“When thou hearest the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then thou shalt bestir thyself: for then shall the Lord go out before thee.”

(II Samuel 5:24)

A young man from out of state, whom I had just met, asked me this question:  “Do you, a minister, see any signs of a return to religion; any evidence of a spiritual awakening, especially among young people?”  The stranger was transparently sincere, concerned, hopeful.  He was quite obviously not just asking a polite question to make conversation with a clergyman.  “Do you see any signs of a spiritual awakening?”

This is the question the Advent Season raises for all of us, isn’t it?  Are there any signs of hope, of promise? We sang in our opening hymn: “Watchman, tell us of the night what the signs of promise are?”  Is there any evidence upon which we can hang our hopes that the oppressive darkness of our long spiritual night is about to end?  Are there signs that God is doing something – or about to do something?  Have we any grounds for believing that His light and peace and joy are about to burst forth on us?

What hope of peace for the war-weary people in the Middle East and for the refugees in Rwanda and Zaire?  What hope for the poor and hungry of the world, that they will be fed?  What hope for the sin-burdened soul, for the guilt-crazed heart, for the broken family, for the sick person, discouraged to the point of despair over increasing pain and weakness, for the home darkened by death; what real signs of hope are there?

A church leader, after a conference on Evangelism, said, “I am convinced that there is a new wind blowing that could sweep us Presbyterians into a genuine revival after our long, distressing decline in church membership.”  Some of us from our Rosemark congregation attending the training conference at the Advent Church back in September heard Dr. John Mulder enumerate several “signs of hope” he was seeing for spiritual awakening in our denomination.  Bob Blackwell and I, at the meeting of Memphis Presbytery in October, heard Clifton Kirkpatrick, the Stated Clerk of our General Assembly, report that all across the nation among Presbyterian churches there are signs of revival.  Just last week I read a statement from Kirkpatrick who has just returned from visiting Presbyterians in the African nation of Sudan where we have been doing missionary work for over a hundred years.  Here’s what he said:  “(Though) the Sudan has known constant war, poverty and starvation for 25 years, yet it is in the Sudan that the Presbyterian Church is growing faster than in any other place in the world.”

Have you or I experienced any of this spiritual renewal, or seen signs of it?  For several weeks now we’ve all been reading in our newspapers and seeing pictures on the TV of the new winds of fear, cruelty, and hopelessness that have been blowing among the pitiful, homeless refugees in Rwanda, Burundi, and Zaire.  One of you told me about listening to a lecturer who predicted that the tribal hatreds fueling the wars in Africa are just the prelude to the sort of civil wars that are going to break out all over the world, including the U.S.A. – and that we had better get ready for our own ethnic cleansing strife such as Bosnia and Serbia and the African tribes have been experiencing.

Is that the new wind that will increase to whirlwind intensity in our near future – a wind of war and death and destruction?  A wind that sends a chill of horror and despair through our hearts, rather than a ray of hope and joyous expectancy?  Is this, the newest wind that is blowing, to be the prevailing wind for a time, destined to obliterate the signs of hope and to extinguish the evidence of renewal?

Is there a new wind blowing in the world?  If there is, what is it like?  What is its source?  What will it do to us?

Our Scripture lesson this morning records a moment of crisis in the long warfare between Israel and Philistia.  King David, commanding the army of Israel, longs for a sign that God will grant his people a victory.  The divine oracle commands David:  “Wait, when thou hearest a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then shall the Lord go out before thee.”  (II Samuel 5:24)

David obeys.  He waits for the sign of the rustling of the leaves.  When it comes he launches his attack.  Then the final, the supreme victory over the Philistines, is won.

I remember in my boyhood and early ministry hearing this text from II Samuel, about the sound of the wind blowing in the tops of the mulberry trees, used frequently to refer to the need for people to wait for the manifestation of God’s power and presence before acting.  I remember the text’s having been used especially to remind the church that she must depend on the power of God in all her programs and activities.  How often I’ve heard dedicated church leaders proclaim their faith that the time had come to move in a worthy cause because they had received the unimpeachable signs of God’s moving in a particular enterprise, quoting the old text from David’s experience: saying, “there is a rustling in the tops of the mulberry trees.”

We don’t hear this old text anymore.  Why? Partly, I believe, because the use of Biblical phraseology is slipping out of our speech as Biblical knowledge passes out of the minds of modern men and women.  The same thing has been happening to the works of William Shakespeare.

Once a friend of mine and I were listening to a discussion at a church meeting.  The moderator referred to one of the contenders over a hotly debated point as, “a Daniel come to judgment.”  My friend beside me whispered in my ear, “Where does that allusion come from – “A Daniel come to judgment?”  I had to whisper back, “I don’t know!”

