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Experience first-hand St. Luke’s loving community.

December 9, 2022

Isaiah 7:10-25 | 2 Thessalonians 2:13-3:5 | Luke 22:14-30  

To celebrate my 82nd birthday (today, Dec. 9th) – and just when I was getting kind of complacent about my dear late husband’s lack of faith – along comes this early-Advent opportunity to blog about Ahaz…

You see, when we buried my husband’s ashes last year, Father Tim said: “You know, John wasn’t so sure about all this.  But the opposite of faith is not doubt; it’s certainty.”  Yes, I realized: doubt is the prerequisite for faith.  Why else do we need to dare to believe?  No wonder my ever-kind husband had smiled and replied so characteristically to my offer to ask Father Tim to anoint him: “It couldn’t hurt.”   

Ahaz, that ancient king of Judah (who’s about to ally his nation with the pagan Assyrians rather than his petty rivals, Israel and Syria), seems at first merely “holier than thou.”  Who among us hasn’t come across someone, all too often a church member or leader, who self-righteously judges us and others?   But maybe that all-too-often experience has long-ranging consequences. . . .   

Ahaz not only deems himself too good to trouble God by accepting through Isaiah that incredible offer to show him a sign, any sign, of God’s trustworthiness.  Ahaz also doesn’t want any assurance that God knows better than he does.  Ahaz doesn’t doubt; he rebels.   

“Is it too little for you to weary mortals,” Isaiah replies, “that you weary my God also?  Therefore the Lord will give you a sign.”  Isaiah then conveys God’s promise to send among his people the Messiah, God with us: ‘Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.”   

But that embodiment of God’s love “shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.”  He will be born, Isaiah goes on to predict, into a prosperous land that thrives long after that of Ahaz, his allies and his enemies has been occupied, humiliated, decimated.  

There are consequences to deeming ourselves “holier than thou.”  Do we not drive away from organized religion good people like John?  How I wish that he too had felt the need to experience first-hand St. Luke’s loving community.   

When I tell old friends about my experience here, I’ve heard gasps when I say, “I’ve never met a judgmental Episcopalian; I’m sure he or she is out there, but so far not at St. Luke’s.” 

Betsy Fornal’s first Advent blog of this season may well sum up what I hope to say here: 

Do we fall into the trap that the temple leaders did and use their authority to lord it over others or rigidly cling to old ideas in order to protect the status quo? Or will we be like Jesus who leads by loving others as God loves us? 

Marie Hennedy