• Isaiah 7: 10-16

Walter Brueggemann makes a sharp difference between the two distinctive ways God acts: one is through normal human experiences and processes; the other is something “utterly new.”  He regards Isaiah 7:14 as an example of “the sovereign incursion of Yahweh, when newness is not extrapolated from the present, [but as] something utterly new will be given.” (Theology of the Old Testament, p. 172)  And what can be more expressive of God’s inaugurating something new, unexpected, unimaginable than the miraculous birth of a child!  A birth means new opportunities, experiences, impact on others, which is full of hope and promise before any disappointment can set in.  Isaiah proclaims this ultimate sign of hope: “the young woman is with child and shall bear a son…”  This child shall be called “Emmanuel,” God with us!  It is a gift only God could give and God chose to give.

• Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18

Robert Alter speculates that this psalm was composed in response to a specific situation: the North is threatened by Assyria, but has not yet fallen.  This is just before the crisis in which Isaiah lived.  It is a cry of desperation as befits the times.  The psalmist arouses hope by proclaiming that God will act in the person of a favored, chosen leader.

• Romans 1: 1-7

In Paul’s’ salutation to the church in Rome, he assumes a tenet already established among the first followers: the scriptures (the Torah, prophets, Psaltery and wisdom books)  are filled with promises of a new, ideal leader and all those ancient hopes come to life in Jesus, the Messiah.

• Matthew 1: 18-25

The scriptures are striking in the way they naturally and unselfconsciously  mingle the ordinary with the divine.  Matthew accounts for all the ordinary details of the betrothal of a young man and woman and, with the same ease, describes the intervention of the Holy Spirit and the universal meaning of the miraculous birth of a son.

Modernity traps believers in an awkward relationship with scripture.  Some end up demeaning scripture with literal interpretation while others simply rationalize away the divine.  (See Karen Armstrong’s The Lost Art of Scripture, Rescuing the Sacred Texts, [Knopf 2019] for a thorough and compelling  account of the diminution of scriptures in Modernity.) 

Postmodernists, especially those writers who focus on the interpretation of texts, in particular biblical texts, insist that these peculiar texts must be accepted on their own terms, not ours.  These readings and gospel for Advent IV lose their power if they are not valued for their intended effect.  They use one of the most potent experiences we can have as human beings– the expectation and birth of a child– as a the means to convey the power of  God’s promise to intervene with something “utterly new.”  The preacher who stumbles into debates about literal  interpretation of these powerful texts or the one who is embarrassed by the miraculous in scripture will miss the opportunity/obligation to use words to do something vital– offer hope that is so certain, so complete, so outside human speculation that it could only come from God.  The (Postmodern) preacher dares to announce the possibility of something “utterly new” in ordinary life.

“Ordinary Life”

Our life is ordinary.

I read on a crumpled piece of paper

abandoned on a bench.

Our life is ordinary

the philosophers told me.

Ordinary life, ordinary days and cares,

a concert, a conversation,

strolls on the town’s outskirts,

good news, bad —

but objects, thoughts

were unfinished somehow,

rough drafts.

Houses and trees

desired something more

and in summer green meadows

covered the volcanic planet

like an overcoat tossed upon the ocean.

Black cinemas crave light,

Forests breathe feaverishly,

clouds sing softly.

a golden oriole prays for rain,

Ordinary life desires.

Adam Zagajewski (translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanaugh)

                                                The New Yorker, November 26, 2007, p. 100

“Ordinary life desires.”  The scriptures take such human needs with complete seriousness.  Yet, with total nonchalance, biblical texts mix the ordinary with the divine.  The prophets, psalmists, evangelists, visionaries, wisdom teachers and missionaries declare with no awkwardness that because God loves  all creation and never wavers in God’s passion for justice there is hope.  And God incessantly invites any and all to become co-creators, co-agents with God in the world of “ordinary life.”  For Christians, the clearest expression of God’s hope for the world is Jesus, the Christ, whose birth and the promise of his return renews in the human heart a chance to hope– again!  An ordinary human birth; the irruption of the divine!