Monday of the Second Week of Advent

The Annunciation
over the altar at
St Mary's in New Albany

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.

The Hebrew Prophets, Isaiah among them, knew God’s generosity as a superabundant flood of grace. It washes not only through hearts and cities, but also into the parched plains and wadis of the desert. In response to God’s luxuriant mercy, rich life springs up in lifeless places.

The Hebrew prophets knew nothing of our artificial distinctions between the human being and the beasts. All are creatures of the one God who created all things.

When God’s grace flows it flows on everything. And when God is disgusted with human sin, God can stifle the flow of grace, causing drought and famine for all creatures.

After centuries of trying to demarcate an artificial line between human nature and the earth; and plagued as we are with silly notions of Nature as nice and gentle and friendly, we’re beginning to understand that we are earthlings, creatures of earth and children of Mother Earth. 

Our sins of waste and pollution destroy our world as surely as adultery destroys a home and smoking destroys lungs. The prophet Amos saw clearly that sin has cosmic dimensions. He described its pollution: 

Though I have made your teeth clean of food in all your cities, and have made bread scarce in all your dwellings, yet you returned not to me, says the Lord.
Though I also withheld the rain from you when the harvest was still three months away; I sent rain upon one city but not upon another; one field was watered by rain, but another without rain dried up; though two or three cities staggered to one city for water that did not quench their thirst; yet you returned not to me, says the Lord.
I struck you with blight and searing wind; your many gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees the locust devoured; yet you returned not to me, says the Lord.
I sent upon you a pestilence like that of Egypt, and with the sword I slew your young men; your horses I let be captured, to your nostrils I brought the stench of your camps; yet you returned not to me, says the Lord.
I brought upon you such upheaval as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: you were like a brand plucked from the fire; yet you returned not to me, says the Lord.
So now I will deal with you in my own way, O Israel! and since I will deal thus with you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel: Him who formed the mountains, and created the wind, and declares to man his thoughts; who made the dawn and the darkness, and strides upon the heights of the earth: The Lord, the God of hosts by name. (Amos 4: 6-13)

There might be more politic words than sin to describe what we are doing to our world, but none more accurate. And the consequences of sin are just as certain as God’s mercy for the just. Approaching Christmas, let us weigh the cost of consumerism against the worth of life on earth and ask God how we should observe the feast with our loved ones.