Our Advent Word today (Dec 19) is ROBES. What an interesting choice! It is taken from the gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Matthew chapter 11 includes this: Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.

I don’t know about you but I flashed to that old Easter movie, “The Robe”, when I saw this word for the day – the Robe was worn by Jesus yet the soldiers cast lots to see who would “win” the robe for themselves. A centurion who did not believe was the winner, and the movie tells the story of how he comes to believe in Christ.

In Matthews gospel lesson Jesus is responding to John the Baptist wondering if he (Jesus) was the ONE? He sends disciples back with an answer to John, to just tell John all the miracles Jesus has been doing on behalf of the sick and the poor. He also chastises those in the crowd who were disappointed in John’s camel-hair-wearing, locust-eating presence. You are looking for the wrong kind of king, someone who wears soft robes in royal palaces. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Following Jesus is not a soft walk in the park, not a soft robe to wear, yet it means everything to us who believe.

Our Advent Word today (Dec 18) is Cleansed. It is taken from the Gospel for the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Matthew chapter 11 which includes this: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Lepers were cleansed by Jesus, to such an extent that when they presented themselves to the Priest to prove they were cured of whatever skin condition they had, they would have been without blemish or sores (side note – I am DELIGHTED priests don’t have that job any more!). The Bible also says WE have been cleansed of our sins by Jesus. 1 John 1:7-9: States, “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

As a young person this imagery always greatly bothered me. How does blood clean anything from us? I would flash to the movie Carrie, a Stephen King horror story, after the mean kids dumped a bucket of pig’s blood all over her. She was NOT feeling cleansed. If you don’t know what happens next, you must not be a King fan!

There is an old gospel song that also creeped me out in my youth, “what can wash away our sins – nothing but the blood of Jesus”. I would picture blood coming out of the shower head as my sins went straight down the drain!

Of course the blood which “washes away our sins” is the sacrificial blood of Jesus on the cross, one of the theological ways of looking at the atonement. I would rather imagine my sins being transformed by Jesus’ love and healing spirit, imagine THAT feeling as the lepers in one of the healing stories of Jesus in the gospels, ran to show themselves to the priest to be readmitted to the community at last. Healed. Made whole. Back in good graces. That’s the kind of cleansing I prefer!

Today’s Advent word, “HIGHWAY”, is also taken from the Isaiah lesson for the 3rd Sunday of Advent. Isaiah 35 includes this verse: A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.

I don’t know about you, but I am pretty glad “fools shall not go astray”. It’s sometimes hard to figure out the way God wants us to trod. Often it makes no sense or not what “we” want, actually most often this is so. We resist cause we know better – am I right? Yet Isaiah insists there is a “holy way” for God’s people and on it we cannot go astray.

I often tell people I believe God honors our direction, our choices, our decisions if we enter into them prayerfully and carefully. I will leave you with a quote from Thomas Merton who says this far better than I can:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

Our word for December 16th is “recompense”, taken from the Isaiah 35 lesson for the 3rd Sunday of Advent: Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

Isaiah 35 is a message of hope to the Hebrews exiled in Babylon. God will come and make it right, will judge all, will bring them home. During this season will sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” each Sunday. Verse one says: “O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here.” The message is one of God’s covenant promise to Israel and all God’s people, we are never ever exiled from God, those who are fearful, the prophet reminds them to be strong, God will come and save you.

The Advent word for December 15 is taken from the Old Testament lesson on the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Isaiah 35: The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing

Jesus tells us in the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John:   “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly”. I am not sure if any thing Jesus says in the gospels has been used more inaccurately than this one. Prosperity preachers abound in our culture, attracting huge crowds and lots of money, primarily because they tell people what they want to hear – that following Jesus will give you material wealth and protect you from illness or accident or sorrow of any kind. Instead, the abundant life is not about protecting us from difficult times, it is about living a discipled life in Christ where our spiritual life is uplifted, our prayers are deeper, our understanding of The Way Jesus wants us to trod. Giving ourself to Christ in every aspect of our lives is what makes our life abundant – filled to overflowing with grace, love and comfort especially when times get tough.