Sermon for Advent 2 December 7
Sermon for Advent 2
“On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”
There are stories in many parts of the world that talk about the return of the king, whether an actual king or a king from the line of those ancient monarchs that are seen as demarcating the glorious and often distant past. My personal favorites are King Arthur and Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. In the Arthurian myth, Arthur rules over Camelot, a Utopian capital of Old England. But he is gravely wounded in a confrontation with his son, Mordred, who has come to claim the kingdom of England from his father. Mordred is often depicted as the only son of Arthur, as Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere, are never abot to conceive a child together. The details of Mordred’s conception are rather sordid and he is raised to hate his father. When he grows to man hood, he seeks to have his revenge. Arthor ultimately defeats Mordred, but he is wounded onto the point of death. But before he dies, Morgan Le Fay, his half sister, takes him to Avalon, a holy island, where he will sleep until he is needed again.
In Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, or Strider, as he is known by the hobbits, is the heir to the ancient kingdom of Gondor, which has been led by a line of stewards for hundreds of years as the people await the coming of the King. In the Return of the King, the third book of the series, the evil of Sauron is ultimately defeated by the destruction of his ring by Frodo and the ascendancy of Aragorn to the throne of Gondor. He leads humans and all the free people of Middle earth into a new era of peace.
This same motif is echoed in both Romans and Isaiah. In those readings, we hear of the stump of Jesse and how a root shall come forth and how this shall be a blessing to all nations. But what is the stump of Jesse? Why is it important?
Jesse was the grandson of Ruth and from Jesse came seven sons, the most notable of whom was David, the man who would be the second and greatest king of Israel. Israel would live through its golden age under the kingship of David. But within a few generations, the line of David only ruled Judah, the southern portion of the former kingdom of Israel. When the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, Zedekiah became the last Davidic king. When his reign ended, the line went into obscurity. But like the promised return of Arthur or the heir of Isildur in Lord of the Rings, the people still believed. They believed one would rise up from the line of David and be king in Israel.
For Matthew, (more so than the other Gospel writers), this connection back to the ancient line of David is extremely important and he fleshes this out in the genealogy that starts his Gospel. Within the long line of that genealogy, Matthew draws a line from David’s ancient ancestors, through the great king right to Joseph, the father of Jesus.
For Matthew, the promise that life would come from the stump of Jesse found its fulfillment in Jesus. He was the looked-for king. He was the one who would make things right, although not in a way that any would have imagined. Rather than bringing back the glory days of ancient Israel, Jesus brought forth God’s reign and where it took root, there was a new kingdom, built on God’s enduring grace. It would be like Arthur coming back as king of England and establishing a rule based on justice and mercy, not on the point of a sword. It would be the same for any of the ancient stories that depicted the return of a king, but upon their prophesied return, the ruler in question came for the sake of the whole world.
On this second Sunday of Advent, as was the case during Christ the King Sunday, we are reminded again about what kind of king Jesus is. But there is something else at work here, other than the fulfillment of prophesy and the inversion of expectations. There, lurking amongst this ancient desire for the once and future king, is John the Baptist, who like Isaiah before him, is professing the coming of the king, while at the same time, wielding an axe of judgement.
It seems odd, to pair this man who is the very picture of a raging madman alongside the promised hope of the coming King, but his presence is not an accident or of no significance. He is pointing the way to the one who is coming. But he is also reminding us that those who do not bear fruit will be chopped and tossed into the fire, like trees who do not produce. This seems like the ravings of a madman, especially held up to the more gracious words offered by Christ. But there is a reason that this image of trees being cut and thrown into the fire are being offered here, alongside of readings of the stump of Jesse.
While it was true that the end of ancient Judah came because of the Babylonian siege, it could be argued the nation was dead long before. The longer the monarchy went, the worse it became, drawing people away from God and God’s covenant. With a few notable exceptions (like Josiah, my favorite Israelite king and the man we named our dog after), the royalty of ancient Judah no longer followed God. The Babylonians were the result, and the line was broken. In essence, the tree of the line of David was cut down and thrown into the fire. But not its roots. Not its life force. In this moment, a reset took place. The old, gnarly branches which were diseased and withered, were pruned away and in time, what came from the line of David was in fact the Messiah, the King of Kings. The tree, thought dead, was alive and its life was the life of the world.
John’s actions point to both realities. He is pointing to the one who will renew the Kingdom of Israel. But he is also reminding us that this came about only because the old, gnarled, sickened tree had come down and something new and life filled grew in its place.
That same image is then applied back to all who hear his words. The axe is coming, for any who do not bear fruit, but not as a means of destruction, but rather, a means of renewal. We do this to our trees, not as an act of violence, but for the sake of their renewal. Trees become healthy again when they are pruned. So it was with the line of David. So it was in those other stories I mentioned earlier. There was a need for renewal before ultimate stagnation took place, which would result in death. And in that renewal, there was a chance to know God better and revive the relationship that had gone dormant.
It is this renewal that gives power to these ancient stories of Arthur and others from around the world. Military might and glory aside, these stories speak to the hope of a peaceful time, where the horrors of the modern world were not so prevalent. Israel may have longed for some sense of its former glory, but in the end, what they wanted was to know the hope of the time of David again, where things made sense. It is this sense of renewal that we long for, even when Jesus speaks harshly. His words are not meant as words of death, but of that pruning and renewal, that opportunity to start again and connect again to all that is truly important.
In the end, the story of scripture is a story of connection, stagnation, pruning, and renewal. Time and time again, this cycle repeats itself, whether in the life of a nation, the life of an individual, or the life of the whole creation and at its center, is the Christ, the Renewer, the redeemer, the King of Kings, the Messiah, to whom all stories of hope point and in whom, no hope is disappointed. For we are not cut down and burnt away. Rather, we are stripped of all that burdens us and is slowly killing us. When this happens, we are renewed. We can thrive again and in so doing, know God more completely.
Amen