William H. Willimon - "Hoping for Christmas" (December 12, 1999)

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-	I can't stand it when people	0:13
	(clears throat)	0:15
	ask that	0:16
	(clears throat) excuse me,	0:17
	favorite pre-Christmas question,	0:18
	usually addressed to some child,	0:21
	"Well, what are you getting for Christmas?"	0:24
	Or, if they're more polite,	0:27
	"What are you hoping to get for Christmas?"	0:28
	Not long ago I overheard that question	0:31
	addressed to a child and the child responded,	0:33
	"Well how do I know? Depends on what they give me."	0:38
	(congregation laughing)	0:42
	Which showed a great deal of wisdom.	0:43
	As Christians we know that Christmas is not about	0:47
	gifts or greed, it's about the birth of Christ.	0:50
	The one whom, as we sing on Christmas,	0:55
	the hopes and fears of all the years are met.	0:59
	And yet, one can learn something	1:06
	from the pre-Christmas question,	1:08
	"What are you hoping to get for Christmas?"	1:11
	Because if you know our hope, you fairly well know us.	1:17
	For what are you hoping?	1:22
	I expect that's what most people think	1:26
	religion is all about: the fulfillment of our hopes.	1:28
	We hope to find peace amid anxious lives,	1:34
	and so we come to church, and we hope that the music	1:38
	or the words or something will give us	1:43
	some sense of reassurance and well-being.	1:45
	We hope for thoughtful, reflective lives,	1:50
	and so we come and we hope that the sermon	1:53
	or some of the ideas expressed in the scripture	1:56
	will help us to think about things in a new way	2:00
	and use our brains, and...	2:03
	Or we hope for beauty.	2:07
	There's a lot of ugliness in this world,	2:09
	and maybe that's one reason we draw apart,	2:11
	particularly at a season of the year like this.	2:14
	As days grow shorter, and the darkness comes earlier,	2:19
	and we gather amidst the beauty of a place like this	2:23
	and music like we have heard, for what are you hoping?	2:29
	Church is where we get our hopes met,	2:36
	where our yearning is fulfilled.	2:40
	Maybe that's why people keep coming to church.	2:43
	Though their hopes are often disappointed here on Sunday,	2:47
	maybe there are enough Sundays where	2:53
	at least you are able to say,	2:55
	why that service really did something for me today,	2:58
	and what you mean by that is	3:01
	that service really did fulfill my hope.	3:03
	My hope about what good worship is, our hopes were met.	3:07
	Maybe I ought to prepare my sermon	3:15
	by therefore meeting you at the front door	3:16
	and handing you a questionnaire, or take a poll.	3:19
	What is your expectation for this service,	3:22
	what is your hope?	3:24
	It seems to be a major point of religion,	3:27
	the fulfillment of hope.	3:30
	Of course, trouble is if you know much about the Bible,	3:34
	you know that the Bible is,	3:36
	conducts an ongoing critique of our hope	3:39
	and our expectation.	3:44
	Jesus was light into our darkness,	3:46
	but problem with Jesus was	3:49
	He wasn't the sort of light everybody was expecting.	3:52
	That's where the trouble started,	3:58
	He was the hope of the world, but when the world's hopes	4:00
	collided with who he was, the world found out	4:03
	that he was not the hope for which they were hoping.	4:08
	Maybe that's why the church in its wisdom	4:13
	on the third Sunday of Advent confronts us	4:17
	with John the Baptist on this Sunday of Advent.	4:20
	Because here we are just a couple of weeks before Christmas,	4:26
	hoping for Christmas.	4:29
	But the first person we meet on the way	4:32
	to the Jesus child is John the Baptist,	4:35
	strange figure, odd preacher, who doesn't really	4:39
	match up to anybody's hope.	4:44
	It is interesting that the story of Jesus begins	4:47
	with the dissonance of John.	4:50
	And what does that tell us?	4:54
	Hear today's Gospel.	4:56
	This is the testimony of John,	5:01
	when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem	5:04
	to ask, "Who are you?"	5:07
	John confessed, he did not deny, but he confessed,	5:09
	"I am not the Christ."	5:15
	They asked him, "Well, what then? Are you Eli'jah?"	5:18
	John answered, "I am not."	5:22
