Hope
By Griff Martin
On Jeremiah
33:14-16 and Luke 21:25-36
For the
Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On The First
Sunday of Advent
December 2, 2018
Jeremiah 33:14-16
The days are surely coming, says the Lord,
when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of
Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring
up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In
those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is
the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
Luke 21:25-36
“There will be signs in the sun, the moon,
and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring
of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and
foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will
be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with
power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place,
stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
Then he told them a parable: “Look at the
fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can
see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also,
when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is
near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until
all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will
not pass away.
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not
weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and
that day does not catch you unexpectedly, like a trap. For it will
come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. Be alert at
all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things
that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The Sermon:
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that
you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new
reality we can all together experience. Make us aware of you presence here in
this space and in these words God for if we are present to you then nothing
else will matter, but if you are not present to you then nothing else will
matter. In the name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter. Amen.
In those days a decree went out from
Caesar Augustus….. No wait that can’t be right, we are not there yet. I
wish we were, but those days are not our days just yet. No Advent, the season
of Great Positive Possibility, does not begin with those days of Caesar
Augustus, the days where we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.
Advent begins in very different days, at
least according to our Scriptures this day.
Advent begins in the days where there are
signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and on earth there is distress….. Advent
begins in the days where people are fainting from fear and foreboding of what
has come upon the world…. Advent begins in the days when the powers of heaven
are shaken. At least according to Jesus in our Gospel reading.
And according to the Lord, through the
prophet Jeremiah, Advent begins in the waiting place for the better days that
are surely coming, which means that Advent begins with a people who are far
from the place they know as home, terrified things will never get back to how
they are supposed to be and that life will never again be the same.
Advent begins in the days John Calvin
describes as when “terror almost drove the people to despair, and in their
exile from all they knew and understood they saw that they were far removed
form the world they once knew and there was very little hope of returning.”
It’s as if John Calvin read the front page
of the paper this week. He read articles about the imminent destruction of the
earth that read like apocalyptic science fiction, if only they were, instead
they are simply science. Images of mothers and their children in torn clothing
after days of travel being shot at with rubber bullets and tear gas. Stories of
massive layoffs which threaten an already fragile economy. Images of wildfires
destroying entire towns and areas as big as smaller states, with 88 dead and
203 missing.
And that is the front page of the paper,
add to it the front pages of your journal these days, the prayers you are
praying in the middle of the night, the text and emails that you are sending to
your closest community or the one’s you want to finally be able to share with
your people. Your dreams, your fears, your anxieties, your terrors, the places
in your soul that seem so far from home.
Today’s text don’t need a lot of context
because we understand these days… days where the world feels topsy turvy and we
want to faint from fear because what we know is that the world we once knew
suddenly feels so far away and we are fearful we will never make it home. Those
days are now.
And in the face of that, in defiance of
our days, we are called this day to stand and to say that we know this is not
the end but this is the beginning.
And we know that because we are a people
who come from the nation of Israel and we know the days when it seems that we
have lost our land, our temple and all we know, that it’s then- when all is
lost and hope seems to be a crazy joke and there seems to be no way, it’s often
then that God does some of God’s most show off work… like becoming flesh and
blood to teach us the ultimate lessons that love will win, resurrection is the
final word and that this is not the end but the beginning.
That is our story.
But it’s easy to forget.
Remember the couple on the road to Emmaus
a few days after Jesus was crucified? Jesus shows up but they don’t know it’s
Jesus, it’s Jesus in disguise, and Jesus asks them what is going on and they
begin to tell the story of the last few days, the crucifixion of Jesus… hear it
yourself: “Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before
God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders
handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we
had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”
We had hoped…. Oh man, do I know that
place, do we know that place. We had hoped things would be different by now, we
had hoped we would be out of debt, we had hoped we would be in the relationship
of our dreams, we had hoped our kids would have jobs, we had hoped the cancer
would go away, we had hoped racism and sexism and homophobia had all ended, we
had hoped our partner had quit drinking, we had hoped church was growing,
we had hoped…..
The problem with “we had hoped” is that
it’s often then and there that the church begins to offer some of the worst theology…
When God closes a door, God opens a window, God will never give you more than
you can handle, If God brings you to it, God will bring you through it,
Everything Happens for a Reason, If only you had enough faith…. Forgive me if
any of those are cross-stitched and hanging in your home, but if so please take
them down immediately.
My granddad has a favorite Scripture
verse, it’s Romans 8:28 and it’s one of my least favorite Scriptures: God works
for good all things…. My grandad has said it to me my whole life. When I broke
up with my girlfriend in middle school, “Griff, don’t forget Romans 8:28… When
I failed a math test, “Griff, don’t forget Romans 8:28…” When I was changing
majors in college for the umpteenth time, “Griff don’t forget Romans 8:28….”
