For the yoke of his burden,
(M)
and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor,
you have broken as(N) on the day of Midian.
5(O)
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood
will be burned as fuel for the fire.
6(P)
For to us a child is born,
to us(Q) a son is given;
(R)
and the government shall be(S) upon[d] his shoulder,
and his name shall be called[e]
Wonderful(T) Counselor,(U) Mighty God,
(V)
Everlasting(W) Father, Prince of(X) Peace.
7
Of the increase of his government and of peace
(Y)
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
(Z)
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
(AA)
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. –Isaiah 9: 4-7
It was another chilly Sunday morning in early December. I climbed the creaky wooden
steps to a small classroom above the sanctuary in our little church in western
Pennsylvania. It was an old church, and the rooms upstairs were only used for Sunday
School. They held the smell of old wood and polish and the cracks between the
floorboards were filled with the dust and earth of generations of little children clattering
across them in their Sunday-best Buster Brown shoes.
I vividly remember that classroom because I learned so much about the Bible and came
to understand so many things about the world in that place. My teachers were great
storytellers and they made the Bible come to life for me in that little room of wood and
dust and polish.
It was in this room that I first came to hear and know the word “prophet.” My teacher
said that a prophet was someone who could see the future. Someone who had “visions
from God.” I wondered, privately, if I might grow up to be a prophet, and I imagined
what that might be like. To see things, and then to have them come to pass. I wondered if
Joel’s prophecy (2:28) would come to pass in my lifetime, where the Holy Spirit would
enter God’s people, where “sons and daughters shall prophecy, and old men shall dream
dreams, and young men shall see visions.”
I loved to hear passages from Isaiah in church, because Isaiah was a great prophet. He
saw these visions of the future, and they came true. Every Christmas time, to this day,
when I read today’s passage from the book of Isaiah and those words, “for unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given,” I experience the thrill of knowing that the birth of Jesus
in the little village of Bethlehem was foretold by a prophet, a person who could imagine
and describe the future. And it came to pass…
Isaiah imagines an extraordinary future, a future where the world is turned upside down.
It is a future without war. It is a future where the oppressed are relieved of their burdens.
It is a future where a child is accorded titles of honor and authority. Wonderful
Counselor! Mighty God! Prince of Peace! It is a future where this child, human flesh and
bones, will be given the responsibility to govern, and in his governing there will be peace.
Peace without end.
In this passage, Isaiah exercises what Mary Emily Briehl Duba describes as “subversive
imagination” in the book On Our Way: Christian Practices for Living a Whole Life.
Isaiah imagines a world where oppressed people throw off the yoke of oppression and
break the rod used to beat them into submission. Isaiah imagines a world where a child,
who has no authority, no voice, no rights, is proclaimed King. Isaiah imagines a world
that wages peace.
Briehl Duba describes imagination as subversive, when it “envisions a future unlike the
present and a present different than it is” and when imagination “challenges the unjust
and violent realities of the present.” She challenges us to imagine this new world turned
upside down. She challenges us to do more than dream dreams. She challenges us to live
into them.
So, in this Advent Season, how do we exercise our capacity to imagine a present different
than it is? We can imagine a present without homelessness and we bring our individual
talents and capacities to work toward that vision here, in this place. We can imagine a
present where children do not go to sleep at night hungry and we bring our resources
together as a community to make it so. We can imagine a present where people of
different religious beliefs come together in a community of love and mutual respect and
we live that vision into being. We can live into the vision where those who are
marginalized and demonized in our culture are brought into the center of our community
and where they are made to feel welcome, and respected, and wholly a part of this place.
Isaiah imagines a future unlike his present and a present different than it is. The world
turned upside down. In this Advent, my friends, let us prophesy. Let us see visions;
dream dreams. And let us do more than exercise subversive imagination. Let us commit
our lives in service to make it so…Amen.
Mark A. Heckler
December 2, 2010