Jim Street

I am often put off by some of the Christmas songs because they are so sentimental, so romantic and so not-my- experience.

Sometimes I feel as if I am going to blow if I hear one more song about holiday cheer, faces all aglow, happy shoppers on their way down glistening, snow covered city sidewalks.

I live in the Atlanta area.  The last time we had snow at Christmas was around the time the Magna Carta was being signed.  And as for happy faces all aglow....ha!...I say, "Ha!"

I see harried faces (even hairy faces!), distracted faces and most of them anything but "all aglow." 

I live in the suburbs.  You see tail lights all aglow.  You see strip malls.  You see enough concrete and black top to cover Rhode Island.  You see power cable, telephone lines and litter.

To many Christmas songs I say, "Bah!"

Unless....unless I hear those lyrics not as descriptions of what is but as yearnings of what could be.

Maybe there could be a day- even here in the 'burbs of HOTlanta"- when there is snow on the ground, happy people scurrying here and there with nothing more than a "Merry Christmas" on their breath.

Hearing those songs in that way may just rescue me from my humbuggery.

Reading the Isaiah texts in the Revised Common Lectionary is really what has rescued me from another season of singing, "Bah, bah, bah, bah, baaaah.." instead of "Fa la la la laaaa."

Listen to these words about the coming the Day of Lord...

"He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn more any more." (2:4)

Or read these words and just imagine...

"The wolf shall sleep 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 together, 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 his hand in the adder's den.  They will not hurt or destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (11:6-9 NRSV)

I suspect there were those who first heard Isaiah's words with a "bah" and a "humbug."  They read the paper like everyone else; they watched the evening news.  They worked in the sweatshops and traversed the market places.

No more war?  No more studying war?  No more tragedies?  No more "nature red in tooth and claw."

Bah!

All those folks are gone.  However, the words of Isaiah still stand and give their hope.

Isaiah expresses a vision.  However...and this is important...Isaiah's vision is not simply the poetic expression of wishful thinking or overwrought romanticism.  Isaiah is not Mel Torme sitting at a piano in California in the heat of summer writing about "chestnuts roasting on an open fire."

Isaiah speaks to human yearning, yes.

But the word Isaiah speaks, the vision that Isaiah describes is not Isaiah's word and not Isaiah's vision.  His word and vision are not simply the yearnings of one man or the whole people. 

This is the word and the vision of the God who is faithful and who will do what God promises. 

Advent is the time of yearning...ours and God's! 

Advent is the time when we are reminded that our deepest longings, the ones we offer up to heaven, will be met (and then some) by the God who never leaves us nor forsakes us!

I started preaching 34 years ago just down the road from where I currently preach.   However, between the time I started and now, Gwinnett County, Georgia has changed.... Wait that should be  chaaaaannnnggged.

My agent, Irv, sent me this article.   I love the last line...

"America is changing...get used to it!"

This ain't your grandma's church.

One of the young ladies in my church came in a few weeks ago sporting an abolitionist t-shirt she had gotten at school and talking excitedly about a boy in her school who spoke in assembly about slavery and human trafficking.  She talked about how much money this kid had raised and how all that money had gone to help eradicate slavery.

At the time I had just been boning up on the topic of human trafficking and slavery myself.  I was interested in what she was saying but hadn't made the connection about who it was she was talking about.

I have since learned that she was talking about Zach Hunter, a young abolitionist who began his own campaign a few years ago when he was uh...12.....yep....12. 

Zach's in the 9th grade now, is the youth spokesman for The Amazing Change Campaign, and founder of "Loose Change 2 Loosen Chains," an organization that enlists kids to raise money to help eradicate slavery and human trafficking.  

Only a few years ago, Zach struggled with anxiety attacks.  Now he travels around in his "spare time" speaking to thousands of young people about the issue of slavery. 

He's also a published author.   I read his book, Be the Change, tonight.  The book is an inspiring collection of stories about people who have made a difference in the world. It includes thought provoking questions designed to get people, young and old, thinking about how they might make a difference in the world.  As I read the book I kept thinking about how when I was 15 (oh about 41 years ago) I was trying to figure out how I could get into the Beatles...not the music- the band!

This kid is a marvel.  When I get really sick of being an adult (and believe me I'm pretty close!) I want to be just like him!  (You know us adults...we're smart enough to know that people can't do what this kid is doing.  "In the adult's mind, there are few possibilities but in a kid's mind there are many.")

If you'd like to see Zach's interview on Good Morning America...(yeah, he's done that too!) just go here and be inspired.

I recommend that all parents get Zach's book, read it with your kids and resolve to "be the change" together as a family.

Just for good measure, here's an interview with Zach from Christianity Today.