November 28, 2004

Marietta T. Smith

Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 11:1-10

Epistle Lesson: Romans 15:4-13

Gospel Lesson: Matthew 3:1-12

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, 2004. We see the coming of Christmas all over the Church. Tonight we will officially celebrate the beginning of Advent with the Hanging of the Green service here in the sanctuary. In just twenty-seven days the Big Day will arrive after the shortest night of the year for parents and the longest night of the year for children. Believe you me, children, as old as I am, I still remember some looong Christmas Eves when I had to go to bed at seven o’clock.

But Advent is not just a period of preparation for Christmas, and we need to be aware, lest Advent gets lost in all this Christmas hoopla. One source I read for this sermon said, “Advent is a season in its own right, with its own integrity, and its own announcement.”

Advent proclaims the coming of the Lord, but that is not the same as saying that Christmas is coming. Oh, we do expect that day to arrive; we do anticipate doing a lot of shopping and a lot of celebrating. We certainly hope that we don’t spend too much money, or eat too much or party too much. To be sure, we are preparing for Christmas, but that is not the way John the Baptist said we needed to prepare.

Prepare the way of the Lord, John the Baptist said. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

The Scriptures for the first Sunday of Advent point to the fact that He is coming, not just that His birth would occur, but that there will be a second Advent; Jesus will come again.

The Old Testament lesson for this Sunday is a vision of peace for all people, of peace on Earth, announced by the angels to the shepherds, in Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth. The Psalm sets the tone of that celebration which would center in Jerusalem. The Epistle reading from Romans for that Sunday reminds the faithful that they are living between the ages and should be prepared at all times and any time for the end of the present age. The Gospel lesson calls for watchfulness, for only the Father knows the day and the hour when the Lord will return.

The overriding question for the first Sunday of Advent is: how shall the day of the Lord be? Will it be darkness or light? Will it be joy or dread? Will it be judgment or redemption? We are reminded not only that we have the joy and the anticipation, but we also have the need for repentance. The Scriptures for the sermon for today are actually the Scriptures for the second Sunday of Advent, according to the Revised Common Lectionary that some ministers use sometimes, but I chose these Scriptures because of the theme of HOPE that they tell. And I felt like we needed a lot of hope today.

The Isaiah passage announces the coming of a new king in David’s line:

A shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of its roots.

Israel had been carried off into captivity because of their disobedience. The prophet had said this would happen, but God had provided a way out of the mess the Israelites had made. God preserved a remnant of the people; Messiah would grow as a shoot from the stump of that remnant. Messiah, like David, would be empowered by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would endow Messiah with wisdom to undertake wise purposes and with power to carry them out. The rulers of Isaiah’s day lacked the qualities of righteousness and justice. The promised Messiah would be one who would see and hear deeper than the surface. Messiah would be one who would ensure those least able to protect themselves would have full rights under the law. The character and administration of this king of Isaiah’s prophesy were those that the Israelites hoped for but never, ever fully realized, as each new descendant of David took the throne in Jerusalem.

The Epistle lesson for today begins by reassuring us of our hope, and closes by anchoring human hope in the God of Hope. In one of the commentaries I read, Dr. Fred Craddock comments:

And the question is asked: On what, then, then can we rest our hope? Paul says in our Epistle lesson from Romans that we can rest our hopes on whatever was written in former days:

One of the chief values of the Scriptures is the encouragement they give us, the stories they tell us to maintain our hope with perseverance. The Scriptures give us examples of how people who did not give up were helped by God.

Our hope is rooted also in the steadfastness and encouragement of God. God promised Abraham that Abraham would be the father of many nations. Though Abraham did not live to see that promise fulfilled, nevertheless, he did expect God to keep the promise. He always trusted God to keep the promise. His hope was rooted not just in who God was, or whom he believed God to be, but also in what God had already done.

The Being of God was and is rooted in the acts of God. In other words, God keeps His promises. This gave Abraham hope. And this gives us hope this Advent season. Even in the Gospel lesson for today, John the Baptist’s cry in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord, raises the anticipation that the Kingdom of Heaven is near, that God is about to come down to reveal Himself in Jesus. Even in John the Baptist’s call to us for repentance, there is the hope of forgiveness, the expectation of new life in Christ, the anticipation of living in the Kingdom of God forever, the confident expectation of eternal life with God through Christ. This is the hope of Advent, my friends.

