Rev. McKinley L. Sims, M.Div.

Story for All Ages near Easter 2015

Christmas Eve 2020

(Adapted from sermon in 2017)

I can still feel the excitement in the air. I can smell the expectation. I can taste the adrenaline-fueled energy of the Frank Irwin Center in Austin, TX. It’s a slightly chilly day in March, but the inside of the basketball stadium is electric heat amplified by each and every member of the 30,000 + people jammed into the building affectionately known as, “The Drum.”

I’m sitting next to my brother, and we are as close to heaven as you can get. Two boys with nothing on our to-do lists except to watch basketball, talk to girls, and eat fried food. We are surrounded by other junkies, each one just as joyous and giddy as we are. The atmosphere is so charged with emotion, I imagine that at any moment someone might spontaneously combust in the world’s happiest reenactment of Moses’ burning bush.

The UIL State Boys Basketball tournament is easily my favorite secular holiday. I get to watch six basketball games a day over a long weekend, and on each game rests the hopes of an entire Texas town. It’s emotionally draining, and I love every minute of it. The most exciting time is when teams find themselves in a next bucket wins situation, tied with less than a minute remaining. One side takes a shot, misses, or turns it over, and the ball changes hands. Now the team with the ball can win the game and the championship. It all comes down to this. Someone is going to make a play. Someone is going to make it happen.

There are two sets of fans in the stadium for this tournament. There are the families, friends, and residents of the players on the court (sometimes entire towns leave their homes and travel to Austin to watch the boys play). Then there are the rest of us, who have no vested interest in either team winning. We just love the sport and love the action. The citizens have been yelling and screaming for the entire game; their lives seem to hang on this last trip up the court, this last defensive stand. The rest of us will cheer appreciatively, whoop and clap for high-flying dunks, long three-point shots, defensive hustle plays. We sit in our seats and cheer when something neat happens.

That is, of course, until the last minute of a close game. In that moment, as if by invisible command, the stadium collectively rises to its feet, accompanied by the roar of a jumbo-jet of expectant energy. We are one in that moment. Nerves stretch taught, vocal chords thrum incessantly, hands smash together in a never-ending symphony of pregnant emotion. But amidst all this, we are waiting. Waiting expectantly. Waiting for someone to make a play. Waiting for something to happen. Because this is what we came to see.

33:14 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Our church is in the season of Advent, marking the days until the arrival of a Messiah. We are waiting for the righteous Branch of David who shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

We are waiting for something to happen, full of expectant energy bottled up from a year of disappointment and falling short of our goals and hopes. We wait for a leader to save us from a life that seems to always be less than we hoped for. Waiting for the promise to be fulfilled and the leader to come rescue us and lead us to safety. This is what we came to see.

And we are to call this state of safety and salvation, “God is our righteousness.” Righteousness? That is sort of a strange name to call our state of blissful community lead by a branch of the Davidic Monarchy into safety and blessing. Why is that the name?

For the answer, I go to my source for all exegetical explanation of theological ideas and philosophical discussions. My man, Crush. You know Crush. He’s the turtle from Pixar’s Finding Nemo. Oh you think I’m joking?

Slight digression:

1. On growing up but not growing old.
   Marlin:, How old are you?
   Crush: Hundred and fifty, and still young, dude. Rock on.
2. On Growing up and not feeling ready, or dropping your kids off at school

Marlin: How do you know if they’re ready?
Crush: Well, you never really know, but when they know, you know, y’know?

1. Over-reacting to small problems that are easily solved?

Crush: Whoa. Kill the motor, dude.

I rest my case. With that, I want to draw your attention to Crush’s most astute observation about our world. Sometimes we find ourselves staring into the abyss, forced to change from our comfortable lifestyle and launched into a swirling roller-coaster ride over which we have no control. It’s terrifying. It’s debilitating. It doesn’t feel safe.

Except for the words of God through the prophet Jeremiah.  The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made… In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.  We ought to insert our own names into those of Judah and Jerusalem. The promise is this: God will send a Messiah to lead us through the swirling and turbulent waters of the vortex of disappointment, stress, and sin.

And what do we call this state of glorious community that looked so scary and unsure? What do we call the state of being when Jesus the Messiah arrives to fulfill the promises of prophecy? What do we call it when Jesus appears, after all of our nuclear waiting boils over in hardly containable expectation, our hoping for someone to make a play, for something to happen? What do we call it when the thing we’ve been waiting for finally happens, when the play is made, when we take the plunge into love, when what we were waiting to see, the advent, arrives?

We explode with love and joy, we are overwhelmed and overcome by the sheer magnitude of grace and glory. We cheer the name in the streets, shout Hosannah to the heavens, echo hallelujah along with the choruses of angels and archangels. We are surrounded, safe and secure in the all-encompassing embrace of the Christ’s arrival. In that moment, as we all rise to our feet and bow in awe. We marvel at the beauty, and the wonder, and the majesty of our Messiah. In that moment, we echo the words of Crush: “Righteous. Righteous.”

And so it is. Amen.