Advent of Hope (2)

The Advent of Hope

Week 1: Simeon - HOPE

Big Idea: God was offering His people hope in Isaiah 9:2 by promising a light that would come to expel the darkness. Simeon’s encounter with the baby Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to bring salvation to all people. Simeon had the audacity to hope that God would come through, even after years of waiting.

Scripture: Luke 2:25–35; Isaiah 9:2; 1 Peter 1:13

Introduction

Good morning, church. Today we begin a brand-new sermon series for the Advent season called The Promise. As the church celebrates the four themes of Advent over the coming weeks, which culminate on Christmas Day, we will discover a God who keeps His promises. The promises give us hope, peace, joy, and love which all lead us back to the manger, where we meet our savior, Jesus.

Illus: When I was a child, waiting seemed to be one of the hardest exercises I could endure. I remember waiting for the last day of school before summer break to arrive. As the day counted down the anticipation grew.

Or those days that my birthday fell on a week day and as a child I couldn’t wait for the school bell to ring so I could go home and see the cake and dinner my mom had made for me.

Of course many of our holiday classic songs refer to kids waiting all night on Christmas eve to see what type of gifts were under the tree. Waiting was the anticipation of what was to come.

The truth is, waiting isn’t easy. But waiting is at the very heart of the Advent season.

That’s the season we’re heading into now, it’s known as

Advent—which comes from the Latin word adventus meaning “the coming” or “the arrival.”

Advent is an ancient tradition where for four weeks before Christmas we focus not only on the coming of the messiah, His birth. But also his second coming. When he finally returns to rescue those who have put their trust in Him.

At the center of our faith is the belief that when Jesus Christ was born in a manger, He started something beautiful and new right in the middle of our human mess.

Through His life, death, and resurrection, He would restore the world to the way God first intended. With His arrival came the four themes of Advent: hope, peace, joy, and love. And, as we make our way toward Christmas Day together, we will be celebrating these powerful themes.

Today, we want to begin with the theme of hope.

Main Teaching

Hope is a word we use often during the Christmas season:

I hope this tree fits,

Each year we go through this in our home. At the Christmas tree farm where we cut down our tree every year. We have the same conversation.

My wife and kids want the biggest tree possible. I remind them all each year that the trees look much smaller in the field than they will in our living room.

So now we have found the perfect solution. I being somewhat tall raise my arm up as tall as I can. If the tree is taller than my hand it won’t accommodate the star on top.

or

I hope I get what I want for Christmas, I hope Grandma doesn’t burn the ham, or as my kids always want. I hope it snows this year.

In this, we have lost the depth of the theme of hope when our hopes are really just wishful thinking about trivial things.

This, however, is not Scripture’s understanding of the word hope.

In 1 Peter, the writer uses the word hope over and over. In chapter 1, we are given a bit of a summary of this word.

READ

1 Peter 1:13 CSB

13 Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Most of the time, when we talk about hope, it is in terms of the future, but it also has a lot to do with the present.

Peter uses the phrase “prepare your minds for action” and this is translated literally “gird up the loins of your mind.”

obviously we no longer talk this way.

This phrase comes from an ancient form of dress for men in the Middle East. Men would wear a long outer shirt that would stretch all the way down to their ankles.

This made it pretty hard to move quickly or to respond to a treacherous situation. So, to “gird up your loins” meant you would literally grab up your long outer shirt and tuck it into your belt and be ready for action.

So, our hope is not just meant to be something that only impacts our future, but it should impact our present as well. As we recognize that our future is shaped by the present, we should be fully aware of both.

Hope means that we are fully prepared for what is to come, both in the present and the future.

POINT #1: HOPE IS A CERTAINTY ABOUT THE FUTURE THAT IMPACTS THE PRESENT

Our hope is not set in some ambiguous optimism for no reason. Our hope is set in specific moments of history. For example, the arrival of Jesus Christ as a baby and His life, death, and resurrection were moments in history.

Hope is about living right now in the light of a future promise. This hope is about restructuring the way we look at the world, not as it is right now, but as it will be when Christ comes to set all things right.

A mark of almost every person within the Christmas story is that they were full of hope about the fulfillment of a historic promise.

