and praying a psalm of lament,
like Psalm 80, this morning's First Lesson,
a psalm of complaint to God
that was composed amidst calamitous circumstances,
yet one that is distinguished from all other psalms of lament
by its remarkable, thrice-repeated refrain (vv 3, 7, 19):
"Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved."
Which is to say:
come, O Lord God of hosts;
come, and become manifest among us, that we may be saved.
Perhaps the Christian calendar does have it right after all.
Perhaps it is precisely on such a day as this, when
"America is sick. Her heart is heavy.
Her soul is aching, and her spirit is low"—
perhaps it is precisely on such a day as this
that we most need to hear and reaffirm hope—
hope for God's transforming presence in the world,
hope that God's face may shine upon us
so that we may be saved.
In my meditation at the midweek vesper service eleven days ago, I
suggested that in the apostle Paul's classic triad of faith, hope + love
"hope" is the one that Christians tend to overlook.
Isn't it the case that you've heard preachers talk a lot more
about faith and love than about hope?
And this, in spite of the fact that the great Christian thinker
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, stated as long ago as the 5th century
that of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is … hope!
Paul suggests
that in the face of all the causes for anxiety and despair in life,
Christians are able to have hope
because hope has the solid anchor
of God's record of gracious and loving actions in the past,
such as those that gave hope to the author of Psalm 80:
God's call of Abraham and Sarah to found a people of light,
and God's deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt—
the subject of the latest movie, Prince of Egypt.
To which list Paul adds the gracious and loving actions of God
made known in Paul's own era:
God's taking flesh in Jesus,
and God's overcoming death by the power of resurrection.
Because Christ was born of Mary on Christmas
and because Christ was raised from the dead on Easter,
we can have hope.
Thus, in an act of hope akin to that of the author of Psalm 80,
we followers of Jesus can dare to affirm that
in Jesus the light of God's face is still shining
and that through Jesus we may yet be saved.
Even though others may see only chaos + may expect only the worst,
we Christians, like those who prayed Psalm 80 long ago, see hope
and expect the light of God's face to somehow shine forth.
At Christmas, this great festival of hope, we celebrate
the birth into our world of one named "Jesus,"
the birth of a person whose very name means, "The Lord saves."
At Christmas, this great festival of hope, we celebrate
the birth into our world of God's eternal love,
the birth of a person into whom God poured
that divine quality of pure and perfect love,
a quality that expressed itself fully
both in Jesus's pure and perfect love for God and in
Jesus's pure and perfect love for all of humankind.
At Christmas, this great festival of hope, we celebrate
the birth into our world of the shining face of God,
the birth of the radiant, beaming face
of God's pure and perfect love.
This truth is the bedrock of our Christian hope,
and we proclaim it anew each and every time we sing
that most beloved Christmas carol of all, Silent Night.
Listen, please, to the words of its third verse:
"Silent night, holy night!
Son of God,
love's pure light, radiant, beams from Thy holy face,
with the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth,
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth."
This carol, together with the very first chapter of
the Gospel of Matthew, our morning's Second Lesson,
proclaims to us the very heart of our Christmas hope:
that the baby Jesus is Emmanuel,
is God-with-us,
is the shining face of God,
is the radiant, beaming face of God's pure + perfect love.
Listen: [Tbe soloist sings Silent Night, verse 3.]
And in the very last words of the Gospel of Matthew (28:20),
this same Jesus,
this same shining face of God,
proclaims to us the promise that has, ever since,
been the source of Christians' enduring hope
in the midst of such a dark and dreary world as this—
there, at the end of Matthew,
that same Jesus, who is the Risen Christ, says to us:
"And remember, I am with you always,
to the end of the age."
This truth that Jesus is with us always
is the mainstay of our Christian hope,
and we proclaim it anew each and every time we sing
another one of the beautiful carols of Christmas,
the one entitled Born in the Night, Mary's Child.
Listen, please, to the words of its second verse:
"[O] Clear shining light, Mary's child,
Your face lights up our way.
Light of the world, Mary's child,
Dawn on our darkened day."
Yes, Jesus was the shining face of God,
and that same Jesus, the Light of the World, the Risen Christ,
is still the shining face of God,
lighting up our way to the end of time.
Listen: [The soloist sings Born in the Night, Mary’s Child, verse 2.]
The American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote her poem "Renasence," which means "rebirth," at the youthful age of 20.
In it, she speaks of the choice that confronts the human heart and soul,
the choice to be crushed by pessimism about the world
or to take wing with hope.
If we don't let our heart and soul take wing with hope, says Millay:
"… East and West will pinch the heart
That cannot keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by."
But if we do let our soul take wing with hope, then, says Millay:
"The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through."
Today, on this dour political day, when our hearts are heavy,
and our souls are aching, and our spirits are low,
please join me in lifting up a soul-full prayer of hope,
one that I truly believe is capable of splitting the sky in two
and letting the face of God in Christ Jesus shine through.
Please join me in praying those remarkable words
from Psalm 80 (vs. 19).
Let us pray:
"Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved."
Amen.
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