“Listen and Look, Your Wait Has Ended”
by Bruce J. Johnson
Isaiah 35: 1-10
Matthew 11: 2-11
“This is a song about freedom,” says the man with the guitar as the band begins to play. It is after midnight on a beachfront strip by the Mediterranean Sea, and music wafts from Mike’s Place, a popular blues bar in Tel Aviv. Inside people are dancing on the tables. Hips twitch. Fists shake. Couples kiss. Waitresses wriggle through the crowd carrying foamy beers high above their heads.
But
then the music stops. There is only darkness, and silence so palpable, it is
like a high-pitched scream.
Suddenly,
orange vested men are running with stretchers. Glass is everywhere. People who
were dancing moments before are on their knees in the streets; their skin is red
in the glow of ambulance lights as they press their hands to their faces and
cry.
This
is footage from ‘Blues by the Beach’ a documentary produced by Jack Baxter and
his wife, Fran Strauss-Baxter, New Yorkers whose comfortable lives and good
health were cast into chaos when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at
the entrance to Mike’s Place on April 30, 2003. Mr. Baxter and his crew were
there that night, ironically to film a documentary about peace, about a place
where Israelis and Arabs could sit at the same bar and listen to blues; where
religion and politics take back seat to dancing and having a few drinks.
The
documentary was released in October of 2004 to complimentary reviews and a
couple of prestigious awards.
It
took much longer for the Baxters to recover from the ordeal than it did for
Mike’s Place. It reopened only seven days after the bombing, on Israel’s
Memorial Day. However, for the documentary, Gal Ganzman said the following:
“Evil walked into Mike’s Place, trying to ruin us,
trying to erase us. But you can’t beat us, because love can’t be beat…”
What is it in the human heart, the human spirit that
continually opens us to a passion for the possible, no matter how grim the
reality? What is about the spiritual intuition that we all possess that allows
us to remain so steadfast in our belief that
Love can’t be beat.
I must tell how, for many, today is so significant,
so poignant, especially as it relates to our baptism of Calista and Evan, both
the second born of young parents, Robert and Cherlene and Jamie and Jennifer.
Two years ago for both, we were with them in their loss and the profound
sadness caused by the deaths of their first-born. Today we are with them in
their joy.
Today’s baptism of Calista and Evan therefore
represents a bold statement to the world that---- Love can’t be beat.
And it’s the same for the season, this season of advent, for sure a time of waiting and watching but also a time of listening and seeing and affirming yet again based upon what we see and hear--- that love can’t be beat. The world and people can be changed by the transforming power of love. When we see the baby and then His work when we listen to his cry and his laugh and his words of healing and hope we come to believe yet again--- that truly
Love won’t be beat!!!!!
Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way:
“Unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
You
know, what is so provocative about today’s lesson is that we see John in such a
different light than the man we saw and heard last week. Today he is someone
who had doubts. No longer in the wilderness preaching and baptizing the new age
of the one who was to come, John has been imprisoned by Herod for speaking out
against him. Herod wanted to kill him outright but withheld from doing so
because he had his followers and as we learned last week, he was popular—
remember?
“All of Jerusalem, all of Judea and all of the
region around the Jordan.”
But
in today’s lesson, John is troubled and in trouble, destined to die. No mention
here of his looks and his diet and the bravado of a desert wild man. Gone too
is the certainty of the one who looks at Jesus as he enters the moving waters
of the Jordan for His baptism and hears that voice from heaven saying: “ This
is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
And says with absolute certainty:
“
Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Rather,
from his prison cell, John asks the eternal advent question, “Are you the one
who is to come or shall we wait for another? Will you usher in God’s reign of
love or are
we still on hold—listening to secular holiday music rather than the good Gospel carols?
Of
course, the people of that time, like the people of our time, wanted a
liberator to come who would deliver them from the physical oppression, terror
and violence of the Romans as well as the spiritual anxiety of feeling
forgotten, abandoned and estranged. I would imagine that from his prison cell
the view was anything but promising with this Jesus being but a wandering rabbi
who did ‘good’ but was followed around by some misfit groupies. Can’t blame him
for being unsure.
So
he sends a few of his disciples to Jesus to get an answer before it’s too late.
Predictably Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly. Rather he tells those
disciples simply to turn themselves around and go back to John reporting what
they hear and see---
The blind receive their sight and the
lame walk
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear
the poor have good news preached to
them
and the dead are raised.
Last week, I mentioned to you the new book by Stephen Covey called The 8th Habit. He talks about love some—not love as a noun but a verb.
Listen:
Allow me to illustrate, with a story I share often, how love, like trust can become a verb. At one seminar where I was speaking a man came up and said, “Stephen, I like what you’re saying. But every situation is so different. Look at my marriage. I’m really worried. My wife and I just don’t have the same feeling for each other we used to have. I guess I just don’t love her anymore and she doesn’t love me. What can I do?”
“The
feeling isn’t there anymore?” I asked.
“That’s
right,” he reaffirmed. “And we have three children we’re really concerned
about. What do you suggest?”
“Love her,” I replied.
“I told you, the feeling just isn’t there anymore.”
“Love her.”
“You don’t understand. The feeling of love just isn’t there anymore.”
“Then love her. If the feeling isn’t there, that’s a good reason to love her.”
“But how do you love when you don’t love.”
“My friend, love is a verb. Love--- the feeling--- is a fruit of love the verb. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?”
“… love is something you
do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self, like a mother bringing a
newborn into the world. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice
for others, even for people who offend or do not love in return.” (p. 181-182)
You
see, Jesus answered John by pointing to the loving actions that God taking in
Him – transforming the lives and people who longed for their time of triumph or
success for well-ness.
And
in baptism, in communion, in the life of faith and of loving action, we are
made part of it—blessed and then told to live as blessings for others.
What
is it in the human heart, the human spirit that continually opens us to a
passion for the possible, no matter how grim the reality?
That’s
easy—it is something that we have heard and seen and know as true—because Jesus
has told us and shown us-
Love Can’t Be Beat!
Amen