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December 9, 2007
Isaiah 9:2-6
Philippians 2:2-11The Rev. David A. Davis
“Mighty God”Mighty God. Mighty. As in “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribes.” (Deuteronomy). Or as the Psalmist writes, “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” (Psalm 24) Mighty. As in Isaiah 42:13: “The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior the Lord stirs up his fury; the Lord cries out, the Lord shouts aloud, the Lord show himself mighty against his foes.” And “As I live, says the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you.” (Ezekiel 20) That’s the prophet Ezekiel. Mighty God.
Mighty. In Hebrew the word is gibbor. El gibbor. El is God. Gibbor is mighty. In the Book of Genesis, as the descendants of Noah are listed, one finds the name of Nimrod. As recorded there in the family tree, Nimrod was “the first on earth to become a mighty warrior. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” (Gen 10) Gibbor. When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon in the book of Judges, the angel said, “The Lord is with you, you mighty warrior” (Judges 6) Gibbor. When Boaz is introduced in the Book of Ruth, the second chapter, he is described in the NRSV as “a prominent rich man”. (Ruth 2) In the Hebrew it is gibbor. Boaz was a mighty man of wealth. When Saul was taking on the army of the Philistines, he was desperately looking to draft strong and valiant warriors and put them into his service. The implication is that any time Saul came upon someone with this striking might, with this gibbor, he would beg and plead with them to serve. (I Sam 14:52). And how about Naaman in II Kings 5:1 “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, he was a mighty man of valor, but he was leper.” Mighty man of valor. Gibbor. El gibbor. Mighty God.
“What a mighty God we serve”. That’s a line from a song. A Sunday School Song. A youth group song. I remember it best from Vacation Bible School decades ago. I can see the face of a four or five year old singing with all she had. I can see him remembering every word. “What a mighty God we serve! What a mighty God we serve! Angles bow before Him. Heaven and earth adore him. What a mighty God we serve!” I don’t have a name because every year there was that child or two who would sing with such an earnest look, such a sincerity, and with every verse and repeat they would get louder and louder, with an urgency and determination. This was the kind of kid who would teach his grandparents that song, whose mom would hear her humming it in the car. “What a mighty God we serve” The song, it was part song, part cheer, part shout. After all, it was VBS! It was a fight song, really, for a pep rally.
Another song like it came from the cartoon characters of Veggie Tales. When my kids were little, we watched and listened to a lot of Veggie Tales. As the name would imply, Veggie Tales consists of some animated vegetable like characters. In fact, they tell and enact mostly bible stories, and sing some memorable songs along the way. One song goes like this: “God is bigger than the boogie man. He’s bigger than Godzilla, or the monsters on TV. God is bigger than the boogie man. And he’s watching out for you and me.” There was a song to sing with some muster at Bible School. In a loud voice, with lots of clapping, and a few stomps along the way. It was never just the kids who liked singing about God and the boogie man. But those four and five year olds, oh they could bring it. God is bigger: A kid-friendly, animated, vegetable-driven version of God the Mighty Warrior. God is bigger. Gibbor. Mighty God.
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God…!” Yeah! You go God! “On Wisconsin….10,000 Men of Harvard….Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame…and the prophet Isaiah whipping up the crowds! Hail to the Divine Warrior! Like a coach before the big game. Like Howard Dean out on the trail. A pep talk. A political stomp speech. A rallying cry. Mighty God.
Those four and five year olds, they loved those songs and I loved to lead them. Those kids, the faces and names that all smush together in my memory, they are mostly young adults now. And the world they live in, my guess is that to most them, it doesn’t look the way it did when they were clapping their hands and stomping their feet (‘what a mighty God we serve’). A post-modern, post-9/11, Facebook/my space, globalized world. And along the journey of twenty some years, they have had to learn that grandparents and parents and even friends, they die some times. They have learned words like cancer, and terror, and war, and predator, and random violence and waterboarding, and sub-prime mortgage. Jobs don’t last a lifetime and you don’t always get what you want and college admission is the new definition of stress. They learned a long time ago that a tormented kid can go into a mall or onto a campus or into a school and kill a bunch of people. And then it just keeps happening. They have discovered that a noose hanging from a tree is a symbol of hatred that won’t go away. And in those few decades, food banks and free clinics and shelters for abused women and children only get busier and busier.
