Power for Love

Power for Love

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 10, 2017

Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-11

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever noticed how Christians do a funny thing with language? We take a particular word that grammatically is an adjective and turn it into a noun. The word I’m thinking of is “almighty.” Almighty is an adjective. It describes something as all powerful. We speak of “the almighty dollar,” and we mean that money has the power to control everything. Almighty isn’t a noun. It isn’t a thing, it is an attribute of a thing. It is an adjective. Or at least it is an adjective except when we apply it to God. Sure, we sometimes use it as an adjective for God. There’s an old hymn that starts with the line “Come thou almighty king.” It’s an adjective there, so sometimes we use almighty as an adjective. Sometimes we use it as an attribute of God, but we do more than that with it. We turn it into a noun. We put the definite article in front of it and call God “the Almighty.” Not the almighty something or other. Just the Almighty. And actually we do more than turn the adjective almighty into a noun. We turn it into a proper noun. We turn it into God’s name. “The Almighty” is our God.

Now, I don’t deny that God is almighty. I mean, how could any reality that is truly God not be almighty? Yet I think calling God almighty raises more questions than it answers. I mean, almighty means all powerful. One on line dictionary defines it as “having absolute power over all.” Absolute power would be the power to do anything. Because we think of God as “the Almighty” we say over and over again that “nothing is impossible for God.” I suppose that’s true, but it certainly is also true that there’s an awful lot we’d like God to do that God presumably could do but to all appearances doesn’t do . I mean, wouldn’t it be great if God stepped in and ended all wars? Or ended every kind of human suffering? Wouldn’t that be great? I suppose it would, and I want God to do those things as much as the next guy; but here’s the thing. God doesn’t do it. God has never done it. So God may be “the Almighty,” but God sure doesn’t act most of the time as if God were in reality almighty the way we think some reality that is almighty should act.

So what are we to make of the paradox that God could do anything but there are are all kinds of good things that God doesn’t do? I think all we can make of it is to look at what God does do and try to figure out from there how we are to live. And we get a glimpse into what God does do (as opposed to what God doesn’t do) with God’s almighty power in our reading from Isaiah this morning. There the prophet sings of how God is going to return the Jewish exiles from Babylon to their home in Jerusalem. That’s what the opening lines of our passage are about. Israel’s punishment for her sins of faithlessness that led, in the view of the ancient prophets, to her defeat by Babylon and the exile in Babylon of her leaders is over. God will ease her way home. That’s what preparing the way in the desert, raising up the valleys and leveling the hills is all about.

And the lectionary gives us this text in Advent. I suppose the lectionary does that because of the lines near the end of our passage. There the prophet says “See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power.” It doesn’t say almighty power, but it might as well have. In the view of this ancient prophet it is God’s power even over people who have never even heard of the god of the Hebrews that is bringing the people home from exile. God comes with power. The prophet says God’s “arm rules for him.” God’s “arm” here is a symbol of God’s power mentioned in the same verse. God comes with power. With a mighty arm to rule. That’s one thing our text this morning says.

OK, but what is God going to do with all that divine power? Immediately after it established that God comes with power the text tells us what God is going to do with that power. It tells us how God is going to use that power. The text continues: “He tends his flock like a shepherd:He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” Yes, God comes with power, but God doesn’t use God’s divine power anything like how we’d probably use it if we had it. No, God comes in power to act like a humble shepherd. The shepherd imagery here is imagery of care and concern not transcendence and force. It is imagery not of God overpowering people but of God tenderly caring from them. For the prophet here we are God’s lambs, and God carries us close to God’s heart. The text says God gently leads the sheep who have young. They are most vulnerable ones, for they must stay with their lambs even in the face of mortal danger. So God cares especially for them. Yes, God comes in power, but God comes with power for love.

This text from Isaiah, written in the mid-500s BCE, isn’t about Jesus. It is about God leading the Jewish exiles home from Babylon more than 500 years before Jesus. Yet it fits very nicely with Jesus, doesn’t it? In this season of Advent we are preparing to celebrate once more the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord. We confess that in Jesus’ birth God came into the world in a special way. In the birth of Jesus God came to us as one of us. Jesus came with the power of God, but how? Did he come descending on a cloud from above. Did he come with armed force to defeat the enemies of God in the world? Did he come with the trappings of royalty? With a golden crown and columns of armed men parading behind him? No, of course he didn’t. We know that. He came as an ordinary newborn human being. A baby. Naked. Completely vulnerable. Utterly defenseless. One completely unable to tend for himself, needing nurturing care in order to survive. He came as love needing love himself.

OK, that’s how he came; but what did he do with the rest of his life? When he grew up, did he use divine power to crush his enemies by force and establish the kingdom of God on earth? No. Certainly not. When he grew up he said love your enemies and turn the other cheek. When he grew up he used divine power a few times, especially divine power over nature—to calm the storm and walk on the water for example. But he never used divine power to harm anyone. He rejected all use of force and called us instead to lives of love and caring for all of God’s people. Isaiah saw God coming with power to tend the sheep. Jesus came with power to tend the sheep too. In the Gospel of John he calls himself the Good Shepherd. He didn’t harm, he healed. He didn’t hate, he loved. With all his power he loved.

And that’s what he calls us to do too. We don’t have divine power. All we can do is appeal to divine power to solve our problems and the world’s problems. And when we appeal to divine power to solve our problems and the world’s problems what answer do we get? We get love. We get the love of God for ourselves in whatever comes our way in life. We get God’s command to love others as we love ourselves. God is the Almighty, but God expresses God’s power not through force but through love. Not through violence but through caring. When we read Isaiah, and more importantly when we worship Jesus, we find that God has power; but God’s power is power for love. It is never power for hatred. It is never power for violence. It is never power for the sake of power. It is always power for the sake of love.

Our Advent theme today of course isn’t love. That’s the Advent theme for next week. Today’s theme is peace, but with God love and peace walk hand in hand. It is in the love of God that we find peace. It is only in the love of God that we find peace. The world can never give us true peace. The world tries to maintain peace through armed might; and that way true peace never comes. All armed might can produce is a lull in the fighting. A lull in the fighting might be a good thing but the fighting always returns. God gives us peace in our hearts not by force but by love. By power for love. Power that lifts up and sustains. Power that calms and heals the soul. Power that loves all people through whatever comes their way in life. Power that suffers with us in love. Power that welcomes us home when our lives on this earth are done. God’s power is the power of the helpless infant born in Bethlehem. God’s power is power for love.

So as we once welcome Jesus into the world here two weeks from tomorrow, let’s remember what God’s power is all about. Yes, God is “the Almighty.” But God is almighty for love. Only for love. God call us to lives grounded in love too. So as we love and adore the newborn Jesus let’s remember that he is our model for loving God and all of creation just as he did. If we will remember that God’s power is power for love we will find peace, the peace of God that passes all understanding. May it be so. Amen.