Finding Our Hope

Psalms 25: 1 - 10

Jeremiah 33: 14 - 16

December 1, 2024

Advent I

Do you ever feel like life is out of whack, out of control, and you – you, the one who is supposed to be the living model of what it means to be in control is in actuality living a life that is a hot mess?

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when…..”

What about those times when the walls that boundary your life, those walls that have been carefully, meticulously created and maintained for, perhaps, decades are now violated, and you feel set upon in every direction?

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when…..”

Do you ever feel like a stranger in your own life? Do you ever feel like you are living in a foreign land, a place where the circumstances of life have left you adrift with no foreseeable way forward?

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when…..”

Have you ever found yourself captured and held hostage by nostalgia, just wishing for the good old days and the ways things used to be?

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when…..”

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, then you know what it was like to be an Israelite during the time of Jeremiah. The centuries surrounding Jeremiah were filled with political intrigue, shifting alliances, faithful and unfaithful kings.

The Promised Land of Israel – a land filled with promise and conquest, a land upon which the first temple was built, the land of David and Solomon has broken into two kingdoms with the Northern Kingdom of Israel being conquered and occupied by the Assyrians in 722BC.

The Southern Kingdom of Judah forges an alliance with Egypt in hopes of fending off the Assyrians.

In 605BC the first group of exiles were taking off to Babylon. The Babylonians lay siege to Jerusalem and in 586BC, Jerusalem is destroyed and, with the exception of a brief period of time of self-rule, Israel ceases to exist as a sovereign state. Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and finally the Romans will have its way with the Promised Land.

Out of control, boundaries set upon and violated, a stranger in an Assyrian or Babylonian world, filled with nostalgia for how it used to be – the world of the Israelites was not unlike our world today.

And yet, in the midst of this chaos, a jailed Jeremiah in the preceding chapter buys a field in Anathoth – a small village just northeast of Jerusalem. Jeremiah is buying land in a region soon to be overcome by foreigners. But this isn’t just Jeremiah speculating on land purchased for pennies on the dollar. No, this is a purchase grounded in the faithfulness of God.

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when”….. what? “When I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” Jeremiah preached a lot of fire and brimstone – “repent, or pay the price!” That’s why he is in jail. King Zedekiah has become tired of all of his doom and gloom.

And yet, for the exiles in Babylon; for those whose lands have been confiscated and are being worked by a foreign power; for a people raised in the hope of the Promised Land Jeremiah has a new word for them.

“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.”

Fear, confusion, chaos, disappointment and exile become the fertile ground from which hope is born. “I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Yes, Jeremiah is saying, the night has been long, oppressive, and dreary. The night has resulted in loss, deprivation, and oppression. But the morning is coming. Dawn is just around the corner. I am sure of it. So sure, that I am buying land in anticipation of this new reality.

A word of hope, even in the midst of captivity and exile.

But how do we live in this awkward, confusing, in between time? This time between despair and gladness? How do we cross over the chasm that is loss and exile and into the land of newly purchased fields and a new land?

For many, in times of loss and despair, that crossing over into goodness seems beyond our imagination. And perhaps, left to ourselves, it is beyond us. But friends, we are not alone.

Hope is the bridge between chaos and glory. Hope is the thing that sustains us in the long nights of seemingly perpetual loss. Hope in the future is what overcomes our fixated nostalgic look back. Hope – the belief that something better is coming – is what sustains us. Hope is the conviction - the determination - to continue to believe that sunrise and a new day is soon upon us.

But friends, remember this. Hope is not simply wishful thinking. Hope is not a nostalgic look back and an emotional wish that it could be that way again. Hope is not passively waiting for God to show up and do something.

No, John Caputo – in his book In Search of Radical Theology – helps us to understand that “to live in hope means remaining open to the future and refusing to let the present moment close us in. It is the belief that the future is always better, not because it necessarily will be, but simply because it might be.”

Mike was a gifted and creative pastor. Mike is not his real name, but then, that is not really important. Mike was incredibly bright. He was well read, articulate, and very experienced in the ways of the church. Mike had a tremendous confidence in his ability to mold, to shape, and then to move any church into a new season of vitality. Mike was a strong leadership “Type A” personality.

That new season of vitality never happened for Mike at the church where I served as his senior associate pastor. In hindsight, that church’s lack of vitality – the continuing sense of lethargy that plagued that church – happened, I think, for several reasons. But certainly, the two most important ones were the following.

First, for all of his giftedness, in spite of his deep faith and servant’s heart, Mike was the most cynical person I have ever met. Now Mike wouldn’t say that – true cynics never do. Mike would say that he was a realist. Mike always expected to see the worst that people could be or offer. He expected gossip. He expected the negative, pessimistic parking lot conversations. Mike expected leadership to come up short and so Mike was always at work constructing and implementing a plan B. Mike’s cynicism never let him fully believe that the Promised Land might actually be more than a promise.

Cynicism is, I believe, one of the great sins of our age. Masquerading as sophistication these days, cynicism expects the worst, plans for the worst, and is dismissive of anyone or anything

that is unduly hopeful and optimistic. Ultimately, cynicism is a safeguard against disappointment. If one is always expecting the worst, one is rarely, if ever, going to be terribly distressed when life turns out to be less than hoped for. It is a kind of an Eeyore existence that flies in the face of the joyous, abundant, hope-filled life that God desires for us.

Second, exactly because of his giftedness, Mike rarely ventured beyond that which he knew he could pull off. He constantly cautioned the staff of which I was a part, to not shoot for that which was beyond what we knew we could grasp. We prayed – but with little conviction and even less expectation. The staff prayed – but we prayed for proper planning, for good execution, for great implementation. We never prayed – and I say this with a real sense of embarrassment now – we never prayed for God to show up and actually do anything miraculous. We got exactly what we prayed for – good plans, good execution – but only safe, marginal results; certainly, never anything miraculous.

We never dared to believe, dared to hope in something greater than what we could plan, execute, and deliver. We never actually dared to believe that we could actually get out of exile, get out of the confinement that was our own cynicism and disbelief. Unlike Jeremiah, we would have never engaged in the risky behavior of actually buying a field because we dared to believe that better times were coming. We never really dared. We never really hoped. We just….. were. How sad.

Folks, Advent is a time to dare to believe, to hope, to be convinced that the God who spun all of Creation into existence can deliver on his promises. Advent is a time to hope – to cast away the paralyzing agents of cynicism, despair, and wishful thinking and instead believe – really believe – in what is possible. Advent hope is the hope that is convinced that just as God was faithful in the past so that same God will be faithful in the future. Advent is a get up and do something hope in anticipation of the coming of the baby Jesus convinced that that same resurrected Jesus will come again!

Advent is a time to reconnect with the God who says better times are coming. Advent is a time to be transformed by the faithfulness of God and to shed off the cynicism of disbelief. Advent is a time to love and serve so that, in this in between time of Advent, in this time of waiting, we play our part in bringing in the Kingdom of God that we are hoping for.

We are in a new season of Advent. We are coming into a new season of the church. We dare to believe, both in Jesus and the church that is to come. Hope will sustain us as we build towards both. Amen.