	"Well, are you the prophet?"	5:26
	John answered, "No."	5:29
	They said to him, "Well, who are you? Let's have an answer	5:33
	for those who sent us; what do you say about yourself?"	5:37
	John said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,	5:43
	'Make straight the way of the Lord,'	5:48
	as the prophet Isaiah said."	5:50
	Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.	5:55
	So, they asked him again, "Well then why are you baptizing,	5:59
	if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah,	6:03
	nor the prophet?"	6:06
	John answered, "I baptize with water;	6:08
	but among you stands one whom you do not know,	6:11
	even he who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal	6:16
	I am not worthy to untie."	6:20
	Here is the story of John, a man sent from God.	6:29
	John says he came as a testimony to bear witness	6:36
	to the light, that all might believe through Him.	6:41
	He was not the light, but he came	6:46
	to bear witness to the light.	6:49
	This is the Word of the Lord.	6:54
	Thanks be to God.	6:56
	Well, we're not just meeting on this third Sunday	7:00
	of Advent John the Baptist.	7:02
	We're meeting John the Baptist	7:05
	as he is presented in the Gospel of John.	7:06
	John's Gospel paints a peculiar picture	7:13
	of peculiar John the Baptist.	7:16
	Unlike the other Gospels, and John the Baptist appears	7:19
	in all the Gospels, the fourth Gospel, for instance,	7:21
	reports nothing on the way John was dressed	7:26
	like the other Gospels.	7:29
	Luke says John had an odd diet and lived	7:31
	out in the wilderness, but John tells us nothing of this.	7:36
	Luke also says that John called people to repent	7:40
	of their sins, to set their lives right.	7:44
	When people asked John what they ought to do to get saved,	7:47
	Luke says John told them, "If you've got two coats,	7:51
	give one away to the poor.	7:54
	Here's what you've got to do to get right with God."	7:56
	But not in the Gospel of John.	8:02
	In John's Gospel, John the Baptist	8:05
	isn't even called John the Baptist.	8:07
	He's called a witness, he's called a witness	8:09
	to the light.	8:14
	The light; this time of year, in our pre-Christmas	8:18
	celebrations, we string up lights everywhere.	8:22
	We string lights up lamp poles and framing windows	8:26
	and over our streets and twirling around trees,	8:29
	but you hear John telling us that when he speaks	8:33
	of the light, the light coming into the world,	8:38
	the light lighting our darkness,	8:43
	it's a very different light than the light	8:47
	that we have in our conventional Christmas celebrations.	8:51
	When John began preaching, he didn't stand	8:57
	on a city street corner and preach to the multitudes.	8:59
	He didn't stand in a carved limestone pulpit.	9:04
	John went out to the wilderness,	9:07
	he called people out into the desolate desert	9:11
	to make straight the path of the Lord into their lives.	9:15
	And it was out there in the desert that,	9:21
	according to today's Gospel, representatives	9:23
	from the department of the religion came out	9:26
	to do what they do so well: give examinations.	9:30
	They didn't know what to make of John.	9:36
	These religious experts say, "Shine the bright	9:39
	flashlight into John's face," and they demanded,	9:43
	"Well, who are you?"	9:46
	He certainly didn't act, he didn't dress	9:50
	like anyone religious whom they had encountered before.	9:53
	"Who are you?" they demand.	9:59
	"What is your denomination?	10:02
	Are you Calvinist, pre-millennium, Armenian,	10:04
	high church, low?"	10:06
	Interestingly, John answers them by,	10:09
	not by saying who he is but by saying who he is not.	10:14
	"I am not the Messiah," which is an interesting answer	10:19
	because that isn't what his questioners ask.	10:25
	His interrogators regroup, "Well, what then?	10:30
	Are you maybe the prophet Elijah?"	10:34
	"No, I'm not."	10:38
	"Well then, maybe then you're some new prophet."	10:41
	"No, I am not."	10:45
	See what they're doing?	10:49
	They want to put him in some pigeon hole,	10:51
	they're determined to place John in their preconception	10:53
	of what religion ought to be,	10:57
