Hope and Preparation A—Advent II

Isaiah 11; Matthew 3; Romans

Advent is a season of hope and of preparation.

In his discussion of spiritual gifts, at the end of his well-known and much-quoted hymn to love in I Corinthians 13, Paul included hope among the three really fine gifts of the Holy Spirit. You remember the verse to which I refer. "But three things remain, faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love."

We talk more of faith and love than we do hope, but the season of advent and our scripture readings for the season invite us to focus on hope. And surely in these days after September 11, 2001 we need a word of hope; we need the biblical invitation to hope.

• There is no sorrow or suffering so intense we cannot bear it if we have hope.

• There is no disappointment or failure that so challenges our dreams for ourselves that we simply cannot go on, if nevertheless, we still have hope.

• There is no threat to our security so deadly that we cannot respond out of love rather than fear so long as there is hope.
• There is no betrayal of our trust so ghastly, no sin so abominable that we cannot escape with a measure of our integrity of intact, if, despite it all there is still some reason, even the smallest reason, for hope.

Where there is hope the human spirit can bear all things. But only where there is hope. Hope in something other than ourselves, something or someone beyond ourselves. Hope in some source of righteous power that transcends the winds of change in our world and in our own weak and wavering souls. With such hope the human spirit can bear all things and go on, in faith and with love.

But where there is no hope...perish the thought.

So: thanks be to God, for this the season of hope; this season when we recall the promises of God, those already fulfilled and those yet to come; this season when we are invited to let our own imaginations get caught up in the flights of imagination of those true prophets of God who dared to challenge the cynicism and despair of their times, that we, like they may become beacons of faith, hope, and love in a desperate world—a world that God so loves, that he gave his only begotten Son, and to which he wants to give us as the body of Christ in the world today.

I have been impressed again as I have pondered the lessons from the prophet Isaiah that dominate this season how inadequate our usual understanding of the prophetic promises about the Messiah are. Last Sunday, our lesson from the Old Testament, told of Isaiah’s vision and promise of the coming of one who "shall judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples." And the result of this judgment and arbitration shall be peace, for the nations and peoples "shall beat their swords into plowshare and the spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war more."

This week we hear that this "shoot out of the stump of Jesse," in other words this descendent of David, since Jesse is David’s father, shall have "a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might" and in that sprit he shall judge the poor and bring justice for the meek and lowly of the earth." And here we see an expanded vision of peace, not just among nations and peoples, but also within nature itself and among the various warring species within nature, for "the wolf shall live he lamb."

Our Psalm for the day is also often understood as a prophetic reference to the coming Messiah. It prays that he be one who will "defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor….In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, till the moon be no more!"

And you could almost recite with me that most well-known prophetic description of Messiah Jesus which we have heard and will hear again and again in the days to come as we approach Christmas day: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called, Wonderful Counselor, Might God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

I recall these familiar passages to make a simple point. It is this: Our understanding of the prophetic promise of a coming Messiah and our understanding of the mission and ministry of Jesus the Messiah is limited and therefore mistaken to the degree we understand him exclusively in terms of his winning for us a place in heaven. Surely, that is part of his mission. But Isaiah indicates that the one to come shall also be one who brings justice for the poor and peace among the peoples—in this world. He shall be a great King or governor, a counselor to and arbiter among all nations and peoples—a political leader, if you will—who brings justice and peace, ending the tragic human history of exploitation and violence. In Jesus, of course, we see that his Kingdom and the way of life appropriate to it is unlike any other, because he seeks to rule not by force of arms by in the power of compassion and love. And he seeks a people, citizens for his Kingdom, whose loyalty and obedience is offered on the basis of a transformed heart, a heart like that of Christ, and not on the basis of fear.

This is why, as Paul said, hope remains along with faith and love. With faith and love, hope remains among the most significant Spirit-gifts, the most significant virtues of those who would be Jesus’ disciples. As for Isaiah of old; as in the decades following the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; we, the people of God, still are waiting and yearning and praying for justice and peace in the world.

Let me go out on a limb a bit and suggest that such hope may be more important now than ever before. Now more than ever the world needs a people with hope for justice and peace; a people who hope in someone beyond ourselves, a righteous power beyond our own; a people who orient their own lives in the world by that hope for "peace on earth; goodwill among humankind."

Of course, I mean in part, that after September 11 hope is more important than ever. But I don’t refer just to those tragic events, for they were, by no means unique in recent human history. Indeed, it might well be said that the 20^th century was the century of terror for in that century we saw genocide as an instrument of national policy facilitated by advances in human technology—and not just in Germany, but in Cambodia, and Rwanda and elsewhere. In that century we saw the advent of nuclear weaponry and its use! In that century we saw massive starvation emerge even in the face of unprecedented human wealth for a minority of the worlds population. In that century we saw military spending gobble up resources that could have addressed the needs of the hungry and poor even as the gap between rich and poor increase.

So for all those reasons, and not just because of September 11, I suggest that hope is now more important than ever. On September 11 reality came home to us in the United States in a way that it may not have before. We have been reintroduced to a reality from which our power has been able to insulate us in the past. And so, for us, hope is more important than ever precisely because it may be more difficult than ever for us to have hope for justice and peace. And because there is a temptation to believe that we can restore our sense of security only by the force of arms.

I said at the beginning that this is a season of hope and of preparation. The two are inseparable. Hope is meaningless unless we prepare ourselves for its realization, unless get ready to see our hopes fulfilled. Put differently, our hope is real and not just an idle dream, only if we live with confidence that our hopes will be met, that God will fulfill the promises Isaiah foretold.

On the cusp of Jesus’ coming, John the Baptist called for preparation with shocking language. "Prepare the way of the Lord. Straighten out your crooked paths to make his coming easier. Bear the fruits of repentance. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every true that doesn’t bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."

What does such language suggest? Of what does it warn us today? I think it is this: It may well be that you and I are, in fact, not really prepared, not really ready to see our best hopes fulfilled. It may well be that you, in fact, live our lives no differently than those who have no hope like Isaiah’s. It may well be that we have bought into the cynicism of our times. It may well be that for the most we live and act no differently from than those who say, "It’s a dog eat dog world, out there and you’ve got to live for number one." It may well be that we share the behavior of those who trust in nothing more than the force of our own might, those who turn to God only if he a source of blessing for upon the use of our might.

The message of this season of Advent, in our season of terror, is then both a word of hope and a world of challenge. There is coming a day, my friends, a day of peace and justice; a day when the poor will be filled; when the meek shall inherit the earth; when peacemakers will be blessed.

The challenge for us is to be prepared for that day; to live as witnesses to our hope; as beacons of hope in a world of cynicism and despair, to turn from all those ways in which have become conformed to a world without hope. That may yet require repentance, conversion, a new mind and heart for us.

One of the most incredible, moving, and challenging petitions in our Prayer of Great Thanksgiving before we come to this table is where we call upon God "to pour out [the] Holy Spirit on us, gathered here, and on the gifts of bread and wine." Then we pray, "Make them," that is the bread and cup, "make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world, the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood."

That we may be the body of Christ for the world! That our lives as Christians, that our lives together might be, as Jesus own life was, a sacrifice of love for the world; that our lives might be, as Jesus’ own life was, good news for the poor; that we might be, as Jesus was, agents for justice and peace.

That is our hope. That is our challenge.