Third Advent, 2005:

      A man was standing at the edge of a lake and watched in horror as his wife was flailing about in the deep water.  Unable to swim, the man started to scream for help.  A trout fisherman ran up.

     “My wife is drowning and I can’t swim,” he said.   “Please save her.  I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”

      The fisherman dove into the water.  In ten powerful strokes, he reached the woman, put his arm around her and swam back to shore.  He gently placed her at the man’s feet.    

     “Ok, where’s my hundred?”

     “Look,” the man said, “when I saw her going down for the third time, I thought it was my wife.  But, this is my mother-in-law.”

     “Just my luck,” the fisherman said, reaching in his pocket.  “How much do I owe you?”

      My deepest apology to all good mothers-in-law who are present today.  I had a great one.  Sometimes mistaken identity does happen.  Either our eyes play tricks on us or we may be looking at something from the wrong perspective.  Like the little bug that just happened to hang out in a big city museum.  One day he heard a couple of flies talking about the incredible beauty of the Persian rugs hanging in a downstairs room.  He determined to see that for himself, so the very next day he crawled down to the exotic rug section and began to crawl through the various valuable rugs in search of that incredible beauty about which he had heard.  As he moved through patches of brown and grey and green and yellow and red and purple, he kept saying to himself, “That incredible beauty must be here somewhere.”  But, alas, he never found it and he finally gave up his search, not realizing he had been crawling around in some of the most beautiful Persian rugs in all the world.

     Obviously, the little bug failed to discover what he had been searching for because he lacked the proper perspective.  In order to appreciate the beauty before him, he would need to be lifted up, to rise above.

     I would want to suggest that our ability to appreciate and enjoy the life that God has given to each of us depends on the same thing.  Advent is intended to help us focus our need on having lifted-up hearts.  Proper perspective is gained from height.  “Lift up your hearts,” the celebrant says at each Eucharist.  “We lift them to the Lord,” responds the congregation.  The higher we rise above the mundane, routine, and everyday perceptions of ourselves and the farther we are from the sameness of things, and the more we allow our spirits to soar, the sooner life becomes a thing of incredible beauty.  It is difficult to rise to that needed height on our own unaided strength.  Few arms can flap fast enough or long enough for that to happen. 

     It is again the person of John the Baptist who today reminds us of the one who alone can give us that proper perspective.  It is as if John were reminding us that the Light of the world, shinning from the Father in heaven to, in, around, and through the only Son, can provide that much height.  The proper question then becomes, “What is it we wish to see from this God-given height?”  What is it on which we need the proper perspective?  Children understand the hope and expectation, if not the theology, of the Advent season.  “Christmas is coming!”  What an exciting time.  What a season to gain a new perspective.

     Joy to the world, peace on earth, good will to all humankind, unto us a child is born, and glory to God in the highest can be found on many Christmas cards.  Christmas is that reality of life that provides high hope and great expectations.  Perhaps we, our families, our communities, our nation, and our world can be a little happier this Christmas?  That’s what we are all after, is it not?  Isn’t happiness to proper goal in life?  Would you be shocked if I were to suggest that happiness is not supposed to be the number one goal for a Christian person?  Would you argue that maybe the old preacher doesn’t have things in their proper perspective?  I would simply suggest that the deepest meaning of the Light that enters our lives on Christmas Day is not to provide us with happiness.  The central message of Christmas is that we are called to follow the Lord Jesus in doing God’s will.  That message is heard over and over again in the Gospel.  “Thou shall be happy” doesn’t appear as a stand-alone command.  It is always coupled with “Thou shall do the will of God.”

     Are we then wrong to tell ourselves and our children that God wants us to be happy?  I don’t really think so.  But, we must always remember that happiness, Jesus said, is the consequence of doing God’s will, the by-product of doing God’s bidding and not our own.  Happiness cannot come because we sought it as an end, but as a result of less self-serving goals.  Happiness comes by the grace of God, as we invest our lives, all that we have and all that we are, in working for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it exists perfectly in heaven.  If we make that commitment we find a happiness that the world cannot give nor take away.  That is true precisely because it is not the world’s to give.  That belongs to God; the one who has designed that eternal destiny for us. 

     Whether or not we catch that glimpse of our eternal destiny depends on our choice of life goals, our willingness to see life in proper perspective.  If we regard money and material possessions, comfort and leisure, fleeting pleasures, power and prestige, and worldly measurements as proper life goals, then our vision will be distorted.  We will become like the person in the little ditty that says, “If you keep your nose to the grindstone rough and you keep it down there long enough, in time you’ll say there’s no such thing as brooks that babble or birds that sing.  Just these three will your world compose; just you, the stone, and your old nose.”

     If, on the other hand, seeking the will of God is our first priority we will, by the grace of God, catch a glimpse of the divine life created for us by the Father and we will know that our happiness is God’s concern and our concern is to do God’s will.

     John the Baptist, we are told in the Gospel of John, came as a witness to the light so that all might believe through him.  We are the ones chosen to take the witness stand now.  We raise our right hands and promise to tell the truth.  That’s what helps us avoid any mistaken identity.  We are in the world to comfort and build up each other, to remain at peace with each other, to cheer the downhearted, to support the weak, to be compassionate to the suffering, to seek the other person’s good, and properly label good and evil.  In short, we are to make a difference for God in this world in which we live.  We will do that best if we remember we are in the world, but not of the world.  It is God in whom we live and move and have our being.

     I pray that this Advent will enable us to see our life from the height of that perspective.  So, dear friends, “Lift up your hearts.”  “We lift them to the Lord.”  Amen.