Will You Dare?

Isaiah 35:1-10

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. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 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.”

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 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. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Matthew 11:2-11

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “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.”

As they went away, 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. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’ 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.

Will you dare, like Isaiah, to take the risk, and really see the endlessness of the wilderness, the dry land, and the desert that surrounds you? It’s not just about dry dirt. It’s about a people clawing their way through a horrible, dusty, dry existence without the waters of love, compassion, and grace that are needed to grow this life into something full of meaning, purpose and joy. Will you dare, like John the Baptist, to look out and really see the world as it genuinely is? He saw his personal imprisonment as nothing compared to the world full of people imprisoned, bound, and captive to sin, injustice and an enormous tyranny, from which any rational mind would tell you it is absolutely impossible to break free.

Will you dare, in the spirit of Isaiah and John, to open the front door of our church and see our world as it really is?  Not look through our beautiful, protective stained glass lenses, but look through the door with unobstructed, brutal, clarity? Don’t answer too quickly! Because there is SO much out there, on the other side of those beautiful angels, that, when you dare to look, it will overwhelm you like a fire hose, no matter how well braced you think you are. It will knock you to the ground, even if you dare to only crack the door! Even a quick peek will certainly bowl you over!

Those prophets, Isaiah and John the Baptist, they are calling us to dare. Not because they want us to burn like we would in the desert or feel helpless like we would in chains, or be knocked to the floor breathless at our front door by the relentless flood of news about the injustice in our world. And make no mistake, the injustice out there IS like a firehose on the other side of that front door! Racism is rampant. Pumping gas at the Big-Y up by the turnpike on Saturday, someone coming off the pike took the time to roll down their window and yell a racial slur at the people pumping gas next t0 me. Our climate is in crisis. You can not rent an apartment anywhere in our country making minimum wage. 700,000 people are under threat of being removed from Food Stamps and a million kids risk losing free school lunch with the same rule change. Adults and children fleeing violence and horrors in their own countries are dying from our intentional neglect in places we refuse to call concentration camps AND as of December 1, which was the 335th day of the year, there have been 385 mass shootings in our country.

Those prophets are calling us to dare! But not so that we will be burned, trapped, or knocked on our backsides, but because they KNOW… they know there is life… real life… abundant life for ALL of creation on the other side of the injustice and horror that lies in wait at our door. Beyond that door, they KNOW there is a world where people are given sight. Not just physically healed of blindness but healed of their inability to see God at work in their lives. Beyond that door is a life where the lame walk. Not just physically able to use their legs but healed of their fear of going out into the world and living more deeply into the abundant life God has created for them to live! Beyond the injustice that claws at our door, lepers are made clean. Not just skin deep, but down deep in the places where people hear they are unfit, unwelcome, and unclean. Beyond the terror, the deaf hear.  Not just ears opened, but minds opened as well to truly understand that God IS at work in our world! Beyond that door the dead are raised. Not just from physical death but from the death of believing they live outside of God’s loving embrace!

And finally but most importantly, beyond that door and through the gauntlet of injustice, desert, terror, prison and fire hose which all lie in wait... beyond all that, the poor have Good News brought to them. And that Good News is that the terrible world lying in wait at that door is even NOW being so radically transformed that soon you won’t be able to recognize it! That desert? It’s being transformed into a lush river valley. Trembling hands are being made firm and feeble knees are being made strong.  THAT’s the level of transformation that God has set loose on this world beyond that door!

THAT is why Isaiah and John the Baptist DARE us… DARE US… to bravely open that door and risk taking the full force of the world’s injustice squarely in our chests and being knocked to our butts. They dare us… dare us… to see the world not through the rose colored lens of our church’s stained glass, but they dare us to see the world just as it is, in its rawest and most honest truth. Isaiah and John the Baptist DARE you… DARE us to open that door in spite of the terrifying noise the world is making outside, because they KNOW... they know... that through the terrible truths of the unimaginable injustice in our world, God is in this moment reaching out to us through all of that to right all that is wrong and redeem all that is so broken. Isaiah and John want us to KNOW, as they knew, that God’s mighty hand is even now, sweeping aside the terror that claws at our door and the injustice that scorches like a desert. Even now God is reaching through our most barren deserts, breaking every last link of binding chain and draining the relentless fire hoses of this life to bring us... us and all of creation... to the everlasting joy and gladness and it is the Christ child who shows us how to meet God at the door.  May we dare to open it and see.  Amen.