THE COMING KINGDOM

A Sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent
December 9, 2006
Pastor Laura Gentry

Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Every single Sunday as we worship, we pray the Lord’s prayer. And every time we say it, we recite the lines:

"Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven..."

We ask for God’s kingdom to come here. Now. We know that God is love. Where God is, there is hope and life. There is only light with God—there is no darkness at all. In this light, there is peace for all, just as it is in heaven.

And so we pray urgently for this kingdom to come. We know that when this ultimately happens, all that is wrong will be made right. There will not be random violent shootings like the one in the Nebraska mall last week. Injustice will be a thing of the past. There will be no more spam e-mails tricking vulnerable people into making bogus investments. No one would take advantage of the poor and dispossessed. There would not be a third world or even first world—we one world, united for the good of all God’s people.

In this season of Advent, during the darkest time of the calendar year, we light candles on the wreath to show that we still have hope. We have hope in our hearts that this world’s darkness will give way to God’s glorious light. We long for God’s kingdom to come and we believe that it IS coming!

Today, we heard the voice of John the Baptist in our Gospel reading. He comes with boldness, even rudeness, proclaiming that we all must repent of our ways. We have not been working for God’s kingdom to come as we ought. We have turned away from the hope our faith gives to us and instead embraced hopelessness. This cannot go on! The voice of the Baptizer rings down through the years and calls us again to repent for the kingdom of God is near. Though this is a demanding call, it is an exciting one. It is good news that the kingdom is near and we should be prepared to do anything necessary in order to hasten it.

We also heard from the prophet Isaiah in our Advent scriptures today. He paints a beautiful picture of the peace that Christ brings. Listen once again to the poetry of his words and and let the marvelous implications of the scene speak to your heart and mind:

The wolf shall live with the lamb...
the leopard shall lie down with the kid...
the calf and the lion
and the fatling together...
and a little child shall lead them.

The wolf is a terrifying, mortal enemy of the lamb. The lamb is no match for the wolf. A lamb could never escape the brute power of the leopard and a lion would destroy a calf in no time at all. The thought of a child at the center of these images is horrifying.  A child is vulnerable and innocent. How fascinating that there is a child in the center of all this danger, providing the leadership.

And Jesus came to fulfill the prophesy—coming as a little baby, weak like you and me. He came as a child to show us the way and to lead us toward that kingdom God desires, where lion and lamb can lay down together in peace.

Jesus said that if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven, we must be like children. I think this means that our inner child is called upon in the business of faith. We must open our hearts as children do to believe—to really believe—that a better world is possible. We are challenged to cast aside our jaded notions, our negative ideas like “there’s always been war, there always will be war, that’s just how it is.” No, we are called upon to use our childlike hopefulness and place our trust in the Christ child.

As we continue our journey through these days of preparation for the celebration of the coming of the babe of Bethlehem, our hearts, along with the hearts of God's people of every time and place long for the time when God will make all things right. We are joined in hope and expectation for the time Isaiah's words express the voice of God, "They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea."

But here is the catch: We have gathered here today not just to long for the coming of the kingdom of God, not simply to pray for the coming of that kingdom not just to sing the great Advent hymns about that fabulous kingdom to come, we are called to work for it’s appearance. We are the children of God and therefore ambassadors from that kingdom. We live here in this broken world, but our real citizenship is in the kingdom. We must heed John’s call to repentance so that we can turn ourselves around and get busy with the work of turning the world around. That’s our God-given responsibility.

Until Christ comes again to bring about a new and righteous world, we are those who have by faith embraced his coming as the child of Bethlehem and have been formed into the world's visible reminder of the kingdom of God: the Church, the Body of Christ in the world.

We are waiting today for the celebration of the child of Bethlehem. And as the church we wait with Christ to celebrate that day when, as Isaiah prophesied, "The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest." Advent and Christmas are for us, the promise of that God's kingdom will come indeed!

And now, may the peace which passes all understanding keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© 2007 Laura E. Gentry