We have seen all sorts of
really traumatic and difficult things over this past year and it would not be
difficult to become anxious and depressed. Yet we have also seen things that
encourage and bring hope such as the rescue of the soccer team boys in Thailand.
So as the stress and hectic rush leading to Christmas begins to overwhelm us,
we are reminded in scripture not to be anxious. The Apostle Paul tells us not
to be anxious—not to worry—about anything. But we tend to be people who worry
about everything. Some of us plunge into worry quicker and deeper than others.
We worry about what will
happen if someone doesn’t show up for the big family Christmas dinner (and also
about what might happen if they do!). We worry about getting into the right
school or university and about the financial aid package coming through. We
worry about the cancer coming back and about our company being bought out. We
worry about the security of our jobs and the safety of our children. The
congregation I serve has had a difficult year with the death of a number of
deeply faithful and involved members who had been part of the fellowship for 30
to 40 years and the distraction of problems with the local City Council over
some work done. I would not be surprised if a number of our members were
worried about what the future will bring and how long we can last as an entity
despite over 150 years of life as a congregation.
With so much to worry about,
how is it that St Paul of Tarsus can tell us not to worry and not to be
anxious? When Dietrich Bonhoeffer sat in his Nazi prison cell, he penned a poem
that included these words to the effect that we fearlessly wait, come what may,
because God is with us on every new day. St Paul, writing to the church in
Philippi from his own prison cell, says something similar. Why is it that we
need not be anxious or afraid? Is it because whatever we are worried about is
really “no big deal”? Or because God guarantees that everything will turn out
for the best? Or even because God won’t give us any more hardship or pain than
we can handle?
No. St Paul says that we need
not be anxious or afraid because “the Lord is near.” That is the good news to
which everything else in this text is tethered. “The Lord (our God) is near,”
even while we wait for God to come in all fullness. In fact, St Paul says, God
is as close as a prayer. And when God’s children take their worries and
anxieties to their Lord in prayer, God will exchange their anxiety for a peace
and calm for their worried hearts filled with love.
The sight of a mother
cradling a squirming child in her arms and singing lullabies over him until he
finally goes limp may be one of the sweetest and most serene things we can
witness in this life. It’s a scene as old as time, and perhaps it is what the
prophet Zephaniah had in mind when he wrote one of the final (and most famous!)
verses of his book: “The Lord, your God, is in your midst, ............; he
will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he
will exult over you with loud singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). When heard in the
context of the other lectionary passages for the Third Sunday of Advent, God’s
often anxious and worried children can receive these words as an invitation to
climb into the lap of their heavenly parent so that our heavenly parent might
sooth them with the songs of love and care.
Then, having heard these
songs, they might offer their God one of their own, perhaps borrowing words
from the prophet Isaiah: “God is indeed my salvation; I will trust and won’t be
afraid” (Isaiah 12:2). While the Apostle Paul seems to be doing everything, he
can to free us from anxiety, John the Baptist seems to be doing everything he
can to create anxiety in us. John’s words are so full of alarm, he seems so
determined to set us on edge. For John the Baptist, the news that “the Lord is near” is not
only a promise that ought to comfort the afflicted. It is also a promise that
ought to afflict the
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