Advent - Week one - Candle of Hope

“Season of Hope”

            Today we light the first candle of Advent, the candle of Hope.  As we begin this journey to Christmas, we go back in our faith story, back to the day and age of the prophets.  Take yourself back to the year 720 B.C. plus or minus a few years.  In this time period you would have seen how over the generations, God had fulfilled God’s promises.  The descendants of Abraham have become numerous and have been given the Promised Land.  God has built up for them a mighty nation and has equipped them with kings to rule over them.  The day and age of King David has come and gone, the day and age of the mighty Kingdom has come and gone.  Now, now they are living on the other side of God’s promise, it has come and gone and their mighty kingdom has split into two.  There is the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. 

            You know that Bruce Springsteen Song:  Glory days?  It’s kind of like that.  Life moves on and when you look back the past looks so good.  Nothing like talking about those glory days – but as Springsteen declares:  Glory days well they'll pass you by - Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye.  But those glory days have come and gone and now there is deep concern of losing it all, of being conquered by the neighboring nation of Assyria.  One cannot live in the past, one cannot live focused on the Glory days, the people of God need to move forward and they need a new vision, a new message, a new promise to live into.    The people are going to face a national crisis, which will also bring about a spiritual crisis, and in order to remain faithful, they need hope. 

            And so, out of this message of despair, Isaiah brings forth a message that, yes, the Assyrians will come in and destroy us, but God is not done with us.  God will continue with a covenant, God will continue with a promise, God will continue to use the Israelites as a holy people.  Even though what seems to be a complete loss of all they had God will bring forth a new creation.  And so, out of the stump of Jesse, out of what was once a beautiful Nation, but will become nothing more than a stump, a new shoot will spring, a branch will grow out of its roots.  With God, there is always new life, there is always a new vision, there is always a new promise for those that are willing to be present to God’s messengers.  Isaiah provides them hope in the midst of destruction. 

            God will rebuild the people and he will bring forth a leader that has God’s spirit upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.  Sounds like a description of a good candidate.  Isaiah offers a rather descriptive image of this leader that will come forth from the lineage of King David and then there is this transition in verse 6.  It moves from a description of the gifts this king will have to an illustration of a completely transformed world.  It is one thing to have a gifted, talented, and God centered ruler, it is quite another thing for all of creation to change.   Suddenly, there is a description of animals of prey living alongside their next meal.  And a little child shall lead them.  It is a description of a better world and is often called the Peaceable Kingdom. 

            What a vision, what a promise, what a hope to live into.  Artists, writers, philosophers, theologians, ponder and wonder, what would a better world look like? Louis Armstrong has the song:  wonderful World - I see trees of green, red roses, too,
I see them bloom, for me and you  And I think to myself  What a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,  The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself   What a wonderful world.

What does a wonderful world look like to you?  Wars ended?  All of creation fed?  Diseases healed? 

            This past year, a movie came out called:  The Giver.  The book is required reading in many middle schools in our area.  It is about creating the perfect society and how, in order to do so, everything has to be made normal.  As the book unfolds, you learn that in a perfect world, there is no color, there are no choices, there are no memories of the past, there is no pain, and only the healthy are able to live.  But in order to remember why this is a perfect world, one person must remember, this person holds onto all of history, all of pain, all of the things society wanted to get rid of in order to be content.  But as this person, the Receiver, learns of color and other beautiful things about life, he cannot keep it a secret.  He wants everyone to enjoy these things even if it brings with it the cost of remembering painful events of history.   In a sense, they created the peaceable kingdom, but the message of the book is, there are so many blessings in life as it currently is -

            What does a Godly world look like to you?  And do we continue to hold onto hope as we journey forward to a day and age when we finally arrive to the holy mountain when all the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord?  Hope, hope begins the season of Advent, hope of our past, hope of our present, and hope of our future.  Are we willing to give into cynicism or fear?  Are we focused on the Glory Days, or are we moving into God’s new creation?  I find that we have so much in common with the people in the day and age of Isaiah.  We have lived into God’s promises and have professed that in Jesus Christ God brought forth the shoot out of the stump of Jesse.  We live on the other side of the coming of the Messiah and yet.  And yet we have not reached a sense of completion.  Just like the people on the other side of being a great nation, God was not done with them yet. 

            Throughout our Gospels, there is proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah, that he is Emmanuel, God with us.  That he is God’s promise of rebuilding God’s kingdom.  Matthew begins his Gospel with a genealogy because Jesus needs to be of the lineage of King David.  He is the shoot, he is the new branch, he is the one that the spirit of the Lord rests upon.    And we sing:  My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.  Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, and yet.  And yet, we live in a day and age when we need to remember the hope.  Perhaps we need an Isaiah for our day and age, a messenger of God letting us know that even when the world around us seems dark, there is always hope.  God is not done with us and we still have a purpose for God’s kingdom here in this world.  Advent is not just an age old tradition of the church.  It is still relevant to us today, we live on the other side of a fulfilled promise, and yet.  And yet we know that there is still such need for healing, reconciliation, and hope for this world.  Let us live into God’s hope as we continue this advent journey.  Amen.