Do You See What I See?, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY. 12/12/2010

Do You See What I See?
By Rev. Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/12/2010
Based on Matthew 11:2-11


I would like to start this morning’s reflective thought by having you join in with me in singing just a couple of verses of the very simple Christmas song, “Do You Hear What I Hear.” I will start the song and I would like you to sing the echoes or responses to the question that the song asks. For example when I sing “Do you see what I see”, you in turn sing back the echo, “Do you hear what I hear.” Of course you are invited to sing the rest of the verse with me, if you wish to.
Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
Way up in the sky little lamb
Do you see what I see (Do you see what I see?)
A star, a star
Dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
Ringing through the sky Sheppard boy
Do you hear what I hear (Do you hear what I hear?)
A song, a song
High above the tree
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea
Do You Hear What I Hear?" was written in October 1962 with lyrics by Noël Regney and music by Gloria Shayne Baker, as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[ Regney was inspired to write the lyrics "Said the night wind to the little lamb, 'Do you see what I see?' “and "Pray for peace, people everywhere," after watching babies being pushed in strollers on the sidewalks of New York City.[1] Baker stated in an interview years later that neither could personally perform the entire song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions surrounding the Cuban Missile Crisis.[1] "Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time." [1] Wikipedia
The season of Advent is not only a time of expectancy, where we are in waiting for the time of the coming of the Messiah, but it is also involves a sense of “awareness”. An awareness of what “is”, or another way to say it is, “being in the present!” John the Baptizer was a man who was looking for the coming of the Messiah. He was aware that he was a person called to “prepare the way” for the coming king. John had the awareness that God was sending this king soon; in fact, the king was already alive on earth, waiting for the appointed time to make his appearance and begin his reign. John was aware of this from the time he was in his mother’s womb, as Luke tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel, that when Mary (then three months pregnant) entered into the house of her cousin Elizabeth (who was six months pregnant), the fetus, John, leaped with joy sensing the presence of Christ in the room.
John was such a man of God, seeing his role in life to preach the news that God would soon be on the scene. Living in the dessert, he delivered a message of repentance (what we might call today: hell, fire, and damned nation style of preaching) and baptized those who believed in John’s warnings of the pending vengeance of the Lord. For John, understood God’s coming to set up his kingdom, as involving the killing of the unjust and wicked and allowing only the repentant in God to live within this earthly kingdom. It was a ridding of illegitimate political powers such as Roman, who was oppressive and curial to Israel. John recognized Jesus as this person sent of God, to be the chosen instrument at the time of Jesus’ baptism.
John, even though he was a very popular prophet among the people, was not so popular with the ruling class. In fact, he had been thrown into jail for accusing Herod the Tetrarch of an adulterous marriage with his brother’s wife, Herodias. While in jail, John hears about the work that Jesus is doing, but is confused by the reports about Jesus. It seems that Jesus wasn’t quite living up to John’s expectations as to what the Son of God was supposed to be doing.
This is where we pick up in this morning’s lection reading. John is so confused, being so sure that Jesus was the Messiah that he’d been preparing the way for, yet Jesus wasn’t doing the things that John had thought God should be doing, so he send’s two of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Is he the one, or does John still need to be looking for the ‘chosen’ one of God?”
In the early church, there was an anticipation of the return of Christ, to come and set up his earthly kingdom. A part of this vision of God’s return is similar to that of John the Baptizer. When Christ returns to this earth, it is God who will have the last say in all of the evil that humanity has been doing. In the book of Revelation, it is stated that Christ will come back in battle armor, with a sword that will kill all who deny the “goodness” of God. There is this sense of “vindication” that will come with the second coming of Christ. There are many today, who hold this same view of the return of Christ, that God will get His day, so to speak.
When I was growing up, and my brother, sister, and I seemed to be doing things that either were in direct disobedience to our mothers will, or whether we were just so unruly that she had had enough, in desperation would cry out to us, “You kids just wait until your father gets home! He’ll take care of you.” The message being, once dad got home, we three would receive our deserved punishment, the retribution that would be well deserved. Now I don’t know if what we received once dad did get home was “true” justice for what we had been doing to provoke such a pronouncement of doom by our mother, but what I do know is, in her mind, she was being wronged and that she would be “justified” and more importantly, she would be “vindicated” when dad got home.
I think this is what many Christians are truly holding in their hearts, when they are looking to a second coming of Christ, as a warrior! They are looking for some sort of vindication for all of the “injustices” that they feel have been perpetrated toward them. “You just wait, Mr. Hitler, you’ll get yours when Christ comes back!” “You just wait, those communist countries, they will get a new understanding of what’s what, once Jesus, comes back and teaches them a lesson about what real human rights are about!” What we are saying in those types of words and thoughts, is that we want to have our idea’s of justice “vindicated”, our sense of honor to be restored. It is truly, “an eye for an eye” mentality.
When John’s disciples went to Jesus and asked him if he was the Messiah, so that they could go back and tell John, “yes, Jesus is the one he had been waiting for”, or “no, he isn’t the one.” John was in need of having his perception of what God on earth was supposed to be like justified. He was in need of knowing that his actions as a prophet were going to be vindicated and that being thrown into jail for pointing out wrong was really worth it all. Don’t we all get that feeling at times, this need to be vindicated for the wrongs that we have endured? And of course the greatest vindication of our lives comes by God’s hand.
Yet Jesus gave John’s disciples this answer: “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. ‘Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves most blessed!’" I am sure that this is not what John wanted to hear. John was being challenged to re-evaluate his expectations of what God was going to do here on earth.
As I think about all of the various ideas of the seconded coming of Christ, I have to look at what we are being told by Matthew, in this particular explanation of what Jesus is about. If Jesus was saying that God’s Kingdom has already come, and then shows by action that the kingdom is being formed through his ministry of healing, restoration, and of reconciliation, then why would I expect Jesus to so radically change in his second coming?
Why would I believe that Christ is going to come back to earth with a sword in hand and legions of angels to do battle against evil, when Christ did none of this during his first time on earth? I think Christians who see a Christ as a warrior, ready to do battle, are people looking to be vindicated, just like what my mother was looking for, when “dad” got home.
What if Christ’s second coming is through the actions of the church? What if God’s kin-dom is being build, each time we take on the system of greed and self-interest that we humans too often place upon one another? I would suggest that Christ’s kin-dom comes through our stopping exclusionary behavior, whether it be in sexual orientation, mental illness or other physical handicaps, or through physical territorial boundaries, those we call aliens to our culture? I suggest that when we learn to honor and respect other’s for whom they are, this is the way in which Christ is re-entering into our world.
Christ is most definitely coming again, but is it in the way in which we think? Are we like John the baptizer, looking for one type of God, who will vindicate our actions and our perceptions, not realizing that God’s way of vindication isn’t through violence, but through reconciliation?
“Said the Sheppard boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know
In your palace wall mighty king
Do you know what I know
A child, a child
Shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say
Pray for peace people everywhere
Listen to what I say
The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light

The child, the child
Sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light”
Do you see what I see? Amen