Preaching text: Isaiah 61:1-11
It was an act of desperation. A young woman in Florida filled up her shopping cart with food and tried to slip out of the store without paying. She was not successful. The store staff caught her and called the police. What a frightening moment that must have been for her, a woman of color, poor and impoverished. Now a criminal in a society where far too many are perfectly okay with the most extreme of punishments for the most minor of crimes for people who look like her.
The officer arrives on the scene. She assesses the situation, knows the law, knows the crime that has been committed here. She listens to the woman’s pleas. “My children are hungry.” she says through her tears. “I wish I could tell you I’d never do this again, but I can’t. My children are hungry.”
What happens next is a moment of pure grace.
Rather than put this young mother in cuffs, dragging her off to the station, leaving her children to whatever fate our government deems, this officer pulls out her own debit card, goes into the store and buys a week’s worth of groceries for the woman. She then loads these groceries into her patrol car and then drives the mom and the groceries back to her home.
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The law was clear. This young mother was a criminal. She deserved punishment, a fine, imprisonment, something. But that’s not what she got. Mercy, compassion, kindness are what she received instead.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;
My friends, this is what it looks like.
I needed to hear this story. It may surprise you to learn that for us much as I enjoy excruciating the evils in our world today, there does come a moment when Nietzsche's statement proves true even for me. “Stare too long into the Abyss and it begins to stare back.” There’s been so much evil in our world and in our lives of late. So much darkness from Ebola to death of dear friends to police abuse to torture to the difficulties here of so many of our members: cancer, a child born much too early to be safe, old age, and all the rest.
And yet this is 3rd Advent, the Sunday of “pink.” Gaudete, the Sunday of Rejoicing. Gaudete in Domino semper. Rejoice in the Lord always. That’s hard to do when we are weighed down by sins both within and without, the darkness of our own souls and the darkness of the world in which we live.
But despite all that, there is reason to rejoice. Because there is light in the midst of darkness, there is grace in the midst of sin. And while evil has its moment, it will not last. For the year of the Lord’s favor is upon us and the day of vengeance for our God will bring comfort to all who mourn.
This passage from the 61st chapter of Isaiah’s prophecy is notable because it was with these very words that Jesus began his public ministry. In Luke chapter 4, we see him stand up in the synagogue of his home town and proclaim that this prophecy has come to pass in him. This is the world he brings. This is the kingdom of God made manifest. And while we may not yet see it in its fullness, it does appear in tiny little miraculous moments like a cop buying groceries for a desperate mother. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.
God wins. I often jokingly say that the book of Revelation, an intimidating mystery to many, can be summed up quite simply with those two words: God wins. In truth, you can sum up the whole of the Scriptures that way. You can sum up the whole of life that way. God wins. Not evil. Not sin. Not death. Not disease. Not poverty. Not tyranny. Not fear. Not hate. Not pain. God wins!
And if there is anything in this world to rejoice over it is that.
It was around this time of year in 1998 when my sister, myself, and my friend Kevin (who just became a father for the first time this week. Truly, another moment of divine grace.) went to NYC to see a Broadway show. We saw Les Miserables and it would not be an understatement that seeing that show changed my life. I was already in seminary by that point but in the story of that show, I realized what sort of pastor I wanted to be.
Les Mis is full of these moments of grace. It’s saturated with them. From ValJean being forgiven by the Bishop in the beginning of the story to his later sparing Javert at the barricade, there is hardly a moment where we don’t see God’s kingdom emerging through the darkness of the events of the story. But of all the moments, my favorite is at the end. ValJean lies on his death bed and he is visited by his daughter and her husband. As he slips from this world to the next, the whole cast of the musical, most of whom are dead by this point in the story, steps out onto the stage and sings him home to his Savior. They’re all there, no matter what terrible fate befell them in this world. No matter what evil came upon them. They’re all there. God wins.
This is our faith. We trust in God’s ultimate victory. In spite of all the darkness of this world, we cling to the hope of his salvation. Christ saves the world. That’s why he came. That’s why he was born. It’s why he lived. It’s why he died and it’s why he rose again. Evil does not have the last word. God does and his word is victory. His word is salvation. His word is mercy and love and compassion and grace.
His kingdom is coming! Rejoice! Again, I say rejoice. Amen.
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