December 22, 2013
St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Oxford, MS
Year A, 4th Sunday of Advent, Isaiah 7:10-16

            A great uncle of mine often tells me that the thing you’re most afraid of is never the thing that gets you in the end. As this man has seen an awful lot, I take his words to heart. And even though it’s not the happiest message, we cannot deny that in our lifetimes some amount of tragedy will touch each of us. Something likely will get us in the end, if not before. His point in reminding me of this—that the thing you’re most afraid of is never the thing that gets you—is that worrying about our deepest fear does us absolutely no good. That of course, doesn’t keep me from worrying.            

            This is kind of the spot that Ahaz, king of Judah, the Southern Kingdom of Israel, finds himself in in our Old Testament reading from today. We learn in the verses preceding the lectionary text that the hearts of Ahaz and his people have been shaken by the news of two other kingdoms out to get Ahaz. One is what we now know as Syria and the other was the northern kingdom of Israel. Together, they hoped to depose the Judean king and replace him with a ruler more sympathetic to their desires, but the actuality of a successful campaign was unlikely. Even so, Ahaz’s heart is shaken and so God sends Isaiah of Jerusalem to reassure him. So when we meet him, Ahaz is scared and worrying about something that’s probably not going to happen, and in fact does not, and we have Isaiah pleading with him to get it together and have a little faith in God.

            And in fact not only does Isaiah plead with Ahaz, but Isaiah has God Godself telling Ahaz that he can have a sign, any sign. “You need faith?” God seems to say. “Ask me for a sign.” Now, it’s maybe important to note a couple of things about this. Ahaz is not asking God for a sign, it’s the other way around, and so Ahaz is not in any way putting God to the test, as Ahaz will claim in a move of false piety.

            And second, and more important, it might seem that a sign from God would be a great good thing. And I myself have often thought neon above me or skywriting might be helpful. “I am here, Jennifer. Really.” It would be wonderful to know finally and for certain that God is with me, with all of us.

            But when I really consider it, that notion can also be terribly frightening. If God is with us, with me, after all, and I know that for sure, then I have zero excuse in not surrendering my own will to God’s. If we know that God is with us, then we have absolutely no excuse for going our own way and not God’s way. And letting go, acknowledging our inability to control much of anything is a hard and fearful thing. It is much, much easier, safer, at least it has been in my life, to ignore the signs of God around me, and go my own way, trusting in my own ability and wherewithal. I haven’t seen the words “I am here” in pink neon or airplane exhaust, and maybe there is some part of me that really would rather not.  

            Ahaz certainly would rather not. Ahaz, like most of us, would rather choose his own way, and so instead of looking to God, he looks to and solicits help from the king of Assyria, the superpower of his day, which no doubt makes good political sense. And while reaching out to Assyria is partly a reaction to the fear of attack by the two kingdoms to his north, I think perhaps Ahaz is mostly afraid of surrendering control to God.

            As Jewish scholar Abraham Heschel says, “It was more expedient to be ‘son and servant’ to the King of Assyria than son and servant to the invisible God.”[1] And as the great Bob Dylan says, “Everybody’s gotta serve somebody.” And if it’s not somebody it’s some thing. You know the list: money, influence, power. But we might add to that list the many less obvious but perhaps more insidious things that we serve in place of God every day. It is easy to de-center God in our lives when what we put at the center is good and respected. For me, these days, that’s usually schoolwork and the endless meetings associated with living as part of a seminary community. Like Ahaz pleading that he will not put God to the test, I often find myself in the same mindset, fooling myself into believing for days at a time that because I’m focusing on all there is to do at seminary, I’m actually focused on God. And I’m good at this. I can very easily fool myself into believing I’m actually focused on God when I’ve taken zero time to consult with God, to try to hear God, when I’ve taken absolutely no time to notice the many ways in which God is in fact with me. When, in short, I blindly assert my own control over God’s.

            Franciscan friar and priest Richard Rohr writes that “When Christianity aligns itself with power (and the mindset of power, which is the need to be right and always in control) there’s simply very little room for the darkness of faith; that spacious place where God is actually able to form us. . . .  Faith can only happen in this very special threshold space.” And he adds, “You don’t really do faith, it happens to you when you give up control and all the steering of your ship.”[2]

             And usually that control is not given up easily. We give up steering generally only when something bad has happened and we no longer have the strength within us to hold the wheel steady. Rohr goes on to say that “you fall into [faith] more than ever fully choosing it, and only then do you know how grace, love, and God can sustain you and strengthen you at very deep levels.”[3]

            But we can choose faith. We don’t have to wait for tragedy to strike, for our strength to be zapped, to give up control to God. We can choose today, right now, to be sons and daughters and servants of the invisible God, as Heschel says. And this is good and right since when we are not children and servants of God, we are necessarily children and servants of people and entities and ideas that are not God, and so can only lead us down paths of self-selected exile from God.

            When we meet Ahaz, Isaiah has warned him, “If you do not stand firm in faith, / you shall not stand at all” (Isaiah 7:9b), and that is exactly what happens. In his fear of giving over control to God, Ahaz loses all control to the king of Assyria. Giving himself and his people up to an expedient solution, Ahaz leads his people down the long but slippery slope that will eventually end in Babylonian exile. Much more sadly, though, Ahaz misses out on the perfect freedom and joy of serving God, of knowing the depth of God’s love for him. Ahaz shows us that not standing firm in faith, not recognizing God with us, is not standing at all. And I can attest from my own life, it is not living. Not really.

            But the very good news here that Isaiah proclaims is that despite our faithlessness, God is nevertheless with us, since God, unlike you or me, is always faithful. Despite our unwillingness to let God take control of our lives, God is nevertheless ready and willing to do so. We need only ask. “You don’t want a sign, Ahaz? Too bad. I am here,” God says. God is ready and waiting for us whenever we are ready to turn to God.

            “Look, the young woman is with child, and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel,” (meaning of course, God is with us). And not only that, but in two or three years, that kid’s gonna be eating milk and honey, the food of abundance. And what’s more, those kings you were so worried about, won’t even be around. But God will, Isaiah proclaims to the faithless Ahaz.

            Scholars have wasted a lot ink trying to figure out who this young woman was—this young woman whom Matthew and Luke will of course read as ultimately pointing to Mary—and while it’s interesting to speculate about the woman, her role is really not all that important here.

            What is important for Isaiah, and for the Gospel writers, was that God is in fact among us. Ahaz refuses God’s offer for a sign. But God in God’s goodness, in God’s never-ending faithfulness to us, provides one anyway. We refuse to be faithful, and God seems to love us anyway, forever calling us back to Godself, with the absolute assurance that there is new and abundant life in following God and not our own ways.  

            This new and abundant life of course does not shield us from tragedy, but this new life allows us to face whatever may happen to us in faith, in the knowledge that God is with us, sustaining us with God’s immeasurable grace and love. God desires us and so is ready and waiting for us to know how much each of us is loved. That is God’s promise to us. That is the story of Israel and that is our story. We have only to accept it. I pray that each of us may do so as we await the coming of the Christ child, God with us, Immanuel.

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[1] Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Harper and Row, 1962),

[2] Richard Rohr, “Daily Meditation,” email from the Center for Contemplation and Action, 12/13/13.

[3] Ibid.