Sermon, Sunday 29 Nov, Advent 1: 'Hope'

Our theme today... 'hope', as we lit our first Advent candle.  
Jeremiah 33:10-16
Psalm 25:1-10   
Luke 21:25-36

SERMON 
Let’s pray:
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations 
of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord our strength and our redeemer, Amen.

Once upon a time, there was a travelling preacher named 
Nathaniel Evans. Every day, he’d walk along a straight, 
almost endless road, that ran cross-country through the Australian Outback.
As he walked along the road, Nate spent his time preaching to the various lost souls who’d drive past.
In a cheerfully matter of fact way, he’d cry out:
“Repent, the End of the World is Near!” 
One day, as he was walking, 
he came upon a big lever -
[note on pronunciation here: I'm foreign! You say ‘leaver’...I say ‘levver’!] 
It was in the middle of nowhere, just by the side of the road. 
And it had a sign next to it that read: 
“Pull this to end the world”
Perfect.
Nate realised that this would be an awesome spot to preach at - 
after all, visual clues are always handy. 
Over the course of the day, Nate preached his wee heart out, calling:
“Repent, the End of the World is Near!”
And as he preached by the large lever, gradually, 
cars, buses, and trucks all pulled up and listened to him.
All was well, until there were so many people, 
and so many vehicles, that the road was nearly blocked. 
...It was then that a big 18-wheel rig came down the highway, 
and alas,... couldn’t stop in time. 
The driver was faced with a stark choice: 
run over Nathaniel, or run over the lever.
...Later, at the scene, 
the driver explained to the Highway Patrol that he’d really had no choice...
Pointing to the spot where Nathaniel Evans had been preaching,
he said, with a sigh:
“Better Nate than Lever.”
[Yes, I really feel I should hang my head in shame for that story...!] 

On this first Sunday of Advent, the key word for the day is...
HOPE - 
which I’m hoping that you’ve already picked up!
Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been thinking about some hard themes:
as we’ve heard strange and difficult readings from scripture. 
Apocalyptic texts that brought with them words of devastation, and destruction - 
words giving the sense of impending doom:
the end of the world as we know it.
And this morning, in our gospel passage from Luke, 
we hear of yet more signs and portents for the end of the world.
But...
over these last few weeks, even in the midst of these hard texts of the bible -
perhaps especially in the midst of these hard texts,
we’ve discovered that we need not fear:
for it is Jesus who holds the keys to life and death
the keys to the kingdom that lasts for eternity.
And, we’ve learnt that we need not be surprised when we see and hear
wars and rumours of war, for we are the ones who hope, 
and who help others to hope -
shining Christ’s light into the darkness -
beacons showing that it’s God’s kingdom that ultimately prevails...
that there’s more to life than terror and fear.
And in our reading from Luke today, 
we’re reminded again, that these strange, apocalyptic texts
that can appear to be so frightening, 
are actually     words     of hope...
Luke 21:28 - ‘stand up and lift up your heads, for your 
redemption is drawing near’.
There it is: HOPE...

This year, 
these last weeks, 
we’ve watched the gathering clouds of what seems like impending doom...
A sense of fear has been in the air, as we’ve listened to, and seen, 
words and acts of violence - almost unimaginable in their horror.
People fleeing in terror from their homes -
homes where they, and their families before them had lived for generations...
people escaping from a regime seemingly built upon a mandate of 
destruction, chaos, and death.
We are witnesses to the hawks of war currently circling, 
and politicians rattling sabres ...
speaking of arming for yet another conflict, 
and possibly...living in denial that the old Empire, with its position and 
power and privilege has long-since passed away.

We watch.
And some of us - perhaps a number of us, feel helpless.
But...
‘stand up, lift up your heads’ says Luke, 
speaking from a time and a place - and a former nation 
that had also known conflict -
and indeed, still does.