	what religious person ought to be.	10:59
	They want to place John within their conventional	11:03
	expectations, they want to see John fit into their hopes	11:05
	for the future of Israel.	11:13
	But no matter what they suggest,	11:16
	John just says, "No, no, no I'm not that,	11:18
	No, no."	11:20
	Some of them hoped maybe he might be	11:23
	the great prophet Elijah come back from the dead	11:25
	to deliver Israel.	11:27
	When Elijah was on earth, Elijah the prophet showed	11:30
	great power of God in the deeds that he did.	11:33
	Well, now if he's maybe not Elijah,	11:37
	maybe he's one of the minor prophets like Obadiah,	11:39
	who didn't do such great works but he spoke great words.	11:42
	And who needed great words from God and great works of God	11:46
	any more than Israel, with the heel of Rome on their neck.	11:50
	They were an occupied people.	11:54
	What hope had they for deliverance	11:57
	if it didn't come from God?	12:00
	"Who are you?" they attempt again.	12:03
	"Let's have an answer for those	12:07
	who've sent us out here to inquire.	12:09
	What do you say about yourself?"	12:12
	John refused to say anything.	12:16
	He is Dr. No.	12:19
	We are given no details, nothing about his dress,	12:21
	nothing about his message other than negation.	12:24
	John is the one who comes and says, "No."	12:28
	The only positive thing John says here	12:34
	about himself is that he is a voice.	12:38
	"I am the voice crying in the wilderness,	12:42
	'Make straight the path of God.'	12:47
	I am God's megaphone, I am the smell of the coffee	12:51
	that wakes you up in the morning, I am that	12:56
	alarm clock that shatters your sleep.	12:59
	I am that annoying voice you can't get away from	13:02
	in the restaurant, no matter how far you move your table.	13:05
	I am the voice.	13:08
	Furthermore, I am the voice	13:10
	that's got only one thing to tell you:	13:14
	The light is coming."	13:17
	John doesn't say of Jesus, "There is one coming	13:21
	who is coming who is going to call you to repent,	13:25
	to take away your sins.	13:27
	There is one coming who's going to tell you	13:29
	just what you ought to do to get right with God."	13:30
	He just says,	13:32
	"Mr. Light is coming.	13:35
	I'm a voice that's before the light."	13:39
	If you don't know what to make of somebody	13:45
	who says he's nothing but a voice,	13:47
	what do you make of somebody who's nothing but light?	13:49
	Light, light has got to be one of the most	13:53
	difficult to define, to limit, of human experiences.	13:57
	In the mornings about this time of year	14:05
	when the leaves are off the trees	14:07
	and dawn seems to come earlier,	14:10
	light streams into the bedroom,	14:12
	and no matter how tight you try to shut the curtains,	14:15
	light coming in at such an inopportune time.	14:18
	John says, "I am not the light.	14:24
	I'm a witness to the light; I'm a voice.	14:27
	I'm somebody who points to the light,	14:31
	I am somebody who tells you that the light is coming	14:34
	but I am not the light."	14:37
	To those religious experts, who do what religious experts	14:39
	tend to do, to define, to classify, to characterize,	14:44
	to pigeon hole, to know by God, know,	14:47
	John says,	14:52
	"I'm among you as one you don't know,	14:54
	and furthermore there is one who stands among you	14:58
	whom you do not know."	15:02
	Out in the wilderness, at some place distant	15:06
	from Western civilization, far from the places of power,	15:10
	far outside the city walls and the boundaries	15:16
	and the limits, beyond the doctors of religion	15:20
	and their definitions, John tells them, tells us	15:25
	"You do not know, you cannot define,	15:33
	you do not know the light that is coming into the world,	15:37
	into the darkness.	15:42
	All he says is to negate our definitions	15:45
	and our expectations.	15:49
	At this point, we're given no substance,	15:52
	no defining content.	15:54
	Rather, at this point in the story,	15:57
	up here at the beginning in Advent,	15:59
	we are told that our hopes are going to be fulfilled,	16:01
	but not necessarily fulfilled as we expected,	16:06
	by the light that dawns to our darkness.	16:10