Peace never seems to come on earth, much less good will to all. Now we wonder if there is hope for resolution in the Middle East in their life time not ours, if their generation can do any better than we have in turning weapons into equipment to nourish the world rather than tear it apart, if they will finally be the generation that can judge a person on the content of their heart and character rather than the color of their skin, or the religion they confess, their gender or sexuality, the accent in their voice, the nation where they were born. Hope, peace, love, joy……out in the world, out there in the wilderness, there seems to be a bit of delay.
Experience and statistics and Professor Wuthnow’s newest book called After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty and Thirty Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion suggest that those 20 and 30 somethings are not around congregations like this all that much, that the church hasn’t done right by them. Those 4 and 5 year olds twenty years later. I wonder what I would say if I met an old (young) face back at the door, passing through Princeton. “Do you remember when you used to lead us in that song, ‘what a mighty God we serve” and we would clap and stomp and shout? It’s not that easy anymore.” And some where in my soul I wouldn’t know whether to have a pep rally or a good cry. I think I need a do-over, another chance, another go at trying to wrap my head around Mighty God. Gibbor. The Divine Warrior, mighty God, victory is right around the corner thing? Well, that’s not going so well and after all, the life of faith isn’t much like a pep rally. It’s more like Advent.
Growing up in the chaos that the world has to offer and yearning to stay near the light of God’s presence. Finding yourself wandering in the wilderness, searching for purpose or explanation or meaning, and waiting to hear some fresh word about “preparing the way”. Traveling this bumpy road of faith and realizing the black and white of easy answers and the promise of everyday victory and the emphatic stomp that presumes joy was long ago replaced by the silence of waiting and the experience of unanswered prayer and the mysterious work of God’s Spirit in and through and despite the darkness of struggle. Turning away from affirmations that seem like victory marches and being drawn to promises like “weeping may linger for a night, but joy will come in the morning” and “when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son” and “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it” and “they shall name him Emmanuel” which means “God with us”. Living in Advent.
“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God…!” It’s not a cheer. It’s a promise for all of us living the Advent faith. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. The Child born for us, a son given to us…. “he was in the form of God, and did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (Phil 2) Mighty God. Gibbor. Redefined. Forever and ever and ever.
Mighty God, whose strength is revealed in human weakness, whose power is defined by self-giving love, whose victory comes finally not by force but by emptying himself so much so, that there was no life in him. Mighty God. Who challenged the wealthiest and threatened the powerful and upended the strong not in a battle of weapons but with subversive teaching about the first being last, and a radical grace that embraced the unloved, and unceasing call to care for the sick and feed the hungry and visit the prisoner. Mighty God. Whose kingdom shall one day come on earth as it is in heaven. A kingdom that will know no end. A kingdom whose borders will be beyond what we can imagine. A new heaven and a new earth. No more shall crying or weeping be heard. No more shall an infant live but a few days, and old person will define the fullness of life. Houses shall be full. Vineyards shall overflow. Swords shall be turned into plowshares. War will be learned no more. And they shall not hurt or destroy anything or anyone on God’s Holy mountain. Mighty God.
God is bigger. God’s vision of the kingdom, God’s hope for the world, God’s fulfillment of creation is so far beyond what we can imagine. Some might be content for pep rallies and easy answers and fight songs for Jesus. But I think our lives are more like Advent….and you and I, we should yearn to walk in the light, and we should prepare the Way (with unbridled mercy, and daring grace, and selfless love), and together we should cling to the promise that God, the Mighty God, is with us.
© 2007, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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