Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · December 17, 2006

Third Sunday of Advent

Prayer of the Day

Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay

Close by me forever, and love me, I pray.

Bless all the dear children in thy tender care,

And fit us for heaven to live with thee there.  Amen.

Scripture

Luke 3:15-18; Philippians 4:4-5

We have two texts to focus on today.  On the Third Sunday of Advent, this text is almost always read.

The people were waiting expectantly.  Their hopes began to rise.  They were all wondering in their hearts, inwardly debating, if John the Baptizer might possibly be the Messiah, the Savior, the Healer, the Anointed, the Christ of God.  And John answered all of them by saying this: “I baptize you with water.  But one stronger, mightier, more powerful than I will come, the thongs, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork, his fan, his shovel is in his hands ready to separate the wheat from the chaff.  The wheat he will gather into his barn, into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”  And with many other words John exhorted, preached, made his appeal to the people and announced the good news to them.

And then from the letter that Paul writes to the church in Philippi, these words:

Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice.  Let your gentleness, forbearance, tolerance, magnanimity, unselfishness be evident to everyone.  For the Lord is near.  The Lord is very, very near.

These are the Words of the Lord for us this day.

Message

If You Were On a Deserted Island…?

Rick Frost

Some of you will remember this exercise.  Schools, churches, Scouts, youth groups, encounter groups, therapists may offer it still.  The exercise is called “The Fable of the Deserted Island.”  I want you to go with me with this for just a few minutes.

You are on a voyage.  It’s the 18^th century, and there is a storm.  Your ship is wrecked.  All are lost in that wreck except for you.  You are washed up on an utterly deserted island.  When you get there, you find there is not one other human being on that island.  There does happen to be plenty of food and water, but you are stuck, utterly alone, on that island.

The question today: What would you do with the rest of your life?

You probably know where I’m going with this.  Don’t you?  The bottom line is: You, me, all of us… You are basically alone in this world.  The bottom line, like the old song said, “You got to walk that lonesome valley.  You got to walk it by yourself.  Nobody else can walk it for you.  You’ve got to walk it by yourself.”

You are alone in the world, left to your own resources.  The question today: What will you make of it?  What will you do?  How will you put things together that give you some reason for getting up in the morning?  How will you put things together that give meaning to your life?

Over time, and hearing various groups discuss this kind of thing, some say, “Well, what we’d do… Oh, it’s not a “we.”  Is it?  It is just I.  What I would do is I would build a boat.  That’s what I would do.  I’d build a boat.”

For where?  I mean… You’re out there in the middle of nowhere.  North?  South?  East?  West?  And for how long?  How much water and how much food can you take?  A boat?  Forget it.

Others say, “Well, I would try to adapt.  Isn’t that the theme in the television thing now?  I’d try to survive.  It’s all about surviving, adapting.  I would find things to do.  I’d collect shells and maybe classify them.  I’d fish, and maybe work on my tan.  Maybe I’d just sit quietly and watch the sun set.  Adapt.  Adapt.  Survive!”

Others say, “No.  You know… The prospects of actually being alone for the rest of my life are more than I can take.  Nowhere to go; nothing to do; no one to connect with.  No way!  I’d just hang it up.  I’d end my own life.  I’d be done with it.”

What would you do?  What would you do? 

“The Fable of the Deserted Island” obviously is just an exercise.  Like I said, it has happened in a variety of places.  It is designed primarily to prime the pump, to get you thinking about your life, to get you real, to get you to put your head around the fact that you are and I am ultimately alone in this world. 

Of course, you all know that famous photo that was taken from the rocket years ago.  It’s the photo the scientists like to call “Our Spaceship Earth.”  It is spinning all beautifully blue and white, and alone in the universe of dark, empty space. 