	Our expectations are going to be met,	16:15
	but not met or managed by light	16:19
	that dawns among us.	16:25
	John does not tell his questioners	16:28
	that he doesn't know the light,	16:31
	rather John says, "You don't know the light."	16:33
	He tells simply, "You don't know."	16:39
	That's kind of a radical thing to say around here,	16:44
	because we know a lot.	16:48
	One Sunday, I was reprimanded for a student,	16:51
	I read this passage of scripture and I was,	16:53
	and I talked about it a bit, and I said,	16:58
	"Does it mean this, does it mean that?"	17:00
	And I just said, "I don't know."	17:02
	And he said, "But, you're a preacher!	17:05
	We pay you to know, you're expected to know!"	17:07
	Maybe here with John, right now,	17:15
	we're not supposed to define	17:18
	or characterize or categorize.	17:20
	Maybe we're just simply to do	17:24
	what human beings naturally do	17:26
	when light streams into darkness.	17:28
	We're just to open our squinting eyes to the light.	17:33
	Maybe we're just to sit here in this darkened room	17:38
	and allow our eyes to get adjusted to the light that dawns.	17:41
	It's enough to make you ask, "For what am I hoping	17:49
	for Christmas?"	17:54
	It's an important question because,	17:56
	like some of those people who questioned John,	17:58
	we may miss something so fragile	18:00
	and mysterious as Mr. Light	18:03
	if we're too full of our explanations,	18:07
	too full of our definitions and expectations.	18:10
	For what are you hoping?	18:15
	Well, if you're like many people around here,	18:19
	maybe you're not sure.	18:21
	What brought you to church on this third Sunday of Advent?	18:25
	Maybe you didn't even know it was	18:29
	the third Sunday of Advent.	18:30
	Maybe you were called here by some strange,	18:34
	indefinable tug at the heart	18:38
	that you find difficult to define or describe.	18:42
	And maybe John is saying, "That's okay."	18:47
	An open heart may be a lot better than one	18:52
	that is just so chock full of definitions	18:55
	and preconceptions and preconditions,	18:58
	that there's no room left for any light.	19:03
	Later in John's Gospel, Jesus would make a lot of	19:09
	"I Am" statements.	19:13
	He would say, "I am the light,	19:16
	I am the vine, you're the branches.	19:19
	I am the way, I am the truth, I am the...	19:21
	I am the bread."	19:26
	But right now, here at the beginning,	19:28
	before we meet Jesus, John simply introduces Him	19:30
	as light whom you do not know.	19:35
	John says, "I am not the light, I'm just a witness	19:39
	to the light, I am the voice of the light	19:42
	coming into the world whom you do not know."	19:45
	At times, you've heard me say that I'm bothered	19:52
	by some of this spiritual outburst	19:54
	that's going on among us in our culture.	19:58
	There seems to be a great resurgence of	20:02
	something vaguely called spirituality.	20:04
	And most of the time, a lot of this strikes me	20:09
	as rather thin stuff, a kind of free-floating	20:11
	vague openness to something, something called spiritual.	20:15
	Spirituality becomes this great basket	20:20
	that we just dump everything into	20:23
	and we call that "spiritual," just vague yearning.	20:25
	I was at a dinner a while back	20:31
	and our host, in lieu of a blessing,	20:33
	urged us all to have a moment of silence,	20:35
	and we all bowed our heads.	20:38
	And I'm sitting there at the table,	20:40
	and I'm thinking, because I know some of these people,	20:41
	"I wonder what Godless secular people do	20:45
	when they bow their heads for a moment of silence	20:47
	before a meal?	20:49
	What are they thinking?	20:51
	They don't believe in God, so there's nobody	20:52
	to be grateful to for the meal."	20:53
	"Oh Lord, if there is one, save my soul	20:58
	if I happen to have one."	21:01
	(Congregation laughing)	21:03
	But you know, this Sunday, this Sunday	21:08
	with John the Baptist, I'm thinking,	21:11
	amidst all of his denials and negations,	21:14
	I'm wondering if maybe that,	21:17
	a kind of silent waiting is not a bad place to begin.	21:21
	A kind of inarticulate yearning.	21:27
	Later, during the course of the church's year,	21:31
