<html><body><div>Part 2</div><div><br></div><div><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>This is the Messiah – the “long-expected One”, as we sing in the hymn. This is the Messiah of whom Isaiah spoke, the One whom the wild places, the supposedly barren places in the world; the One who would be welcomed by all of creation. Despite the Glory and the Majesty, however, we’re told not to fear. You might think that fear is exactly what our response would be when faced with God in our midst. Yet the prophet took great pains to reassure all those who were struggling that God’s coming would <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT</u></b> be a further burden which would be imposed on them to grind them further into despair and hopelessness.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>This idea of the inability to find relief from all the pressures in life is something with which we can identify. None of us wants to be stressed. We don’t need another difficult medical diagnosis. We don’t need someone telling us about some financial downturn. We don’t want a storm to come through and put a tree through the roof of our house, or smash our car. Yet still we live with anxiety, we and more than half the world.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>What Isaiah describes, what John preached about, what Jesus told John’s disciples – it may sound incredible. To see, after vision has faded; to hear after silence has settled as a blanket; to find hope when everything else talks of horrendously grey clouds and strong winds seem to beat on our lives: this is God’s promise, and we know that it will come. When, we’re not sure. How, we don’t know. Who will make it possible, is unknown. Yet faith teaches that Advent is <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>NOT </u></b>a mockery, not something which whitewashes over hurts, bruises, anger and pain. Our faith, bolstered by that of those who have gone on this pilgrimage of life on earth, assures us that when we’re in difficult straights; when we’re seemingly imprisoned, like John the Baptist; when some one person or people, or some institution or organism tries to squeeze life out of us, somehow we’re asked to look to see the signs around us.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>That’s what makes Jesus’ response so helpful to me. He didn’t beat John over the head, or shake him for questioning the value of his life and ministry. He didn’t say, “Oh well, it can’t be helped.”</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Jesus said, “Even from whatever is imprisoning and restricting you, and making your life so tough; even from there, look to see what’s there in the most mundane events. Look beyond the headlines on the newspaper’s front page; or the mind-numbing twenty-five-hour-a-day news on TV. There <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>ARE</u></b> things happening. Just ask the dogs of </span><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Mytilene. Just ask the folk who’ve been watching the café owner. For that matter, ask those who’ve read that report and have been touched by it.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>The dogs have been brought in, have been sheltered, have been guaranteed possibly twelve hours a day when they won’t be chased, won’t be harassed, won’t be frustrated. They’ll be able to relax among friends.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>And if it can happen with dogs – just think!</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>If it can happen with dogs, just think how we apply this to those threatened, those who’re harassed, those who’re cold, and wet. Just think how this becomes part of the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy. If to dogs, then why not to humans? Why not through us? We don’t have to own much. We don’t even need to have a café, although that would be nice.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>What do we come to church to hear? Whom do we come to meet? What do we hope to see? The same questions Jesus put to the crowds around Him, He puts to us this morning, and not just in this room, but in our cars, in our homes, at our parties, in our rest-time. </span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Are we serious about coming to hear about people’s physical, emotional and spiritual lives turned around? Are we serious enough to come to ask that our own lives be turned around? Do we treat Advent as more than merely a pre-amble to several nice dinners sandwiched between all those things that seem to make us frantic about not having enough time, or money, and so on?</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>The article that told of the café in </span><span style='background: white; margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>Mytilene ended with a remarkable tag.</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Here’s the Takeaway</span></b><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>: All life is precious. Take a note from the people of Lesbos and know that ordinary people just like you are striving to make the world a better place.”</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>How did the owner of that café know what he or she was starting? How did the writer of the article know what he was spreading? </span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>Back up a bit. How did Isaiah, staring down the ruins of society in Judah; how did John the Baptist, six hundred years later, facing a society which was crumbling for lack of vision about the state of human life; how did Jesus, responding to the pleas of John’s disciples, know that we would hear all these words come together on this, the third Sunday of Advent, two weeks away from one of the two primary Festivals of our faith?</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>To all those who struggle – with depression, with grief, with a loss of confidence in themselves and others – to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ALL</u></b> who struggle in Albany and beyond, this Advent message is a spark, a sign of hope, that there <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS </u></b>compassion. There <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>IS</u></b> healing. There <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>ARE</u></b> people who <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><u>WILL</u></b> make a difference, in God’s name, for us and for the world. How this will appear; how this will come about, is not totally clear. But it is happening! All <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:
normal"><u>SHALL</u></b> be well!</span></p><p style="background: white; margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span>“Here’s the Takeaway</span></b><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>: All life is precious.” You heard it from Jesus!</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>NOTE:</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'> </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style='margin: 0px; line-height: 107%; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'>[1]</span></span></span></span></span><span style='margin: 0px; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt;'><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">“Instead Of Chasing Them Away, This Coffee Shop Opens Its Doors to Stray Dogs Each Night”</i> by Josh Starling. Dec 28, 2015<span style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(68, 68, 68);"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><a href="http://www.inspiremore.com/greek-coffee-shop-open-doors-to-stray-dogs/"><span style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal;"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.inspiremore.com/greek-coffee-shop-open-doors-to-stray-dogs/</font></span></a></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 11px;"><font face="Calibri" size="3"> </font></p></div></body></html>