When I went through a depression and faith crisis my first semester of
seminary, “Griff don’t forget Romans 8:28…” When we lost our first baby, “Griff
don’t forget Romans 8:28…”
In fact being totally honest I went through
a period where I did not tell him the hard pats of life because I just could
not hear it anymore…. And even today when things are tough I tell him, “Now
don’t you respond with that Romans 8:28 business or I am leaving…”
But I have begun to wonder if maybe there
might be more to this…. I am fairly certain his theology is a little bit off
and he is taking Romans totally out of context. But I do wonder if his virtue
of hope may be way more on target than mine, if the practice of hope might be
more life-giving than being absolute right about your theology (as if that is
possible). And between his views and my views, there is probably a middle place
between really bad theology and hopelessness.
The great brilliant theologian Jurgen
Moltmann writes this of hope: “Christian hope is not the opium of the believers
but rather the divine power that makes believers alive in the world.”
Which means hope is not turning a blind
eye to the world and pretending all is well. It’s not numbing yourself to the
real and pretending all is fine. It’s not trying to trick your brain into
seeing the good instead of the bad. It’s not pulling yourself up by your
bootstraps. It’s not hiding your emotions or faking it until you make it.
Instead it’s in the midst of all that is
going on choosing to allow your imagination to see the bigger story that we
live in, to imagine with Jesus the kingdom of love becoming the kingdom of this
world, to know that we live in a Truer story than the one playing out in front
of us.
It’s remembering the story that we
celebrate this Advent. That God came to earth in flesh and blood with plans for
a whole new way of living. A way of loving the whole world, including the whole
world, a way of sharing, a way of equality, way of being victorious over death.
The God who came to remind us that we belong to a God who created us and called
all of us good and who wants more for us, all of us. A God who sees darkness
and turns it to light. A God who promises a place where all our tears are wiped
away, where the weak are strong, where all are loved and where all is
whole. A God who has already written the end of the story and is just
waiting for us to make it a reality. That is Gospel an the Gospel is hope!
Each Advent I think back to the 1988
Dodgers- Oakland A’s series- game one. The batter’s name is Kirk Gibson who was
pinch-hitting for the Dodgers. Gibson was not supposed to play this game; he
had injured both legs at a previous game and had a stomach bug. In fact, much
of the game he is not even in the dugout with his team. In the 9th
inning, the Dodgers have someone on first and 2 outs. The coach took a chance
and puts Gibson at bat. Gibson hits a homerun- winning the game. Many
believe this homerun is the momentum shift that the Dodgers needed to win the
series that most believed would be an A’s sweep.
This has become a fairly well known clip
because of what happens in the parking lot at the time of the homerun. If you
pay close attention, you see taillights go on, people who had left the game
early, probably to beat the traffic, thinking the game was over and the A’s had
won. They leave early, but like all of us turn the game on in the radio as they
leave the ball park. And of course they miss what will amount to one of the
greatest plays in baseball history. All because they thought they knew what was
going to happen and they left the game early. All because they were hopeless.
Abby told me this week about a co-worker
who had the same thing happen at the LSU-AM game a few weeks ago, left early
thinking they knew what would happen. And then the overtimes started and they
ran to get back in but could not….. because they left the game too early.
And in those days we have to hold onto
this: hopelessness is a lie and we know that because we know what’s up at bat
last- hope, love, joy, peace and Christ… they bat last. And our hope is that
promise.
In the image of the Old Testament, hope is
the green shoot that is suddenly growing out of a dead stump…. Showing that
life can begin even in the deadest of places and that truly anything is
possible. Anything. The end is always the beginning.
Hope is the cry of that new baby all
swaddled up.
And hope is what we are called to share
with our world because hope is meant to be given away…. In grocery bags full of
food, in lunch with a friend who just needs to hear they are loved and adored
because of who they are, in a letter to someone going through a difficult time,
in visit nursing homes and hospital rooms, in taking meals to shut ins, in
doing our part to make love flesh and blood once again. That is how we share
hope.
In these days, hear the word of John
Lennon: “Everything will be okay in the end, so if it’s not okay it’s not the
end.”
Hope it the belief that all will be well
because we serve a God who knows the story ends in love and goodness and all
things well and right and just. After all, if we did not have the promise of a
second Advent, would we still celebrate the first Advent?
And knowing that we hold on and we choose
to believe and we do what we can to make that hope come true in our world
today, because God knows our world needs it. The end is always the beginning.
Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Root of Jesse, painting by Robert Roshini, roshinirobert.com
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