"THE Promisekeeper"
December 21, 1997
Micah 5:1-4/Heb. 10:5-10/Lk. 1:39-45
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"THE Promisekeeper"
The recent film 'Liar, Liar' is based on an interestingpremise. A young boy's successful, but truth-bending, attorneyfather once again breaks a promise and misses his son's birthdayparty. Having broken the promise of his marriage to the boy'smother, this was just one more excuse -- one too many. As the ladblows out the candles on his birthday cake he makes a wish, thathis dad would tell the truth for just one whole day. His wish isgranted and the film is a chronicle of that day. A man used tolying in hundreds of ways, many of them quite sociallyacceptable, can only tell the truth. The results of the liarturned truth-teller are disastrous, but hilarious, so I'm told.
Wouldn't it be nice if it were so easy to get people to tellthe truth, to keep their promises? Make a wish and 'poof' -- ithappens. I think the story intrigues and amuses us because we'veall known what it means to have promises broken -- and to breakthem. The premise hits home, we live in an age more conscious ofbroken promises than ever before, thanks to certain elements bothof the broadcast media and the scholarly world. Every age hasbeen suspicious of those in government and even in the church,but the skepticism now seems unlike anything before simplybecause of the "Oh yeah, what did you expect" attitude.
Look at the newspaper any given morning and you'll be treatedto a whole raft of broken promises on every level of governmentand from the commercial world as well. Again, the church is alsonot spared as recent stories of a church on 70th street and acertain minister with a taste for luxury cars have attested. (Itwas not a surprise to see the latter gentleman on this morning'sfront page again. Just to put you at ease...I drive a Saturn.) Itend not to take a 'Whig' view of history -- that we're thepinnacle toward which everything previous points -- but I have toadmit that historic political scandals like Tammany Hall, theTeapot Dome and, yes, even Watergate seem misdemeanors bycomparison. No wonder there's a movement called'Promisekeepers'...and people are skeptical about it, too.
So here we are, believers in a religion based upon a promise.A promise made by a God no one has ever seen, conveyed in a book-- it's a most unlikely story. We shouldn't be surprised thatpeople have been skeptical about it for centuries. Yet, wecontinue to believe. Why? Because experience -- ours and that ofcountless others -- tells us that God is THE Promisekeeper. Maybenot always in the way we thought, expected, or even hoped, butthe promise is kept. We are his people -- he is our God.
The promise is one of relationship and transformation. Godpromises to share life with us and give us the means to bechanged so that his life in us will show. This is not somethingwhich happens instantaneously, despite what some of my fellowproclaimers of the faith might say. It's a process which can, forsome, take a lifetime. History bears me out in the experience ofthose who have sought, and found, God. That's why even prophets,like Micah, looking to the future often first appeal to the past.Because God's ways are slow, mysterious, and often far fromobvious or simple.
The best analogy I've found is that of the olive tree. Thetrunk of an olive tree reveals hundreds, sometimes a thousand,years of battering winds and interior decay. Between the rootsand the fruit we meet the gnarled tree whose twists and bendsgrow, as does God's will in our lives, slowly, steadily, rarelystraightforwardly, but yet make it strong. Like the olive tree,the future develops out of the ancient past and really cannot cutitself off from its mysterious source and nourishment.
So when the promise was in doubt because Israel was in exile,Micah looked to an ancient place of encounter with God as asource of hope in a time of trouble. It's unfortunate that weread this prophecy with only an eye to 'Bethlehem' and the imageof the shepherd and bringer of peace; kind of a quick-fixconfirmation of Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy, proofof his divinity. Instead, the phrase that should grab us is:"Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she whois in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his brethrenshall return to the children of Israel." In these few wordsMicah tells us that the prophecy would be fulfilled gradually .
Micah chooses his words wisely when he speaks of labor andchildbirth. Israel had been called 'God's bride' and the image ofcourtship often applied to the relationship between God and hispeople. God, the faithful suitor, pursued Israel, the unfaithfulintended. To think of God's bride giving birth, which I have beentold is an arduous process, is a powerful thought. It means therelationship is bearing fruit, the promise is kept, and here itis the salvation of the one giving birth. The abandonment Israelfeels will be changed and those in exile will be returned throughthis miraculous birth.
