Advent 3

This is my favorite Advent sermon. It's a little long for a blog, but please indulge me.

John 1: 6- 8;19- 28
I know he shouldn’t have been, but my brother Roy was my favorite brother. It’s not like I had a lot to choose from, there was only one other, but I chose anyway. Roy is seventeen years older than I am and the other brother, Alfred is fifteen years older. That might have had something to do with it. Given their ages when I was first old enough to have a clue that I had brothers, Roy would have been a young adult, just graduated from high school and working. And Alfred would have been a self absorbed senior in high school. This is probably why they treated me differently, but whatever the reason, it was different enough that I was aware of it. And so, I had a favorite.
Roy had a job as a graphic artist and went to work every day in a clean white dress shirt. At dinner, he was still wearing it and I insisted that Bubba, which was what I called him when I was small, sit next to me at the table. I liked to reach out and touch him. Now think about that a minute. I’m two, feeding myself, and he’s got on a white dress shirt. But he didn’t care, because I was, in his words, his “little man.” In the family picture album, there are pictures of me with him, but never with Alfred. Beginning to get the idea? See why he was my favorite?
When I was barely a year old, Pearl Harbor happened, and by the time I was a little over two WWII was in full rip and Roy was in the Army, in Europe and in harm’s way. My Mom and Dad used a map of Europe to track troop movements they heard from the radio or read in the paper. It helped them feel connected to him in some way. When I was curious about this, they explained to me what a map was and I asked if Bubba had a map. They weren’t sure, but they thought he might. I thought he needed one, so I drew him one which they sent to him. I learned years later that he posted that map in the headquarters company he was assigned to so everybody could see it.
With his being gone, you might expect things would change in the seating around the dinner table. But I wouldn’t hear of it. Bubba had to have his chair—even if we had guests—and it had to be next to mine. It’s not that nobody else paid attention to me or loved me. I had plenty of that. I had a bunch of girl cousins who were my brothers’ ages and they loved to spend time with me. And, of course, I was especially precious to Mom and Dad, because a year or so after Roy left for the military, so did Alfred. I was it now, and with two brothers in danger, you could easily see how I might get lots of attention. No, it wasn’t that I wasn’t loved, it was that I missed this special man who loved spending time with me. I scribbled on paper and called them letters and Mom faithfully mailed them. And in his letters home, he always had something to say to me.
Then one day, we got a telegram. He was coming home! He didn’t know when exactly, but he was on his way. I woke up every morning wanting to know if Bubba was home yet. I went to bed every night asking if it would be tomorrow. The waiting was dreadful, but it was also full of excitement. Any moment, Bubba might be home! I’ve told you this story because I see a connection in it with the story in our Gospel. The people of Israel listening to John must have felt what I felt knowing Bubba was coming and coming any minute. Like me, they were filled with terrible excitement and hope. God, who had loved them, and yet who had felt so far away when they were in exile in Egypt and later in Babylon, was sending a long awaited one with power to restore things to the way they were. The Psalmist wrote about that dark time when God was so far away by saying, in part,
By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept…
On the willows there we hung our harps…
How could we sing the Lord’s song…?
And now, not only were they back in Israel where they could sing the Lord’s song, but someone was coming to restore things to the way they were meant to be. They rushed to be baptized to prepare for this extraordinary moment which would shortly be upon them. They and I waited with heightened expectation for different things, but expectantly just the same.
One day, as we waited, Mom and I did what we did almost every week. We boarded a trolley and rode downtown to look around and get a bit of lunch at a lunch counter. After an afternoon of adventure, we climbed aboard another trolley and made our way back to the neighborhood, and after a short walk from the trolley stop, she let us into the empty and still house. And there on the bed in the front bedroom was Bubba, still in his Army overcoat, sound asleep.
It wasn’t at all how I imagined it to be. I thought there might be a parade or a band. Or maybe we’d go to the train station to meet him in the midst of the billowing steam and clank and clatter of steel on steel. All the family had to be there, too. I mean, this was a special time and I needed special things to be going on. But there he was, sound asleep, the house quiet and still. Israel, too must have expected something with a lot more flash and dazzle than what they got. Jesus had no army, no horsemen, no chariots. How could he deliver Israel from their oppressors? This couldn’t be what they had waited for with so much excitement; after all: a peasant showed up when they expected a warrior king. A peasant who begin his work by being baptized by the same John who was announcing him as the be all and end all. Something seemed very wrong with this picture.
But things are often not what they seem. Even though Bubba hadn’t arrived as I expected, when I saw him there on the bed, I was on top of him before he knew what hit him. And you know what he said as he hugged me close, “Hey, little man. I’ve missed you! I’m so glad to see you!” Better than any band or parade or chugging, smoking, clanging train! Better than I could have hoped or imagined. Bubba was home and he was thrilled to see me. It was an unforgettable and extraordinary moment!
And though something seemed wrong with the picture when Jesus arrived, it turned out that it was very right too. Unforgettable. Extraordinary. This story about my brother reminds me that Jesus still shows up just like my brother did—the realization of my expectation but not the way I would have planned. But there’s something else the story helps me with. Being in that expectant frame of mind, but open to all possibilities, is important, not just in Advent, but all the time. It may just be the case, that if you’re always expectant, Jesus may come more often than you can imagine and in ways that will thrill and delight you. It’s at least something to think about as we again prepare to celebrate his first coming.

Peace,

Jerry+