The driving force of our space program is they say we are inherently exploring types.  We want to investigate.  We want to probe.  We’re just those kinds of creatures.  There is something in us that says we need to keep moving out into the universe.  But where?  What’s the grand point of simply thrusting ourselves out into the darkness?  Because it’s there?  Because we can?  Are we sort of doing our “build a boat” thing?

Folks, on this the Third Sunday of Advent, the theme is always the same.  This theme today is the theme of hope.  When the people of God need hope, guess where they turn?  They turn to their Bibles. 

We remember that little-read prophet Zephaniah, speaking into the darkness of Israel’s exile.  There was a time, you see, when Israel had been defeated by another power.  All their best and brightest had literally been hauled away into another land.  They wanted so much to return to their homeland, but they were not able.  Into that dark, dark time, Zephaniah brought a Word from the Lord.  It was a word of hope.  It was a word we have remembered down through the ages.  It goes like this:  “The Lord your God is with you, and I, the Lord, will bring you home” (Zephaniah 3).

We turn to other people, like Paul, who speaks to the church at Philippi.  This is a little community of faith.  They live in a time and a place when if it was found out that you were a Christ follower, the government came to get you.  It was a dark, dark time.  Paul brings a Word from the Lord in such a dark time.  He says, “Your God is coming, and your Lord is very, very near.”

Then on this Sunday, we flip over to Luke 3.  I read it to you just moments ago.  Here we see another group of people, living in a society that is pretty much a wasteland – morally, spiritually, politically, economically.  It is corrupt.  They are people hungering for, and thirsting for, and desperate for a leader.  They are desperate for a Messiah hero.  They are desperate for someone who could deliver them from the mess in which they find themselves living.  Into that darkness comes a Word from the Lord through John the Baptizer, who says there is one coming “that is more powerful than I.  He will baptize, transform, save, deliver you.”

The huge question today, folks: Where is your hope?  Where is your hope on whatever desert island you find yourself?  You and I know folks who are having a pretty dark time right now.  Where is your hope?

The Bible answer is this.  Your hope is neither within you nor here on this island.  Your hope – your only hope – is in the possibility of something or someone coming to you from elsewhere, from outside, from beyond.

You may have heard the sequel joke to this little story or fable.  There’s a boat that shows up and rescues the one person on the island. When they arrive, they see this person and say, “Are you the only person on this island?”

The person says, “Yes, I am.”

“Then how come there are three huts?”

“Well, one hut is what I live in.  The other one is the one I go to church in.”

They asked, “What is the third one for?”

“Oh, that’s the church I use to go to.”

Folks, we don’t need a boat.  What we need, I would suggest, is a bridge.  It is a bridge that is not built from us to the Creator.  It is just the other way around.  It is a bridge that is build from the Creator of all that is to those of us who are the created.  It is a bridge that, by its very definition, we cannot build ourselves. 

We need a light, folks.  We need a light that is shining into the darknesses of our individual lives, our community life, our national life, our world life. 

We need a reason – a compelling reason – to get up and go on and to do the good things, the right things, the loving things, the hugely important things that are on this world’s agenda.  Where does that hope come from?

The good news today:  It is precisely this great, grand, majestic plan that is the Christian faith.  We have been recipients of the Creator, Sustainer, Judge, and Redeemer of all that is, who has reached out to us, who has come to us, who has dared even to become one of us. 

Christmas time, folks, is bridge time.  Christmas time is the ultimate bridge event.  The Bible calls it “The Way.”  The name that is connected with it is Jesus.  Another name is Emmanuel, which we all know means “God with us.”  It is in his coming… It’s in his birth… It’s in his arrival that this season called Christmas is what it’s all about.

We’re delighted that you are here.  It is that we would like to lift up.  While we are here, while we are together, give God thanks and praise for the people you share life with and the fact that we are not alone at this time and place.

And we all say together… “Amen.”

Benediction

Thank you for being the one who rescues us.  Thank you for hope for the world, for ourselves, and for our loved ones.  Hope is our light.  Help us to always look up and set our hope in you.  Amen.