Micah's thought is evocative of Isaiah, "The virgin shallbe with child and bear a son" (Isa. 7:14) and "For achild is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulderdominion rests " (Isa. 9:5-6). Look at it in terms of threeimportant passages in Luke: the angelic annunciation to Mary (Lk1:31-33), or Zechariah's song of praise -- the Benedictus (Lk.1:68-79), or Mary's Magnificat (Lk.1:47-55) and you see that overthe years the church has seen Micah's words as an oracle of today-- for today.
The birth happened -- we celebrate it at Christmas -- and yetit is always happening. Paul will write to the Romans, "allcreation groans and is in agony even until now" (Rom. 8:22);the Greek word translated 'agony' is the term for 'birthpangs.'He writes thus because the whole of creation is pregnant withGod, because the promise is always in the process of being kept,always coming to birth in us. It is as Gerald Sloyan has writtenabout this passage:
The Advent message of the Micah reading is not simply that God
will send a ruler in Israel who can claim David's city as his, but
that Advent is a time of waiting in which Christians try to learn
all that is meant by "the Lord will come."
When we learn that the Lord's coming is a present and a futurereality, as well an historical one, we'll come to be likeElizabeth. We'll welcome the Lord borne to us through mostunlikely visitors, as surely Mary must have been. And therecognition of the Lord in others and in us will cause ourspirits to leap within us as John leapt in his mother's womb.What is more, we'll be blessed as Mary was because we will have"trusted that the Lord's words would be fulfilled."
These two unlikely mothers: one too old, the other too young,brought forth in faith, having waited upon the Lord. So with usin these final days of Advent preparation. We are given theseexamples so we can do as Mary and Elizabeth did -- respond infaith to the promise and to its keeper. The great Englishspiritual writer William Law wrote this in his treatise TheSpirit of Prayer:
When the Virgin Mary conceived the birth of the holy Jesus, all that
she did towards it in herself was only this single act of faith and
resignation to God, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done unto
me according to your will." This is all we can do towards the
conception of that new man to be born in ourselves.
Augustine, and others, on more than one occasion say,"Mary conceived the Lord in her heart before she conceivedhim in her womb." This is the call of Advent waiting: toconceive the Christ and then bring him to birth in our lives. Afew minutes ago, when we sang "Let all mortal flesh keepsilence...ponder nothing earthly minded" it wasn't to beotherworldly. It was, instead, to remind us that Christ IS amongus, "as of old on earth he stood." He continues amonghis people through Word, Sacrament, and US. And, in a fewminutes, when we sing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" thatfourth verse should be the prayer of our lives: "O holyChild of Bethlehem: Descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin andenter in: Be born in us today."
It is when Christ is born in us and borne by us in our dailyliving that we come to fully appreciate the promise God made.Jesus is the guarantor of that promise and our hope. We are ableto live new lives, to offer God new worship, to have access tothe presence of the Creator God -- because the Son made man, asthe writer to the Hebrews tells us, was obedient to his Father'swill. That's how Athanasius could think our thought to worshipby: "The Word of God was made human in order that we mightbe made divine. The word displayed itself through a body, that wemight receive knowledge of the invisible Father." This samepromise of union with the Divine would lead Irenaeus to declare:"God's glory -- human beings fully alive!"
The God who seeks us, upon whom we wait, is no 'liar-liar.'Even in our world of broken promises he keeps his. Enter intorelationship with THE Promisekeeper. Accept him at his word. Thenfollow Jesus, the guarantor of the promise. Listen deeply to theFather's voice above the competing sounds of these hectic days.Respond in action that mirrors God's love, God's promise. Befully alive, the promise will bear fruit in us. We shall beblessed if we have "trusted that the Lord's words to uswould be fulfilled."
