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Extra! Extra!
Get ready for the Son of God. Make Way for His coming.
In the days of Jesus, messages or hot news were sent by word of mouth, that slow, oral tradition - imagine no instant iPhone - or laptop or TV alerts. All one had was memory for interpreting what someone heard about that was happening elsewhere. There didn’t even exist the Native American type smoke signals either. This meant men running through streets with a message, or across the land (no bicycles) on a mule or camel would be too slow and costly in most cases. Imagine. I remember even in the early 60ties how long it took to get a post card from Europe or Africa back home to my parents (3 month), and telephone, really didn’t exist or it was by some sort of primitive wire or walkie talkie thing with “over and out” to cut the conversation. That’s how I got my reports on Africa back to the newspaper in 1961. There was no FedEx.
 How did we survive without instant information websites like Wikileaks, Wikipedia - wiki whatever? I, at 81, couldn’t survive without my Google. If dementia is rolling in over my mind, I don’t give it a second thought. I just look it up in Google and somehow the word, the answer, the how to change kilometers to miles, things like that are resolved in a snap. Not that I’ll remember the details tomorrow…… but it works when needed.
In the days of yore, the time of Isaiah, there were many messengers, prophets, and probably holy folk who had been blessed by the spirit of the Lord to do things or know things no one else could. I guess they were somewhat like today’s messengers, no longer tied particularly to religion, but dominating our information via television, newspapers, books, and social media. Think how much we trust and learn from Oprah Winfrey, Walter Cronkite, Lester Holt, Al Roker, Christiane Amanpour, Bob Woodward, Yamiche Alcindor, the “60 Minutes” teams - people who not only report what is happening, but many anticipate what could happen to give us some sort of warning, which most of us don’t listen to. Think of the TV weathermen and women - those skilled in the theme of storms and dangerous fronts, who go to excruciating detail to show every rain drop, every whirlwind, every storm or shower to the television audience for too long a period of time, interrupting our favorite TV shows, and then, so many times, it’s a false alarm - thanks be to God. They are also experts on how to prepare to protect one’s self if disaster happens.
In fact, journalists and various types of messengers through most of history were more often than not considered left-wing, so much so that during the horrific times of the military domination of South American countries, for instance, there were many who were dragged into prisons for being communistic or socialists and never found again, be it Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, or Uruguay. It was a devastating time in the ‘70s when Juan Mara Bordaberry closed congress and set up a civilian military regime and the shocker is that it was created and supported by the USA’s CIA “Operation Condor” that specialized in political repression and state terror. Its point was to wipe out anything communist, socialist, leftist, even poets. Among 2.8 million people living in this beautiful farming country at that time, two hundred Uruguayans were killed or disappeared, hundreds were illegally detained and tortured and this took place over 12 years of military government. At one-point Uruguay had the highest per capital number of political prisoners in the world.
When I first visited early in 1984, I remember you had to be careful what one said in a public place, like a restaurant, or there might be knocks on your door, a lot like the German terror Hitler instigated to the Jews and Soviet POWs and anyone not blonde or blue eyed. In Uruguay, the military was behind the whole effort to eliminate socialist, communist, leftist minds from society. It was risky for one to speak out truth, or opinion or anything even a sidekick off the norm. People lived locked up in their apartments and homes, although soccer continued to keep interest in life alive, and their international team was a winner. Where I first lived in Montevideo, which was in the moment the military turned the government back over to the citizens party (like our Democrats, I would say), at night one could still hear screams in some house basements where torture was being imposed on some “communist” thinker. Men and women disappeared and were never heard from again. Never. In Argentina groups of mothers marched in protest and even to this day, almost 45 years later, there are still efforts to imprison those who did those deadly deeds in that era and demands to know what happened to their loved ones.
When I first flew to Montevideo, it was to know this tiny country and to meet the family of a Uruguayan soccer player who had failed to get a spot-on Memphis’ indoor soccer team. His father had been the hero of the very first Soccer World Cup which Uruguay won. I remember I was not allowed to go anywhere alone, not even walk around the block, but I was oblivious to the political drama going on, since I knew little about Uruguay or South America and I spoke no Spanish. Yet the moment I stepped off the plane, I knew this was where my life would take place. I didn’t know why. But I kept my opinions to myself. It probably was a good thing since up to that time I had been a journalist, hippie, protester against the Vietnam War, and defender of freedom no matter what one believed or what one’s color.
Today, messengers come from all different faiths, no longer dominated by one - consider how we trust the words of Pope Francis, the Archbishops of Canterbury, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, and in previous days Gandhi, Buddha, Confucius, and Mohammed the Prophet. Are saints’ messengers when they only become saints decades after their deaths? It’s kind of a backward glance at their value and achievements.
One of history’s most famous messenger was an unnamed soldier who fought in the battle of Marathon 490 BC and then ran 26 miles to notify the people of Athens of their victory. Most information traveled that way, but not just for glory. Getting vital information, be it of faith or life or death, to someone always require a special person - someone others listen to and trust or who could run like a jet plane. In the Bible, messengers were communicators who were open to hear God and pass it on, like Isaiah and John the Baptist. and more importantly, meanwhile in a small cottage somewhere in Nazareth, a young virgin was receiving the most shocking and most powerful message of her life: a virgin named Mary was to conceive through the Holy Ghost by the only Son of God the Father, without breaking her hymen. She was to be mother of the creation of the Savior of the world. Her womb, her heart, her soul, would bring forth the salvation for all people, be they Jewish or Gentile or Roman authorities or anyone, for that matter, on earth.
As we know, 30 years after her birth event, John the Baptist was the prelude to the arrival of the adult Jesus. “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” he proclaimed. For many, they were relieved, probably exhaling, Whew. Finally God had sent our Savior, his only son. Hallelujah. But also, we cannot forget Isaiah. God poured this message into Isaiah’s heart - it was that good news God wanted to share with the poor. Read them, carry them in your heart, and do them if at all possible. We can be God’s modern messengers:
- To bind up the brokenhearted
- To proclaim freedom for the captives
- To release from darkness the prisoners
- To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance
- To comfort all who mourn
That sounds wonderful to me. And I hope to you too. These are doable if you just go out and try no matter where we are or what the situation.
So let’s get real. We never anticipated the coronavirus. Everyone thought something like that would be stopped before it turned the corner. Someone forgot to pass on or listen to the message mulling around. Who would have thought that some infinitesimal “beecho” could bring all nations of the world to a complete stop, where everything had to close down, and one had to take a deep breath and rethink how we were going to exhale again and find a way to live with this virus. A virus, mind you so small we cannot see, smell, taste or imagine it. It’s not even a bug.
Now is the time of year we are supposed to have joy in our lives, celebrating the birth of Jesus, and singing carols with family around a decorated tree. Churches usually overflow and people pull out their best church attire to show up for a Christmas Eve service or a children’s pageant of the Holy Night. With our creative hearts and minds, I’m sure most families, whatever their faith, will find a healthy way to toast that eggnog whammy and pray for peace, happiness, and hope of a vaccine that allows us to see our smiles again - that would be the best gift we could share with each other.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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