ADVENT 2

Preached at Baldwin Presbyterian Church, December 6th 2009

This morning I want to talk to you about a bunny rabbit. Not just any bunny. Not good old Bugs Bunny asking “What’s up Doc?”… but the annoying little rabbit banging incessantly on the drum across your television screen, the Energizer Bunny.

My adapted version of Isaiah 40 verse 8 this morning reads; “The Grass Withers, the flower fades, “the energizer bunny eventually runs out of gumption”; but the Word of our God will stand for ever.”

There is not a lot in life that lasts forever. Even the earth and the heavens will pass away.

But the Word, not just the words of the bible or any other words, the living Word that is Jesus Christ, the Word through whom according to John’s gospel, God created all things, the Word who became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld His glory… if we allow our lives to be absorbed by that sort of Word, then I tell you, we have something to really celebrate at Christmas Time.

What this text does for us is call us to consider, not why we celebrate Christmas, but why we are on this planet in the first place. Is there a purpose? Is there a meaning? Or have we just been abandoned to futility and eventual dissolution?

This text is a Good News text. It affirms that life can have direction and purpose and meaning because the God who gave us life is a permanent fixture… a God beyond the limitations of human or earthly existence, a God who is all the things those grand theological words like immutable, immortal, and incarnational seek to convey to us.

Let’s take my adapted text phrase by phrase.

“The Grass Withers, the flower fades”

Every second of our life that passes brings us one second closer to its finale. The Grass withers, the flowers fade, from dust we have come and to dust we shall return. Whatever we are today… eventually… we will not be it. The time for being anything will have reached its inevitable conclusion.

Cheerful thoughts as we travel through Advent? But that’s the point. Isaiah’s words come in the midst of a book that features a lot of gloom and doom and futility. It has a lot to say about the way people waste their lives and live… well… for nothing but themselves and at the end of the day their selves breathe their last… and what’s left? A huge funeral bill for the relatives to take care of. “The Grass Withers, the flower fades, and…

“The Energizer Bunny eventually runs out of Gumption”

How do we cope with the inevitability of our mortality? Not so well a lot of the time. Young folks live like there was no tomorrow. Old folks keep looking back to yesterdays.

Folks, we are the energizer bunny. We just keep going, going, going, banging on the same old drum. Do you remember that advertising campaign where you think that you are watching a different advert and then suddenly bang, bang, bang, in comes that bunny again. That’s us. The circumstances may change around us but we go on year after year with the same unresolved issues, accumulating more and more baggage, evading our problems rather than dealing with them.

The energizer bunny runs on battery power. It is powered by something that is man made and manufactured. Eventually the battery dies. Eventually the bunny runs out of gumption. A battery powered life is no guarantee of immortality.

In our lives we can accumulate a lot of stuff that we hope will keep us powered up. We pin a lot of our hopes on our stuff. Stuff is the battery that keeps us going. If we get a better job, a better car, a better house, a better neighborhood, a job with better prospects, some times a better husband or wife, some times a better church or let’s drop church altogether… then we will attain happiness and we will live more contentedly and therefore live longer and be better and life will be more fulfilled.

If that stuff doesn’t work then people turn to other stuff. Drink, drugs, fruitless relationships, escapism, the shopping channel, lottery tickets. Dangerous stuff. Stuff that doesn’t tell the truth. Stuff that tells you that this is what you need. You try it and for a little while it feels just like what you need. But when you come down you are lower than where you started from. The kind of stuff that gets its teeth into you so deeply that you just can’t live without it. Addictive stuff.

The Good News we celebrate at Christmas Time has nothing to do with stuff that runs out, with batteries that die or bunnies that cease to be energized. The Good News of Christmas is contained in the last part of our text. “The Grass Withers, the flower fades, “the energizer bunny eventually runs out of gumption”; but

“The Word of our God will stand for ever.”

The Word of our God will stand for ever! The Word who became flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld His glory, the Word who was and is Jesus Christ, the Word to whom the words of our scriptures point us and direct us, the Word who comes to us in the person and the presence of the Holy Spirit… will stand for ever.

Not like the food at the store that has an expiration date. Not like the gas in your tank that keeps running out. Not like that account you had in the bank that because of having no funds was terminated. Not like that series you were watching on Television that finally reached the concluding episode. Not like that game you were playing until GAME OVER illuminated the screen.

All the stuff that we build into our lives that is other than the Word of God, all that we put our hope in that is outside of the Word of God, is going to come to an end. But those things that are related to the Word of God will last for ever.

Ever wondered why us preacher types keep going on and on and on like the Energizer Bunny about how scripture reading and worship and private devotion and prayer and service to others are so important? Because somewhere along the way, we have been led by the grace of God to the understanding that everything else can’t hold us, everything else eventually goes kaputt, everything else just doesn’t cut it when it comes to eternity.

If we seek for our lives to be molded by the teaching of the One who came to us a baby in a stable in Bethlehem all those centuries ago, then we are allowing principles and forces and dynamics with eternal reverberations to shape who we are and what our life will be and where our lives will take us.

God saw to it that we were born for a reason. Born to be people who know God’s love, and who are energized and recreated by the Holy Spirit. God did not put us on this planet to play ‘He who has the most toys wins’ but to dwell with one another in love and peace, in relationships that nurture and help each other to grow.

Yes, we have fallen and will fall again and again, but that’s why Jesus is known as the Savior. Outside of His love we have no hope. But when we dwell in His love and His love dwells in our hearts through the Holy Spirit we have everything to hope for, everything to live for and everything to die for.

And so we look forward in this season of Advent. We look down the road to a day when those things we now see through the shadows will appear plain in the light of Christ. We look to what God can do and can enable us to do as we give our lives into God’s hands. We seek to catch a vision of a new heaven and a new earth and for the Holy Spirit to bring to us a sense of confidence in the Grace of God that whatever may come our way, God is able to carry us through.

Isaiah 40 verse 8. What a wonderful text. “The Grass Withers, the flower fades; but the Word of our God will stand for ever.” Let us not be energizer bunnies going on and on and on, oblivious to our surroundings until we eventually cease to function. Rather let us be disciples of Jesus Christ, saved by grace through faith, looking to a better day.

To God’s name be the Glory. Amen.

Adrian Pratt

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