Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
November 30, 2003 The First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33: 12-16
In the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Return of the King – and yes, we are planning on a church trip to see that movie after the first of the year – Frodo, the ring bearer and his faithful companion Sam, are deep in the dark land of Mordor, an evil place with smoke and clouds where sun nor moon hardly ever shine. Their mission is to destroy the ring of power in the fires of Mount Doom. (Now I realize that if you are not familiar with this story, at this point I might as well be speaking a foreign language to you, but hang in there.) But even though they could now see the mountain, they can see their destination, they are without food or water, they are surrounded by deadly enemies, they are exhausted from their journey and increasingly they are resigned to the fact that this journey will probably cost them their lives. They struggle with despair, fearing they will never complete their task and all will be lost – so much sacrificed for nothing. Evil may very well triumph after all. Small hobbits lost and alone in a dark and evil world.
They stop to rest. Frodo, now almost completely overwhelmed from the burden of carrying the ring, immediately falls asleep. Sam struggles to stay awake and keep watch. Tolken writes: “Sam struggled with his own weariness and he took Frodo’s hand and there he sat silent until deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises but there was no sound of voice or foot. In the west the night sky was dim and pale. There, peeking among the clouds, Sam saw a white star twinkle, just for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart as he looked up out of that forsaken land and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing. There was light and high beauty, forever beyond it’s reach. Now, for a moment, his own fate and even his master’s ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side and putting away all fear, he cast himself into a deep, untroubled sleep.”
At his lowest moment, when all seemed lost and their mission seemed doomed to failure, when he was quite convinced he would lose his own life in the process, a star flashes! A light shines in the darkness and Sam dares to hope again. And for the remainder of their journey the darkness would prove to be powerless against such a bold and audacious hope.
It is the season of Advent, our four-week season of watching and waiting as we prepare for the miracle of the birth of Bethlehem. And on this fist Sunday, just as we are getting ready to make our Advent wreaths, dust off the Christmas CD’s, string the lights, get those shopping lists in order, whom should we encounter in church but that Old Testament curmudgeon and trouble maker, Jeremiah. Jeremiah the prophet of doom and gloom. The one guy no one ever wanted to see at the office Christmas party. This is the same Jeremiah who spoke this word from the Lord:
‘This people has a rebellious and stubborn heart. They have turned aside and gone away. Their houses are full of treachery, they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek, they know no limits in deeds of wickedness. They do not judge with justice and they do not defend the rights of the needy. Shall I not punish them for theses things? The prophets prophesy falsely and my people love to have it so.” Just the kind of guy you’d like to have around the tree with you on Christmas Morning.
Actually the powerful and fearless words of Jeremiah need to be heard by people of faith in any generation. I wish I was as fearless as he, for the prophets continue to prophesy falsely and the people continue to love to have it so. Harsh words. Certainly not pleasant or comforting words. Not the kind of words you would ever associate with hope. Or would you?
In today’s text we heard Jeremiah speak from exile to a people in exile, a defeated, despairing, hopeless people -- people whose dreams have died. Now knowing Jeremiah, we might expect he’d tell the people they’ve gotten just what they deserved. For twenty years he’d been telling them this would happen, that God would turn his back on them, that they would be overthrown by foreign powers and cast into the darkness of exile, far from temple and home. We would expect Jeremiah to tell them: “Look, you made your bed, now lie in it, as bitter as it is.” This is what we would expect him to say. But what he actually says is this: “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. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.” We expect a word of condemnation, a word that says ‘I told you so.’ What we get is a word of comfort, a word of hope, a word of reassurance from Jeremiah, no less. What’s going on here?
I can think of times in my own life, times of crisis when the landscape of my life seemed as dark as the barren plains of Mordor, times when my faith wavered, my convictions -- uncertain. But in those times there were others around me who were standing fast, who were supporting me with their faith, with their conviction. You might say that in my darkest moments, they believed for me. But you know, just seeing them, their faith, their hope, the posture of their spirits, became for me a source of life because it served as a reminder of the best hopes and beliefs of my life. It served as reassurance that those hopes and beliefs ultimately would prevail, that the shadow is but a passing thing.
I believe this is precisely what Jeremiah does for Israel. And this is what advent does for each of us, year after year. In a time of dislocation and turmoil, Jeremiah stands firm in the faith. He dares to assert that God’s promises are true. He alone expresses confidence in the power of God to work new possibilities. “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. The time is coming. I will do for you what you cannot do for yourself – I will bring you home.” It is a bold, risky assertion of hope; an assertion that all present evidence to the contrary, God’s purposes shall not be defeated. And is not the birth in the manger an assertion of exactly the same thing? Dare to hope, people. Don’t give up on hope for your God certainly has not given up.
Author and preacher, Frederick Buechner, once preached at a church anniversary. Toward the end of his sermon he reflected on why people had been attending worship at that church, year after year, generation after generation. In his words: “Minister and congregations both, they came to church year after year, and who is to say how, if at all, their lives were changed as a result. Yet they kept on coming anyway. And beneath all the lesser reasons they had for doing so, I think there was a deep reason. And if I could give only one word to characterize that reason, the word I would give is hope. They came here, the awkward boys and shy girls to get married and stood here with their hearts in their mouths and their knees knocking to mumble their wild and improbable vows. They came to christen their babies here, hoping they wouldn’t scream bloody murder when the minister took them in his arms. They came here to burry their dead and brought in all the unfinished love, guilt, sadness and relief that are part of what death is for the living. In other words, what they were doing essentially beneath this roof was offering up their most precious moments of their lives in the hope – in the hope – that there was God to hallow them, a God to receive and seal their vows, to receive their children into his unimaginable kingdom, to raise up and cherish their dead. I see them sitting here, generations of them, but deep within those faces, farther down and way beyond any horizon of their wandering minds that they could describe, there was the hope. Hope that somewhere out of all the words and music and silences of this place and out of the mystery even greater that the mystery of the cosmos itself, that a voice they would know from all other voices would speak their names and bless them.”
That’s what Jeremiah does for despairing and beaten people. And that is what Advent promises to us. Both speak of hope. Hope, that in spite of all the devastating evidence to the contrary, the ground we stand on is holy ground because from the burning bush to the manger in Bethlehem, God has walked on it and walks on it still. Hope that we are known, each one of us by name and that God will call us by name to live the lives God would have us live and be the selves God would have us become. Hope that into the secret grief and pain and bewilderment of each of us and of our world, God will come at last to heal and to say, “The days are surely coming” says the Lord. And so with Christians throughout the ages we add our Advent Prayer: Yes, come Lord Jesus, come. Amen.