The year of 1995, when I wrote the first version of this sermon, was a year that brought several tough situations into my life that caused my hopes to falter. I learned in July of that year that my dearest friend in all the world, who lived out in San Antonio, Texas, and still lives there, was going to have surgery for breast cancer just two months after having had surgery for thyroid cancer. In the course of the conversation with her, I learned that her youngest brother was dying of AIDS. In the Spring of that year I had seen the marriage of my only niece end in divorce after a twelve- year struggle. I had witnessed the disintegration of the marriage of a nephew and a very bitter custody battle that still goes on. I had begun another school year and I had discipline problems with one particular class that taxed my mental and physical capabilities as well as my professional abilities as a teacher. I had suffered the loss of a good friend that year and was witnessing the slow death of another. And then there was the bi-weekly struggle of writing a sermon, because I was supplying Cedar Valley United Methodist Church twice a month as a lay speaker, and it was there and in that experience that I learned that Sunday comes around faster than any other day of the week. And this particular sermon was hard to write because my hope was waning. The words wouldn’t come like I wanted them to. I had hope that eventually they could come; I expected God to help me and I anticipated His guidance. And besides that, just reading the newspaper headlines and watching the news on television was enough to cause anyone to wonder whether or not there was any hope left in the world.

And that was the year that I had the hare-brained idea that I should produce a Christmas PTA program that would include every child in the school from kindergarten through the fifth grade, including the five exceptional children’s classes that we had at Whitnel School. The day came for the dress rehearsal in the school gym and if a bad rehearsal means a perfect performance, then I proved it that day. It was a colossal mess. I put the wrong tape in for the accompaniment to the songs the kindergarten children were supposed to sing, and you know what that does to kindergarten children. Other children forgot where they were supposed to stand or couldn’t remember the lines to the songs they were supposed to sing. I knew this was going to be a stinking mess and I half-way didn’t care; I just wanted it to be over with.

I went home that afternoon and sought comfort in the Scriptures. Remember what Paul said in the Romans passage about the Scriptures written long ago? That the stories they tell help us to “maintain our hope with perseverance” or give us examples of how people who did not give up were helped by God. As I flipped through my Bible, I found a Scripture card that had come out of a Scripture cake that somebody in this church had made for a refreshment at a Circle meeting I had been to. The verse is from Proverbs 16:3 — Commit your plans to the Lord and they will succeed.

I wrote the date of that PTA program in the margin of my Bible beside that verse, and there are many other dates written all around that verse for situations that I committed to the Lord, hoping that He would work His purpose out in a great way.

And I said, “OK, Lord. It’s Your program, not mine. I sure don’t know what to do. You take it and make it work.”

And you know what? He did. God, in His abundant mercy, renewed my faith and gave me fresh hope. The program that night went off without a hitch. My faith was restored.

Well, come down to November 28, 2004. What things do some of us face today? Perhaps we face uncertain futures because of health issues. Perhaps some are facing uncertainties in the situation of their employment, or maybe they don’t have a job; maybe they have been looking for a long time. Maybe others face a little problem with the seven-year itch in their marriage. Maybe they face separation. Who knows what burden the person sitting beside us is carrying on a Sunday morning? Maybe you are dealing with difficult children or an empty nest. Or maybe you are facing dealing with aging parents and taking care of them.

Couple that with the war in Iraq and seeing our finest going over there in harm’s way and wherever else they serve. The problems of famine and other problems in the Sudan. There is the constant state of unrest in Israel. And isn’t it ironic that there in the land where the Prince of Peace was born there is anything but peace, and there has never been peace? And there never, ever will be peace until Jesus comes. Famines, earthquakes, hurricanes like we have not seen in years, slamming Florida and other places. Floods, mudslides, political upheavals, you name it.

But just when it seems the world is turned upside down, when things seem to be getting worse by the hour, there is heard once again the brush of angel wings, a proclamation of peace on earth and good will to all and the promise of renewed hope in the cry of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. For He is the “hope of all who seek Him, the help of all who find. None other is so loving, so good, so kind.”

He lives. Christ Jesus lives today and this gives us hope. Emil Brunner said that “What oxygen is to the lungs, hope is to the meaning of life.” Because of Christ’s birth, we can take hope into every day of our lives. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in the tiny babe in the manger because He grew up. He lived and worked among the people. He walked up and down the dusty roads of Galilee, preaching and teaching and healing.

Then one day He stretched himself out on a cross and said, “This is why I came. This is what my coming is all about. This is the future and the hope My Prophet spoke of long ago. This is the gift I came to give: Abundant life, eternal life.”

He lives. Christ Jesus lives today. We have hope because the Babe of Bethlehem grew up!