Our Old Testament reading also speaks of that same nation,
in a time 600 years before Jesus was born.
A time in which the people of Israel saw all that they loved and held dear
become as dust and ashes and ruin:
Their city, their nation, destroyed;
their rulers and elite carried off to exile in Babylon.
They had been a great nation,
but, they had begun to rot at the core, and wither.
They had been warned by the prophets to turn back to God:
to live as his people,
to be faithful,
to love justice,
but, they had stopped up their ears.
Now they were cut down.
As is the way of things, no longer a great nation, 
they looked back to the glory days of empire and despaired.
They were a people unable to stand up, 
unable to lift up their heads:
but in their midst, the prophet Jeremiah stands, lifts up his head -
listens to God:
God who listens to the despair of his people;
God, who has a message for them in their time of suffering.
It is a message of consolation, and of comfort...
a message of hope.
Proclaiming God’s message to his people,
the prophet Jeremiah brings words to raise up the people’s drooping heads.
These people are God’s people - a people of promise...
And God is promising them that: 
‘the day is surely coming’ 
when their suffering shall come to an end.
There will be restoration and renewal.
Regrowth.
Having been cut down, the tree will once again sprout:
a righteous branch from David’s line will grow from what had seemed a barren stump...
There will be justice, righteousness, salvation will come -
all will live in safety.
‘The day is surely coming’, the prophet says. 
Look up!
Take heart!
There is one yet to come,
one we wait for who will bring this to pass:
there is hope.

I’m minded of that classic children’s story 'The Secret Garden', 
written by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
At one point in the book, young Dickon and his new friend Mary 
explore the hidden garden.  As they wander, and look about them, 
it feels grey, lifeless. The trees, the rose bushes, 
all seem ... dead.
Is there hope that this garden?  
Will ever grow again?
To Mary’s untrained eyes, the answer is ‘no’.
But Dickon knows better.
Taking out his knife, he cuts into a branch...and finds:
‘a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry grey.’
Showing this to Mary, he tells her that, deep inside, the tree is as ‘wick’:
as full of life and promise and hope as both Mary and Dickon.
And, in that story, Dickon is proved very much to be right - 
there is new life in both the secret garden and in the lives 
of all of the story’s characters.

The message of Jeremiah,
the words of Luke,
are words of waiting,
of watching,
of hope..
These are the themes of Advent
Although the world around us appears utterly broken:
with the threat of terrorism, political points-scoring and opportunism,
economic crisis and poverty,
the pollution of the environment on a mass scale, even so:...
look up, 
take heart.
There is one yet to come,
one we wait for who will bring the healing of the nations,
the healing of the world.
Restoration.
New shoots from withered branches.
Writer, Gary Charles states that: 
'the stories of Advent are dug from the harsh soil of human struggle 
and the littered landscape of dashed dreams. They are told from the 
vista where sin still reigns supreme and hope has gone on vacation.'
(Feasting on the Word Year C, Vol. 1). 

When we read of the story of the sufferings of God’s people, in Jeremiah,
when we read of signs and portents of the end, in Luke,
they are reminders to us to look up.
But we also look out:
to our world -
where God calls us, like Jeremiah,
to proclaim words of hope;
words that speak of green shoots,
of life,
of resurrection.
As we look around our communities,
where might we breathe words of hope, 
words of life?
Where might we bring green shoots of compassion and peace and love?

The season of Advent is a time of year to look up,
and to look out...
But, we also look in:
for we are also called to look at our own hearts -
to bend them towards God,
to align the deepest longings of our hearts 
with the great and beautiful heart of God.
Advent is a time of waiting -
filled with hope, for the One who is to come. 
When we live in love and act in hope, 
when we gather again and again at the table to remember what Jesus did 
and to recall that Jesus is with us, 
it is then that we are truly a people of Advent hope. 
How might we encourage one another to persist in living our lives in hope?

We tend to think of the month of December as the Christmas season, 
and so easily forget the in-between time, the waiting time that is Advent. 
We're learning a new day in the shopping calendar here in the UK: 
‘Black Friday’ - which, apparently was this Friday just passed.
Advent, however, is a different kind of time: 
we in the church are on a different calendar from the rest of the world -
a calendar which reminds us that we live in the time between the times, 
between what is dying and what is being born, 
between the 'already' of Christ's reign and the 'not yet' of Advent." 
And so, as we begin the Advent journey together once more, 
we voice our longing in the words:
Come, thou long expected Jesus... Amen.

Let’s sing that hymn together, as we turn to hymn #472 in our hymn book...

*some sources used:
'Feasting on the Word'
'Sermon Seeds' - Kathryn Matthews