	we're going to have lots of occasions	21:34
	to find out a lot more about Jesus.	21:38
	There's going to be a lot of opportunity	21:41
	to give more substance to this shining light.	21:43
	I will stand up here and I'll tell you how to vote	21:47
	and how to spend your money and how to live your life,	21:50
	but this Sunday, with John,	21:54
	let's just simply lay aside our hopes and expectations,	22:00
	and let's just let the light dawn among us.	22:04
	Let's allow light to enter our inarticulate darkness.	22:09
	Let's simply admit we're in the dark.	22:15
	There is much that we just don't know.	22:20
	Meister Eckhart says,	22:26
	"God is the one who has no name.	22:29
	God is the Word that speaks itself before you speak."	22:34
	You know that one of Jesus' great problems	22:41
	by the time that his ministry got going,	22:44
	after this encounter between the authorities and John,	22:46
	one of Jesus' big problems was people who thought	22:50
	they knew exactly how Messiah was supposed to act,	22:53
	and exactly what a Messiah was supposed to say.	22:57
	People decided that what they needed was	23:01
	a good general to come in here and raise an army	23:03
	and run these Romans out.	23:05
	When Jesus didn't do that, He was rejected.	23:09
	They decided maybe that they needed somebody	23:14
	to come in and speak some cool, reassuring, soothing	23:16
	spiritual words, and when Jesus didn't do that	23:19
	they turned against Him with murderous intensity.	23:23
	A scientist was telling me that	23:30
	the most difficult thing, when you're a research scientist,	23:33
	is to go engage in an experiment and look for something,	23:39
	but at the same time to expect to be surprised	23:45
	by the data that you receive.	23:50
	Most bad research, he said, begins in thinking	23:54
	that you know what you know.	23:58
	Thus John says Jesus will be known	24:04
	by knowing what He is not before you know who He is.	24:08
	A faculty member just last week was explaining to me	24:14
	why, though he's a great, high-powered academic,	24:17
	he always loves to teach a freshman seminar,	24:20
	because he says, "Freshman know enough to know	24:24
	that they don't know.	24:28
	You take juniors, for instance, who know just enough	24:30
	to render them impervious to any new knowledge."	24:33
	(congregation laughing)	24:37
	It's okay if you've come here empty.	24:42
	It's okay if you're not too sure.	24:46
	We ought to be cultivating a receptivity	24:50
	for surprise, wonder, shock of God who is not the God	24:53
	we thought we knew, and not even the God	24:59
	we thought we wanted.	25:02
	Light comes into our darkness.	25:05
	Today I stand among you as witness to the light,	25:09
	the light coming into the world,	25:13
	the light that the darkness of the world has not,	25:15
	despite over 2,000 years, overcome,	25:19
	of the Father's love begotten	25:23
	ere before the world began, He was light.	25:25
	And the light is the light of all.	25:29
	Amen.	25:36

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Hoping for Christmas" (December 12, 1999)

Description:

Sermon start time: 00:13. Sermon end time: 25:37.
This sermon talks about Christian hope. Beginning with an argument that hope reflects one’s identity, the preacher contends that Jesus Christ is often subversive to people’s hope of a messiah, and that the true Christ is the Light of the world. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “An open heart may be a lot better than one that is just so chock full of definitions and preconceptions and preconditions, that there’s no room left for any light.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4j960q76

Date:

December 12, 1999

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Advent

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0989
ref10135_o5t
uachapelsermaud
duke:320988
dcrau001633
ark:/87924/r4j960q76
be0cd0ff-f051-4661-b23e-39df46e28608

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "Hoping for Christmas" (December 12, 1999)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Hoping For Christmas" (December 12, 1999)

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