Advent 1 , 2022

Hope

“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 and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”(Jer 33:14-16).

Take a moment to ask yourself a question - What do you HOPE for? What do HOPE will happen in the future that will maintain or guarantee your happiness in this life?

Hope can be defined as “confidence something will occur.” It is an expectation and desire for something to happen.

Hope involves a commitment of trust, of reliance.

It is important to have hope! - “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”― Alexander Pope“Hope

However difficult life is, sometimes we have with our late Queen, an Anus Horribulus and we get to the end of the year and dream “Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson.

BUT IT MAY NOT BE! - Not everything we HOPE for is worth Hoping for! Tolkein said: “False hopes are more dangerous than fears.”

Take for example the Bible’s warning, 1 Timothy 6:17, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.”

The “uncertainty of riches”! People put their hyope in these things every day for life, their future, een death(hence the Pharaohs, buried in ostentation). Music legend Billy Joel lost $90 million by trusting his ex brother in law, Frank Weber, who acted as his manager. The money was used to fund several investments that made Weber wealthy but were not in Joel’s best interests. Joel took him to court in 1989, suing Weber for $30 million in contemporary damages and $60 million in punitive damages. Uunfortunately, Joel had to settle out of court for about $3 million dollars after Weber filed for bankruptcy. In his official biography, he said, “I hooked up with Borgias. What a family to pick.”

We need a HOPE that DOES NOT DISAPPOINT!

Romans 5:1–5 (ESV) - “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Christians have this hope because Jesus died for us and raose again. He offers us HOPE BEYOND THE GRAVE and that’s why we won’t be disappointed!

The Bible has a symbol for HOPE - The anchor - Hebrews 6:17-20 “When God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a High Priest forever.” How appropriate, the anchor that is lowered to secure the ship to the bottom of the sea, weights it to the seafloor and steadfastly prevents the ship from being “driven and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6 NASB). