December 14, 2008
Luke 1:47-55

Rev. Elizabeth Schultz and Meghan Sarik

Out of the Brokeness

The theme for this morning’s sermon is God comes to us in the Brokenness.  Brokenness. Not a happy topic to preach on. Not a topic that feels very Christmassy.

And yet, for many of us, the idea of God coming to us in our brokenness is one that feels very timely. I don’t know about you, but frankly, I have been finding it hard to feel Christmassy this year.

I have several theories about this.   Perhaps it is the new home we are in, that doesn’t yet feel like ours.  I am trying to make it Christmassy with decorations and a tree.   The stockings are hung by the fireplace and I made cookies with the kids last weekend.  But there is an absence of tradition and comfort.

Perhaps it is the pace of life, which seems to have sped up this year.  Living into a new job, there is just so much to learn I don’t have time to feel Christmassy!  I am so focused on planning and leading the events that our new youth group holds so dear, that I fear I may just completely miss the joy they represent. 

And perhaps it is because of the very topic of this sermon…..brokenness.  The world around me and the world around you continues to be filled with so much pain, struggle, and heartache that at many times it seems too much to bear.
 In Dave’s sermon two weeks ago he listed the words right out of the newspaper…–chaos, crisis, fear.  Crisis at hand. Impending crisis. Panic. Anxiety.. …and so on.

For many of us, this is where we live.  We live in Chaos…ongoing crisiis that swirl around us while we do our best to keep our heads above water and to live out faithful lives.  That’s hard enough on a regular day…...But now, while we are also supposed to be in joyful anticipation of the coming of the Lord,  it can feel like added burden.  Two experiences that don’t add up, leaving us to feel guilty, frustrated…tired.

The depth of our brokenness was made all too clear to me a few months ago.  

This past October, a teenager in our community died unexpectedly of a brain aneurysm on her 16th birthday.  Many of you remember that I am speaking of Helene Cody, a junior at Princeton High School, a faithful member of Cranbury Presbyterian church, and a fellow cross-country runner with many high school members of Nassau Church.  Helene’s death came as a crushing blow….an out of the blue, crazy,  unexplained tragedy.  She left behind a heart broken family, a sister who lost her best friend, and a  grieving community questioning how God could allow such a thing to happen to someone so young…someone so good.

I was asked to go the viewing with a family from this church.  It was a struggle to go!  I did not know the Cody family and, truth be told, I didn’t want to see the body of a child whose life was gone.  I had never had to see that before.    But I went, along with hundreds of people from this community.  Because the crowd was so big we had to wait in a long line, and because of the way the funeral home was set up, we had to move slowly through this line, in the very room where Helene’s body lay.  It took about 20 minutes just in that room.  It was beyond hard…beyond broken.  …..

After the viewing, the family that I was with asked if I wanted to go out for a cup of coffee. And sitting in a diner, still stunned by the grief that we had all just experienced together, I was asked a very hard question.  The student I was with was exhausted.  She was staring at her menu in silence when she suddenly looked me straight in the eye and said “How do we know where Helene is?  How do we really know?  She wasn’t in her body, I could tell that.  So, where is she and how do we know?”

It was a direct question.  And looking into her pained eyes, I knew only a direct answer would do. 

“She is with God,” I said.  “And we know this because Jesus promised she would be.”

I went on to tell her about the passage in John where Jesus is comforting his disciples before his death.  He says to them “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

Jesus is talking to his disciples here…his best friends.  He would not have lied.  God does not lie. Jesus basically says that to them, by asking them , “Would I tell you this if it were not true?”  “Believe me”, he says.  “Where I am….you will be also.”

 He promises them.
 
So, at the risk of it sounding like a pat theological answer from a pastor, my answer to her was Jesus.  I believe Helene is with God because Jesus promised she would be….he promised!

That God will keep Gods promises is a claim found throughout the Bible.  We see another clear example of this from this morning’s Old Testament passage.

Katharina read you the words from the book of Isaiah, but we find them again in the Gospel of Luke.  In Luke’s context, Jesus is in the synagogue when he stands up and reads from the scroll of  Isaiah, saying “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  While all eyes are fixed on him he says “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

He could have said it this way, “Today, God has kept his promise to you….I am that promise.”

The scripture from Isaiah is full of powerful images.  In speaking to the nation Israel, he says “I will bind up the broken hearted. I will proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, I will provide for those who mourn, giving a mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” He goes on to say, “I will make an everlasting covenant with them”

Isaiah breaks forth in rejoicing here and describes himself as a bridegroom and as a bride because this is a wedding celebration!   God and people are united in a covenant of faithfulness and blessings.  There are then promises from God of restoration and growth, just as surely as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up.

Isaiah is imploring his listeners to remain steadfast in their faith, because God keeps God’s promises. 

This is the season of Advent, the breaking in to the world of a promise long foretold.  The light shining in the darkness. 

In coming to earth as a baby in Bethlehem, God kept Gods promise.
In defeating sin and death on the cross, God kept Gods promise.
In preparing a place for us in Heaven, God keeps Gods promise,
And in making an everlasting covenant with us, God keeps Gods promise.

This is how we can take the weight of the brokenness we feel in this world and trust in Gods word that that weight around our shoulders that presses us down, sometimes to the point where we feel it physically as burden, and anxiety and grief and pain…..will someday become a mantle of praise.

This is the hope I was trying to give that grieving student.  And this is the hope I cling to myself.  If God is faithful to one promise, God will be faithful to all.  God has not forgotten us in this broken world, but is here with us. God with us.  Emmanuel!

God continues the promise to be with us through the Holy Spirit and through the Church…through you and me, the body of Christ.   

 A few years ago I had the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Gulf Port, Mississippi to be a small drop in the bucket of the efforts to clean up that area after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.   Working with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, all of us trip participants were given a team shirt with these words written on the back.  Out of Chaos, Hope.  Perhaps some of you own one of these as well.  I kept thinking of this shirt as I prepared this sermon, and of the simple but profound truth it states.

Out of Chaos, Hope.

Using the language of Isaiah again, “They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”  Isaiah was referring to Israel, but the language applies today.  

Devastation.  This is how the Gulf coast looked.
Devastation.  This is how much of the world looks.
Devastation.  This is the feeling associated with Helene’s death.
Devastation.  This is how many of you feel for personal reasons in your own lives.

But what does God promise?  To build up.  To raise up.  To repair.  To bind up the broken hearted and to comfort all who mourn.  God does not promise to take away our reasons for mourning…not in this lifetime.  But God’s promises are sure.  In the coming of Jesus, God shows us the power to shatter darkness.   We know the light is coming again. 

In the meantime, God uses us, the body of Christ, to be a part of this hope.
I wanted to leave you with a tangible example of how this very church has done this. I  would like to invite church member, Meghan Sarik to share with you an experience from this past summer.

 

Closing: 
We are still a world in Chaos.  All of us in this room have pain, fear and our own brokenness challenging our faith this Christmas Season.   But what we also have is a God who meets us in that brokenness.  We are asked to have faith in promises fulfilled, while we wait for the glory yet to be revealed.

Out of Chaos, Hope…..this is advent!
Amen.

 

 

 

 

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