FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT 2025

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​I don’t think the Hebrew prophets can be confined to their own time on earth. Let’s take a different look at Isaiah’s words and attempt to discover what they might mean for us now.

“In days to come, the stature of Immanuel Highlands shall be raised above the clamor and uncertainty of today. People of many traditions and backgrounds will come to it, seeking teaching that comes from God just as God’s people heard from Moses at the base of Mt. Sinai.

“Many will come, claiming this to be the place where they learn the true meaning of Immanuel, God with us, for here they will find a new way of life, teachings that echo through eternity, words that help them find abundant life as promised in the coming of God’s Messiah.

“God’s teaching will by itself judge between what is true and what is false, between what is good and what is evil. Those who seek truth and goodness will understand the fallacy of warring words and deeds leading to destruction, and here they will find the light their souls seek. It will be a light that will enlighten those who live beyond it, inviting more and more into its brightness.

“O people of Immanuel, called to embody these teachings, words made flesh, let us walk together into the light of the Lord, into the truth of God’s presence.”

I wonder what that looks like. As the people now known as Immanuel Highlands, your lives are to be both the artist’s brush and the very canvas that reveals what those words mean.

That may sound strange, perhaps naïve. But when made flesh, these words hold not only the innocence of a newborn baby, but the fulfillment of the promise made in that very birth. Just live today as if it’s already here, because that promise is as near as the Spirit that gives it life.

​ The writings of Isaiah figure large in the three-year lectionary cycle during Advent. Today’s first lesson is from the one we call First Isaiah. He speaks to the southern kingdom of Judah, which is under siege during the Syro-Ephraimatic War. King Ahaz turns to the prophet for advice as Jerusalem is under threat of destruction led in part by its cousins in the northern kingdom of Israel. It goes back to sibling rivalry; the two kingdoms were founded by feuding brothers, two sons of King Solomon. Traditions, especially harmful ones, die hard. 
The people live in fear, with good reason. They look in every direction for allies, for a force more powerful than those at its doorstep, to come to their defense. They look everywhere, shall we say, but up. 

We know history. We know the kingdom of Israel was eventually destroyed. We know the resulting conflict between the survivors, later known as Samaritans, and the people of Judah. 

We’re talking about nearly eight centuries before the birth of Jesus. So the concerns of the people are not of those who can afford to wait eight hundred years for the promises made by the prophet, including some we’ll hear later in this season. 

The prophet attempts to stir their imaginations to see beyond present anxieties to a promised hope. But to gain that vision, they need to set aside their fear of death and destruction and remember who, and whose, they are. 

They are not alone, either in their anxiety or in their hope. 

Before we get to the hope part, we need to name our fears, own our anxieties. It’s the ancient tradition of naming our demons so that we have some leverage over them. It means having the courage to call out loud the very real time and events we find ourselves in, and not be like the Black Knight of Monty Python fame, stubbornly exclaiming “it’s just a flesh wound.” 

In our country, many fear for that thing we call “democracy.” We have many definitions for that word. In our city, we fear for the rise of homelessness and poverty, trying to end hunger and its oppressive nature even as its prevalence seems overwhelming. In our parish, we fear not only for survival, but, in some way, we fear the changes presented by both growth and decline. Sometimes it seems like one of our lessons ought to come as “a reading from Catch 22.” 
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So let’s reach back for some help. Like so many times, we need to hear again from those who’ve been here before and lived to tell about it.