READ Isaiah 9:2

Isaiah 9:2 CSB

2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; a light has dawned on those living in the land of darkness.

926 BC- Israel is divided into the northern and Southern Kingdom due to Solomon’s sin.

722 BC - Assyrians conquer the northern kingdom

586 BC - The Babylonians conquer the southern kingdom

539 BC - The Persians conquer the Babylonians

333 BC - Alexander the Great defeats the Persians

323 BC - The Greek empire divides

167 BC The Jews were prohibited from practicing Judaism and the temple was destroyed

63 BC - Jerusalem is captured by Rome.

4 BC - Jesus is Born

So for 922 years Isreal was broken, captured, and recaptured by foreign people worshipping foreign Gods. It was indeed a dark time for Isreal. So Hopefully now when we come to this passage in Luke we can better understand the anticipation of the arrival of the Messiah.

the idea of a battered nation being rescued by a messiah was a hope that affected the nation in the present.

Emily Dickinson said, “Hope is the thing with wings”.

Hope helps you to function and to push through the hardest times.

It is the idea that no matter how hard things are at the present, there is coming a better day.

Today we look at the account of an old man named.

Simeon is a wonderful Advent character as he is a perfect example of someone who has oriented his entire life around a future promise given to him by God.

After Jesus’s birth, Mary and Joseph, Jesus’s parents, took their newborn son to the temple to participate in some of the traditional Jewish customs of the day.

Parents would travel to the temple to dedicate their child to God. Mary and Joseph followed this tradition. When they arrived at the temple, Simeon was there as well.

READ Luke 2:25–35

Luke 2:25–35 CSB

25 There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, 29 Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation. 31 You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples— 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel. 33 His father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and told his mother Mary, “Indeed, this child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel and to be a sign that will be opposed— 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Some traditions believe that Simeon may have been around 112 years old. According to Luke 2, Simeon was promised that he would not die until he saw the Messiah in the flesh. His life would be spared until he set eyes on the Messiah. By the prompting of the Spirit, Simeon is at the temple at the time Jesus and His family arrive.

When Simeon sees Jesus, he knows immediately who he is. He is overcome by joy and hope as he realizes that this is the One he has been waiting for, the one the world has been waiting for. Simeon takes the baby Jesus into his arms and recites this beautiful prayer.

Can you even imagine what Simeon would have felt? To know that the thing he had hoped for so long had finally come to pass.

Simeon, in his many years, had seen many painful times in Israel’s history. He saw the Romans conquer and occupy his people and his land. He saw a bloody civil war. He saw multiple revolutions by the Israelite people be crushed.

Yet in the midst of these and other difficult moments in history, Simeon held out hope. He still believed that God was not done and had not quit on them. He believed the Messiah, the deliverer, was still on His way.

And in Luke 2, Simeon stands at the temple holding the promised Messiah: the One through whom the world would be rescued.

POINT #2: HOPE IS BIRTHED OUT OF DEEP LONGINGS AND DESPERATE NEED

Simeon shows us that hope is birthed out of a deep longing and a desperate need for God’s presence and God’s comfort. Luke tells us that Simeon was waiting at the temple for something very specific. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel.

This word consolation means “encouragement” or “comfort.”

This didn’t mean he was waiting for God’s pat on the back or a few nice words. This phrase was in reference to chapters in the book of Isaiah. For 9 hundred years Israel had been defeated and destroyed by many different nations—the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and then currently the Romans.

These chapters in Isaiah were written right in the middle of those difficult times. When these chapters in Isaiah were written and they pointed to a coming comfort through the Messiah that God would send, many would look around and be discouraged because that was not the situation at the time. But these were promises that one day things would change. They could have hope, comfort, and encouragement that God would come through.

The word that Luke uses for waiting in this passage is the Greek word

prosdechomai. It literally means to give access to one’s self—it’s the kind of waiting you do from the deepest parts of yourself—it’s a waiting that involves a sort of pain—an awareness of our deep need for something. It’s a sort of waiting that hurts. Simeon’s hope—his expectancy—was birthed out of his awareness of his deep need for God’s comfort and healing.

