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Happy New Year! No, I didn’t whack my head and lose a month! And no, I did not have a senior moment even though I am a long way from being a senior! Today is the first Sunday in Advent which is the beginning of a new liturgical year. Advent is the four weeks to prepare for Christmas, then the birth of Jesus, his baptism, his life and ministry. Lent comes next ending with the crucifixion on Good Friday. Then comes a glorious resurrection, then Pentecost and the birth of the church. It is has been the regular cycle of the Christian church for centuries, and we are privileged to experience it anew. To help us prepare for Advent your staff has decided to preach a series on the theme of each candle represented in the Advent wreath. First is the candle of HOPE. Next Sunday is LOVE, followed by JOY, and PEACE. What does it mean to live out Emmanuel: God with us? Somehow, this Advent it means that you and I need to learn once again how to live with hope, love, joy, and peace in a real and personal way. In our Old Testament lesson for today the Israelites had been taken captive to a foreign land. Everything around them was strange and unfamiliar. They were a people living without hope. In the midst of this hopelessness, Jeremiah proclaims the word of God to them. "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters….for my plans for you are to give you a future with hope." One night at dinner a man, who had spent many summers in Maine, fascinated his companions by telling of his experiences in a little town named Flagstaff. The town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out? So, week by week, the whole town became more and more run down and decrepit. Then he added, "Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present." The exiled Israelites must have felt like the residents in a doomed town. Why should they live with hope? Haven’t there been times in your life when you felt hopeless? Can you get a sense of what it feels like to live without hope? It seems to me that hope happens when a large and expansive future lies before us. When we feel there is no future, there is no hope. Those who commit suicide are absolutely certain there is no future for them. This is why hope is so important. Hope is a way of living in the present that truly depends on our view of the future. What kind of future do you feel lies before you? From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem. Mr. Lang had been asked to speak to a class of 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him. Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. "Stay in school," he admonished, "and I'll help pay the college tuition for every one of you." At that moment the lives of these students changed. For the first time they had hope. Said one student, "I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling." Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school. What a difference hope makes in our lives. This is why Jeremiah’s words were so important to the people of God, "When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart. I will let you find me, says the Lord." Here is the secret of living with hope. Not only is it related to an open future. True hope is about a future with God! Advent is a time to seek God with all our hearts. When we do God promises once again to allow us to find him, not on a heavenly throne, not in a golden palace, but in a straw-filled manger surrounded by animals in the podunk town of Bethlehem. Have you ever lived through a fire? There is a painting of an old burned-out mountain shack. All that remained was the chimney...the charred debris of what had been that family's sole possession. In front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfather-looking man dressed only in his underclothes with a small boy clutching a pair of patched overalls. It was evident that the child was crying. Beneath the picture were the words which the artist felt the old man was speaking to the boy. They were simple words, yet they presented a profound theology and philosophy of life. Those words were, "Hush child, God ain't dead!" That vivid picture of that burned-out mountain shack, that old man, the weeping child, and those words "God ain't dead" keep returning to my mind. Instead of it being a reminder of the despair of life, it has come to be a reminder of hope! Don’t we need reminders that there is hope in this world? Don’t the families of the victims of September 11 need hope this Christmas? Don’t we as a nation need to hear the voice of God, "Hush child, I’m not dead!" In the midst of all of life's troubles and failures, we need these kind of images to remind us that all is not lost as long as God is with us. A special teacher was assigned to help a boy who had been in the hospital for a long time. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, "I've been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs." When she left she felt she hadn't accomplished much. But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. "No, no," said the nurse. "You don't understand. We've been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back, responding to treatment. It's as though he's decided to live." Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?" Aren’t there times when you feel like this burned boy? It hurts too much to go on. Perhaps it is the pain of cancer or arthritis. But it could be the pain of divorce or the death of a dear one. Maybe it is a loneliness or a depression that darkens your life every moment of your day. The pain can be unbearable. All hope seems to be gone. And then something happens. A message comes through to your heart. Is it the voice of God? In some way a ray of light penetrates the darkness and gives you a glimpse of a future. Maybe you don’t see your future with crystal clarity, but you know you have a future. What will be the trigger for you that will help you see the good that is just over your horizon? What will be your "nouns and adverbs"? What will give you cause to have hope this Advent? Hope isn’t just something that happens to us. We have to do our part. We have a role to play in whether or not we will live with hope. There was a piano teacher that was simply and affectionately known as "Herman." One night at a university concert, a distinguished piano player suddenly became ill while performing an extremely difficult piece. No sooner had the artist retired from the stage when Herman rose from his seat in the audience, walked on stage, sat down at the piano and with great mastery completed the performance. Later that evening, at a party, one of the students asked Herman how he was able to perform such a demanding piece so beautifully without notice and with no rehearsal. He replied, "In 1939, when I was a budding young concert pianist, I was arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. Putting it mildly, the future looked bleak. But I knew that in order to keep the flicker of hope alive that I might someday play again, I needed to practice every day. I began by fingering a piece from my repertoire on my bare board bed late one night. The next night I added a second piece and soon I was running through my entire repertoire. I did this every night for five years. It so happens that the piece I played tonight at the concert hall was part of that repertoire. That constant practice is what kept my hope alive. Everyday I renewed my hope that I would one day be able to play my music again on a real piano, and in freedom." What is it you need to do in order to keep hope alive in your heart and in the hearts of others in need? Let us resolve this Advent to seek God with our whole heart. God’s promise is for you and me, "I will give you a future with hope. I will let you find me." Finding God again. This is our hope this Advent, a hope that can be realized on Christmas Day.
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12/01/01 - Emmanuel: Hope With Us (Part 1) (Jeremiah 29:4-14)
