Many years ago when I lived in Michigan, I was making my long trip home from London to Grand Rapids. Now this is not one of the great journeys of the world. In fact, it's not one journey at all because like Montgomery, Grand Rapids doesn't fly to London. So my trips involve connecting at O'Hare Airport in Chicago.
Now on this particular day, I landed at O'Hare, claimed my luggage, negotiated immigration and customs, rechecked my luggage to Grand Rapids, and was queuing at the security gate when a man in a uniform approached me and asked me if I was Mr. Johnston. I guiltily replied that I was, and I suspected that doing so was gonna land me in a world of trouble.
But instead of getting yelled at, I got from the uniformed man an apology. My luggage he told me had been sent not to the American Airlines desk, the airline I was flying with, but the Alaska Airlines desk. International travel--breakfast in London, lunch in Chicago, luggage in Juneau.
He told me that by way of an apology I could go to the security gate in a special part of the airport reserved for VIPs. And so I joined this very short queue with people who were better dressed than I was on more important business than I was and destined to sit in a very different part of a plane from the one I was.
And then I heard the loud skipping a feet accompanied by the excited voice of an Australian. I turned to see a small bespectacled man, trotting along the line, smiling at everyone and giving them his best wishes for their journeys. He was around 60, but he had the nature of a child. He was thrilled with the wonder of his trip.
His kindness to those around him was obviously genuine, and he was amazingly free of the cynicism of our fellow jaded travelers. He possessed an innocence that was clearly born of a mental disability or illness, and yet there was no more beautiful soul in that entire airport. Most of the passengers in line were embarrassed and even a bit annoyed by this childlike exuberance, and they made uncomfortable sounds and gave awkward glances at the floor.
When he reached me and bathed me a good flight, I smiled and told him I hoped he had a good flight too, and he trotted on through the security gate. When I reached the other side and was putting on my shoes, he approached me again and said, piano, piano. I'm going to play the piano. Kansas City, the piano in Kansas City.
What a joy. The piano. I wished him a good concert and carried on tying my shoelaces, and then a memory flashed through my head. I remembered a year earlier seeing a film called Shine. It was the true story of an Australian boy who was a musical prodigy, destined for greatness as a concert pianist. But one day while performing in a competition, he suffered a psychological break.
The film told the story of his life of recovery and his attempts to continue playing the piano despite his disability. I remembered that his name was David Healthgot, and he was played by the great Australian actor, Jeffrey Rush, who won an Oscar for his performance. And Jeffrey Rush's mannerisms and behavior in the movie were exactly what I was observing in this charming fellow traveler.
And I thought, I wonder, so I asked the person next to me in line who was obviously going to sit in the part of a plane miles ahead of where I was going, is that David Healthgot, and she said, who? So I did something very un British, uh, quite American. You'd have been proud of me. I went over to him and I asked, "is it David?"
And he said, yes. David. David. I'm David. That's right, David. And he put out his hand and I took it. That hand. That can work miracles. That can create beauty that transcends human understanding. I touched fingers that had been touched by God. And then he said, are you Australian? I forgave him because the Bible says you should.
And I said, no, I'm English. And he said, English, English tea. Tea, let's have tea. Let's have tea. And then his wife, who was not experiencing the same lightness of spirit on this trip from Sydney to Kansas City, whisked him away. And I was left to ponder a profound contrast. I couldn't estimate the combined sum of all the wealth and power owned by the passengers in that VIP security line, but the true spirit of greatness soared in a man that most people had written off as needy and deserving of pity.
When you go looking for greatness, don't consider the designer clothes and the hairdos in the VIP line, in fact, don't go looking among the VIPs at all. Greatness is not measured in wealth and status. The sign of greatness is hidden. You have to look hard for it because the sign of greatness is easily mistaken for a curse.
The sign is weak, powerless. In fact, helpless, would you believe? Unable to do anything for itself and frighteningly, horrifyingly vulnerable. What a weird sign. Today, Isaiah, in the fourth part of our advent series on this inspiring Old Testament prophet, tells us the sign of greatness. He says, therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel.
Now, sometimes Old Testament prophets don't know what they're talking about, and I don't mean that in an insulting way. I mean, quite literally, they cannot see the full meaning of what it is they are prophesying. There's a double meaning there. So what God had in mind is so vast and amazing that the prophet can't begin to understand what the fulfillment of the promise will look like.
And this passage in Isaiah seven is one of those, look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him. Emmanuel. I'm quite sure that Isaiah would've been stunned to see what this really meant. A young woman, indeed, a virgin conceiving miraculously, and giving birth to the Messiah in abject poverty.
After the event, the gospel writers can see it clearly. They know their Bibles and they see this prophecy was fulfilled when Mary gave birth to Jesus. But Isaiah thought he was just talking to a king called Ahaz about a baby, about to be born in his own time, 700 years before Christ.
What has God been doing in you? What seed has he planted in your heart? What's growing there secretly, silently, in the darkness? Can you feel it incubating and getting ready to be born and released into the world? Of course it won't be, it can't be as shocking and glorious as the seed he planted in Mary, but it will change something.
It will bring in God's kingdom just a tiny bit more. Whatever is growing in you will make a difference. God will use you to bless, to transform, to liberate, to heal, to restore, to create. He must. If not, then why are you still here and not been taken home yet? If you are alive this morning, there's a reason for that.
God has given you a task, a holy and glorious task, and he's growing the resources you will need right now inside you.
Isaiah names The child Growing in Mary Emmanuel. God, with us. Naming a child is an important task. When parents name a child, it's the chance to make a prayer, hatch a vision, set a destiny. Parents can dream dreams for their child and proclaim it in the name they give. Biblical names carry meaning, identity.
When a child receives a name, it can be a prophecy. I don't know what my parents were thinking, but Duncan is Gaelic for Brown Warrior.
You hear Warrior and you think of 250 pounds of rippling muscles giving it all in hand to hand combat. But if my parents failed in giving me a prophetic name, they are the exception that proves the rule. Don't take my word for it. Listen to Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlandson of Newcastle University in England.
Their research shows that when dairy farmers give names to their cattle, it can increase a cow's milk production by 68 gallons a year. Douglass says that farmers have always known the positive effect of naming cows, but now there is scientific evidence to back it up. And it's not just the naming of cows that can be prophetic.
Management researchers, Leif Nelson and Joseph Simmons have done similar studies on how the names of humans might influence life outcomes. As you know, if you are a baseball fan, a strikeout is signified in the scorebook by the letter K. Now Nelson and Simmons, who clearly need to get out more, studied nearly 100 years of baseball data and found that players whose first or last name starts with the letter K are more likely to whiff at the plate.
Batters with K names strike out at 18.8% of the time compared with 17.2% for other players. Think that's weird? Well, their research also shows that students with the initials C or D tend to get lower grades at school than those whose initials are A and B. So now I can blame my parents, not just for calling me the laughably inappropriate brown warrior, but also making me get Ds in all my classes at school.
But when Isaiah prophesies, the God's Messiah will be called Emmanuel, he gets it just right. God is with us. Christ goes with you this week, throughout each day. He is the source of courage. You need to go through the tough situations you will face. He births the pang of compassion. You will need to love the unlovable.
He is the author of the Wise Word. You are surprised to hear yourself saying, he is the origin of the patience, the serenity, the clarity, the hope you need this week, Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us lives up to His name. Let's go back to the VIP line at O'Hare. That name Healthgot means with the help of God.
Funny, that. May this week find you in deep and transforming connection with Emmanuel, and may he bring out all the good that he's growing in you, and then have the best of Christmases. Amen.