Well, a few weeks later I was watching a magnificent production of Shakespeare’s play, A Merchant of Venice.  I was lost in listening to Shylark’s bitter, impassioned speech and the same words came ringing in my ears from the actor on the stage: “A Daniel come to judgment! O wise young Judge!”  And I asked myself, “Are we richer or poorer for what we’ve traded for Shakespeare and filled our minds with to replace of his rich thoughts and words?”

But more devastating than stripping Shakespearian phraseology from our vocabularies has been the scrapping of Biblical ideas and principles and beliefs from our minds and hearts.  We don’t hear anymore talk about “listening for the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees,” because we don’t believe as strongly as David did – that God is active in His world – that God moves in the affairs of men and women to accomplish His purposes.

The tragedy of the Kingdom of God is not only that we are unfamiliar with the Kingdom languages, and unacquainted with its Biblical ideas, and unconvinced of its spiritual values, but as an inevitable consequence we cannot discern the signs of the times.  We do not know when the new wind is blowing.  We cannot tell whether it is of God or the Devil, or our own superstitious imaginations.

“So we fail so often to discern that the Lord has gone on before us. The command of God to Moses — with Pharaoh pursuing and the Red Sea seemingly barring an advance – the command of God then was: ‘Speak to the children of Israel that they go forward!’ If only we could see that God has already gone out before us, we might not be so prone to lag behind.  The ultimate factor in strategy is not the preponderance of hindering forces in any given direction but, ‘Where is God? What direction has God taken?’ Over and again in human history there has been ‘the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees.’ So it was in the days of the early church when,  ‘suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind’ (Acts 2:2); so it was at the time of the Protestant Reformation; so it is today.” (Ganse Little – Interpreters Bible)

Cardinal Bernadine, that greatly loved Archbishop of Chicago, died of cancer last month.  There was a spontaneous out-pouring of devotion, admiration and gratitude for the blessing of this humble, yet powerful man’s life.  The up-lift of his influence was felt not only by Catholics in Chicago, but by people of all faiths across the whole nation.  A Chicago Jewish Rabbi testified to the fact that Bernadine brought about a new understanding and a new, stronger co-operative service among all religious faiths.

“God has obviously gone out before us toward a deepening of vital spiritual integrity within the church; toward the unity of the protestant movement; toward the evangelization of the world; toward world order on every level of political, economic, and social relations – (yes, even in Black Africa and Red China). Jesus asks in wonderment and concern, ‘Can ye not discern the signs of the times?’

“In Bernard Shaw’s play, Saint Joan, the intrepid Maid of Orleans upbraids Dunois for his slowness in transporting the big guns across the river to lift the siege of Orleans.  Dunois replies: ‘The rafts are ready; and the men are embarked.  But they must wait for God.’ Joan counters: ‘What do you mean? God is waiting for them!’ Dunois bitterly retorts: ‘Let God send us a wind, then, (to fill the sails of our boats). ‘A few minutes later the adverse wind shifts.  Dunois, crossing himself, drops to his knees, hands his commanders baton to Joan and cries: ‘The wind has changed. God has spoken.  You command the King’s army.  I am your soldier.’ When for us the wind stirs and God speaks, we must be prepared to act.  A well-beloved hymn confesses in faith, ‘Where he leads me, I will follow.’ This is the confession that counts.” (Ibid)

God is always bringing new, beneficent wind to blow – a wind of destruction to God’s enemies, a wind of salvation to save His people.

Is there a new wind blowing now, in our time?  Oh, yes, not one by many.  There are winds of hate and fear, but also winds of the Spirit of God of hope and promise.  The winds are always blowing.  But who can discern God’s wind?  Jesus told Nicodemus it was difficult, even for a teacher in Israel to discern the blowing of the wind of the Spirit.  But basically those who know must be Biblically literate men and women, who know the Scripture story, understand the language, and are familiar with the principles of the spiritual world.  But most importantly, they must be men and women who have the faith and the courage to act, to bestir themselves at the first rustling of the breeze.

During the desert rigors of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign one of his suffering soldiers in an attempt at irony, asked Napoleon: “Well, General, are you going to take us on to India, too?”  Bonaparte is said to have answered, coldly: “No, it is not with men like you that I would undertake such a journey.”  (Alan Morehead – The Blue Nile)

Are we such men and women with whom the coming Christ can take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm?  Are we ready to take our places in the Messiah’s campaign to set up His new order as prophesized by Mary in The Magnificat, as she sang of the Son God was sending the world through her, when she exclaimed, “my soul doth magnify the Lord, for through me he will send the Savior, to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their hearts; to put down the mighty from their seats and exalt them of low degree; to fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich away empty.”  (Luke 1:51-53)

Is this the Virgin Birth story we believe in, that the divine mandate is really behind such a proclamation for actually setting up an earthly program enshrining these concrete conditions?  If this is the Bible Virgin Birth story we believe in, then the new wind is blowing, and may blow even through us, that our souls and our actions may magnify the Lord.