First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2: 1-5

December 2, 2001

There is a phrase that is often quoted from the King James translation of the Bible that states, "Where there no vision, the people perish." Though I couldn’t find the exact reference, I know it is in the KJV (maybe some of you want the challenge to find the reference for me). The point that this is making is that if there is no sense of direction, no sense of a vision calling people forward, a group, a church, an organization, a business can become lost and in disarray. It soon loses its focus and will slowly die away.

We see this clearly in businesses and organizations these days. I have sat on several board in which much time is spent defining the mission and vision statements; if the vision is not clearly defined, the organization falls apart. With a clear vision and mission a company knows why it exists and can then say "yes" or "no" to things according to that sense of mission and vision. The vision draws you forward; the vision gets you looking beyond the ordinary activities of the day to give you the larger picture, a future, reason for being. We at Englewood currently have a committee working on defining a mission for the coming years; the mission statement won’t change, but the vision of what we need to be about changes with the times.

Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas that start the new church year, is all about sharing the vision. It is not time yet to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, because we need to spend time getting a hold of the vision. The prophet Isaiah shared a portion of the vision with the people of Judah and Jerusalem 730 years before Jesus. Can you imagine it – 700 years of living a vision, a sense of anticipation - "In the days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and all the nations shall stream to it."

This coming year, 2002, will be the 150th anniversary of my family members traveling by wagon train across the western United States on the Oregon Trail. For a year prior to that they had gathered in Monmouth, Illinois; they prayed and they planned for an entire year. It was their vision to journey to the Willamette Valley for the purpose of establishing Christian Churches and a Christian College. Can you imagine how determined those folk had to be – travel nearly 2,000 miles across the plains, the mountains, fording rivers and streams, dealing with uncertain dangers, with no promise or guarantee that they would make it. Imagine the vision they had that drew them forward every day when it would be easier to turn around and go back. They had daily devotions and on Sundays did not travel. They made the journey. They started a Christian college in Monmouth, Oregon and several churches, including Harrisburg Christian Church where Kathy grew up.

Stories are told about the Oregon Trail being littered along the way with items that people wanted to take with them, but needing to lighten the load, they threw aside. In order to save the oxen, they had to constantly remind themselves, "What is really important?" When those tall Rocky Mountains loomed ahead as they were still a hundred miles away, they had to anticipate the challenges. It was the vision that kept them going! Certain physical things were sacrificed.

When Isaiah was preaching, the northern kingdom, Israel, was being threatened. Nations around them were fighting; times were tense. Sons were dying in war; economic stability was threatened; the future was uncertain. In this context, Isaiah shared a vision from God; this is not as much a prediction as it is an affirmation that history will reach its goal and that there will be a radical transformation of existing conditions. The day will come when all people will gather in one place. With instruction and teaching from God they will work out their political differences. Instead of nationalism and conflict there will be unity and peace. Instead of dollars spent on making bombs, fighter jets and destroyers, there will be tractors to plow the fields, combines to harvest the grain, pumps to water the crops, trucks to distribute the food. There will be an economic shift. It will take work, it will take risking, it will take leaving behind that which we have come to trust in, in order that we can trust in God. In the Reign of God, there is no room for weapons of destruction because in the Reign of God there is peace; there is the working out of differences.

In order to come to the mountain of the Lord, in order to make the journey, we have to leave some things behind which we thought valuable. That includes prejudices towards people who are different from us; it includes attitudes of superiority that assume that we know what is best for everyone. Now we have to trust in God.

Some say that religion and politics shouldn’t mix, but if you read the Bible carefully, especially the prophets, one’s faith in God does affect how one thinks and acts. We by no means live in that Reign of God at this time. We live in a time of terrorism, of destruction, of violence and distrust. Yet, the vision of God has been shared by Isaiah and God’s people still long and anticipate for that day to come. In the mean time, those of us who already seek to live in the presence and Spirit of God are admonished to begin to live in to the vision. If we claim to be citizens of God’s reign, then the vision of God is our vision and it is our task to live it out here and now.

In the December 3^rd issue of Newsweek magazine, there is a one-page guest editorial called "My Turn" by Nikolay Palchikoff, a gentleman who was raised in Hiroshima, Japan by his Russian parents. Missionaries brought him to the U.S. to study in high school. He was finishing high school when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. To make the story short, he joined the army and was a translator. One month after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima he stood in his hometown and saw the remainders of his iron bed and the water fountain that use to in front of his house. His parents were out of town when the bomb was dropped and was reunited with them. He commented that he could not talk of the destruction for 40 years and in that time he came to the conclusion that "violence begets violence and war is not a solution to anything." He now travels sharing his story. There must be other ways than destruction, he says.

Isaiah holds up before us a glimpse of the Reign of God, a vision of what God desires of all people. Yes, that day may still be in the future, but we have seen the vision, we have heard the vision. This is a vision of what God’s reign is all about. It is a part of the vision of what the church is all about. Does this vision statement drive us?

I believe it was 1963 when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his now famous "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He imagined a day when white and black children will play together; he visioned a day when people would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. That vision has motivated this nation for all these nearly 40 years. We are still wrestling with racism, but we have also made progress. But it is that vision so clearly defined that has driven us forward.

During Advent we spend time hearing the vision and longing for that day when the Messiah will come and usher in the Reign of God, when the vision will become a reality. If we rush in to celebrate Christmas without wrestling with the longing and hope of Advent, it is like celebrating Easter without dealing with the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane. Advent is the season to long for the Messiah and what the Messiah will bring and what the Messiah stands for.

Isn’t now a good time to renew the vision that Isaiah proclaimed so many years ago? Isn’t now a good time to catch the vision of what God has in store for us and to embody it here and now? When the Reign of God comes will this not become reality? Will not God act? This is a time to prepare for the Messiah. Is this part of our vision?