The Good news of not yet, but coming
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices,
together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion. Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
- Isaiah 52:7-10, NRSV
As we near the start of the third year of COVID-19, I continue to find myself haunting the Hebrew Bible text for the remnants of the people who clung to the “good news” of not yet but coming. That might just be the holding pattern of my faith in this season - not in wavering - but in liminality of the venture that is now. How do we share the good news and wait in active love?
So, with freshly pressed coffee in hand, I’m clinging to Isaiah 52 this morning. And all I can hear is the good news of not yet, but coming.
Why can we potentially take solace in the remnants of the Israelites in the Hebrew text? Why is that where I find myself roaming this Christmas eve?
Well, because dear friends we are tattered, scattered, and dismayed in similar ways. Our Jerusalem has crumbled to reveal that perhaps “our Jerusalem” wasn’t so just, fair, and equitable after all. America remains and is the land of the free for the white, economically rich, and rulers who claim victory through God but stray so far from our Christian text.
Jerusalem may lay in ruin right now, but so does our oppressive natures and made visible are the deep needs of the people.
I know, I know…this is a Christmas Eve reflection…where’s baby Jesus?
When Mary sang her song of justice at the good news of not yet but coming, she sang of the world order being turned upside down. For world order to be turned upside down, we too must begin again just as Mary did; just as Christ did in his emergence into the world.
The good news of not yet, but coming doesn’t lay in a 5-star hotel, nor does he have access to healthcare or perhaps even COVID test for his family. No, the newborn king lays in a dingy, filthy, stinky stable. Our savior’s holy arm emerges at the center of our epidemic with the people who have been forgotten.
Where is baby Jesus this Christmas eve…emerging resiliently laid bare in newborn skin for all ends of the earth to see if they so dare.
The good news of not yet, but coming can be found in our own ability to awake a new with the newborn Christ child who brings forth the good news that our remnant religious ancestors have been singing about for thousands of years.
“Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word…” – Hebrews 1:1-14
May we reflect on the many stables of our present world who hold the needs of so many and may we be born anew in Christ and emerge into this new year embracing our likeness to one another and God so that the good news of not yet, but coming edges even closer to the just world God created and calls us to maintain.
And as the Christ child coos and clings to Mary for care, may we cling to the truth that God continues to bring forth comfort in dingy and impossible places for us all.