The Hopes of All the Years
Luke 21:25-33[1]
As we begin the celebration of the Advent
season, I think it may be helpful for us to remind ourselves what it’s about.
In the original church tradition, Advent was meant to be a time of reflection
in preparation for the celebration of the “Twelve Days of Christmas” from
December 25 to January 6. The idea was that we prepare to celebrate the “coming
of the Lord” by waiting quietly and patiently for Christmas to come. Lighting
the candles on the advent wreath, and even using advent calendars, have been
traditional ways to practice this “waiting.” Of course, these days the Advent
season is filled with all kinds of celebrations of Christmas, which in our
minds is over on December 26. Some people who are sticklers for liturgical
correctness complain about this every year. I used to do some of that
complaining myself. I’d like to think I’ve mellowed from being such a
liturgical stickler!
If we think about the focus of the four
Sundays in Advent: hope, peace, love, and joy, then maybe the way we
“celebrate” Advent isn’t all that far off from the original intent. As we
approach the end of the year, many of us may focus on the hopes we may have for
the coming year. While the busy-ness of the season may make it not so peaceful
to some of us, it is a time when we think about peace in our world: peace
between countries, peace between different factions in our country, peace with
those who may have anything against us, peace between family members. Advent is
a time when we sing songs that tend to remind us of the love that we have in
our lives, and the love that God has given us. It’s a time when we may go out
of our way to be loving toward our friends and family. And as we seek to
practice the kindness and giving associated with the season, it all reminds us
of the joy we have in our lives.
I realize that much of that may not hold true
for some of us. This may be a time for many of us when our hopes have dimmed
and faded. We may struggle to hold onto our hope in the face of all that life
continues to throw our way. Some of us may have had a difficult year, and we
may simply feel weary from all the losses and disappointments we’ve had to
bear. Or maybe this year hasn’t been that kind of year for some of us, but
you’ve had years like that in the past. All of it can make “hope” seem like a
flimsy thing to use to get through difficult times. Our past experiences may
make the songs of hope we sing in this season sound hollow to some of us. So,
on this first Sunday of Advent, when we celebrate the hope that the birth of
Jesus represents for us, we may be wondering what good hope can do for us.
Especially in the uncertain times we live in,
most of us would probably choose safety and stability over hope. As much as we
may be looking forward to new things in our lives, we like to know that
tomorrow will be, in all essentials, basically the same as today. We rely on
the stability of the routines that make our lives familiar. But our experience
of recent years may have left us wondering whether anything in our lives is really
stable or secure. That’s a question that’s more than unsettling; if we’re
honest, we have to admit it’s downright scary! Again, it can leave us wondering
what good “hope” can do for us.
In our Gospel lesson for today Jesus addressed
this question, but in a way that might seem to be coming through the back door.
He was answering the questions his disciples had about the uncertainty of his
times. But he did so in a way that they may have found less than reassuring.
The setting of our lesson is the final week of Jesus’ ministry. What we should
understand is that the political situation in Judea was unstable and even
chaotic. Although the Romans maintained control through their powerful armies,
there was a constant undercurrent of resentment and even rebellion among the
Jewish people. All of this would boil over into an all-out war within a few
decades, and the result would be Jerusalem destroyed and with it, the Jewish
nation.
I think Jesus’ disciples must have been aware
of what was going on. Tjhey must have sensed the tension in the air. As they
were walking through the Temple, the most magnificent structure in Jerusalem in
that day, I would imagine they saw the strength of the structure as a
reassurance of God’s presence among them. To them it may have been a kind of
promise that whatever the future may hold, God would be with them. But Jesus
told them that not one of the massive stones that made up the Temple complex
would be left on one another. They asked him to tell them the “signs” as a way
of making the stress of an uncertain future more “manageable.” But Jesus didn’t
give them any signs to reassure them.
Instead, he told them that the world in which
they lived would continue to be as uncertain and as unpredictable as ever. If
they wanted reassurance, they would have to look beyond the structures they had
come to rely on. They would have to reclaim their hope in God. It may seem like
a strange response on Jesus’ part. But I think Jesus was pointing them to
something beyond what they felt they could “manage.” He pointed them beyond the
safety and stability they had come to rely on in their daily lives. He reminded
them that none of those things are ultimately reliable. Rather, he reminded
them that God, the promises God had made, and the hope all that creates for us,
are the only things we can truly rely on in this life. As Jesus told them, “Heaven
and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Lk 21:33).
That brings us back to the hope of Advent. In
our worship today, we sang the verse from the hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
that said “the hopes and fears of all the years” were “met” in that village on
the night of Jesus’ birth. I think we can easily imagine the “hopes of all the
years” fulfilled in Jesus’ birth, but what about the “fears”? I’m no specialist
in the history of hymns, but I would think that the idea is that the birth of
Jesus relieves the “fears of all the years.” The hope that Jesus brought into
this world is one that helps us overcome all our fears, especially in uncertain
times. It’s the hope that God’s love for us never fails, and that’s something
we can rely on when everything else around us does fail. It’s the hope that
God’s promises stand forever, and that God will not stop working in this world
until every promise has been fulfilled. Most of us pin our hopes on some part
of our lives here and now that we want to continue just as it is. But life is
always changing. It is the hope we have in God through Jesus our Savior that we
can rely on through all the years. That hope remains; that hope will not pass
away; that hope will see us through this year, and all the years of our lives!
[1] ©
2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 12/1/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