One thing that our society has done a great job during the holiday season is to distract us from feeling deeply our need for hope. Instead we are supposed to simply put a smile on our face and stay as busy as possible.

Instead of leaning into our deepest need for God’s comfort and healing in our lives, we simply try to distract ourselves, and in the end, we miss the hope that is offered in Jesus Christ.

When we do this, we are living but we are not really alive. As mentioned last week we often feel hollow around the Holidays. Instead it’s okay to look around you, engage with the Advent season, and allow yourself to hope that your current circumstance that brings pain can be changed and restored by the arrival, or the coming, of Christ into our lives.

The ancient prayer of Advent is “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” In fact, some of the final words of the Bible in the book of Revelation are “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” How badly do you want that? How aware are you of your need for God’s comfort and God’s healing in your life?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says of Advent, “The only ones who can celebrate Advent are the people who carry restlessness around with them . . . whose souls give them no peace, who know that they are poor and incomplete, and who sense something of the greatness that is supposed to come.”

May this Advent season be different than ever before. Don’t allow yourself to distract or self-soothe. Wrestle with your pain and come face-to-face with the brokenness of the world.

It’s only then that we see fully the emptiness of our normal Christmas hustle and bustle. We have been settling for less than is available to us. Out of a deep longing can come the comfort and hope of Jesus.

Hope is found in our deepest longing, but our hope also comes from a person.

POINT #3: HOPE IS FOUND IN A PERSON.

In 1 Peter we are told that our hope is not set in some kind of empty wishful thinking. This is amazing news, because if it was, then our hope ends in despair or disappointment. But our hope is set in Jesus Christ. Not our 401(k), not some relationship, not a job, not some president, not a good medical report. Our hope is in Jesus and His promised arrival in the future to restore all that is broken.

As you read through the New Testament, many people who come in contact with Jesus miss the significance of who He really was. Even though the writings in the Old Testament pointed to Him, the Jewish people still missed the Messiah when He arrived.

But not Simeon. Simeon knew when he saw Jesus, even at just a month old, that he was the Anointed One who was promised to come and bring hope, peace, joy, and love.

So then why do so many people whose hearts seem to be longing for some type of Messiah to save them from this mess of a life reject the gospel message?

Because people are looking for a messiah that will affirm them in their sin. They are not looking for the messiah of scripture.

In short . . . because people were looking for something Jesus wasn’t. Jesus wasn’t what most people were looking for in a Messiah. They wanted a political warrior King who would overthrow the oppressors of the Jews and put them on top. They didn’t expect the Messiah to be a tiny baby who would come and, instead of exerting His power, would give Himself up on a cross.

For the people who missed Jesus, it was because their hope was in THEIR specific expectations. Their expectations were all about what they wanted God to do, how they wanted Him to look, and for things to change in their favor. When Jesus failed to meet these expectations, they missed Him altogether. But, Simeon had a different hope.

When our hope is placed in anything other than the promises of God and the fulfillment of these promises in Jesus, we tend to settle for hope in lesser things. These things always fail and always lead to frustration.

This morning, in the midst of whatever you are going through . . . where do you find your hope?

How you answer this question makes all the difference. Is your hope based on something you want God to do or is it based in God Himself?

Here are the beauty and the dark side of the holidays. It is during this time of year the good of life and the bad of life are both exaggerated.

At no other time of the year are we more aware of the problems we can’t solve, the people we can’t control, and the expectations we can’t meet. There are problems that are decades in the making that you won’t be able to fix overnight. There are people in your life whom you won’t be able to save during the holidays, and there are expectations that you will try so hard to meet for someone else in your family and you will never be able to do it.

That’s not where your hope is.

There is a difference in being hopeful FOR something and being hopeful IN something.

Choose this year to face your deep longing and come to believe that there is one specific source from whom you can derive hope—and that is Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

During this Advent season, we don’t just idly wait and hope. In fact, when we sense our deep longing and know our source of hope, then we can live every moment believing the best is before us. When we begin to embrace the anticipation and the expectation, we free ourselves up from the urgency of having to fix things now, and know that our God is at work. The question is, how do we join Him in that work? It is an active anticipation.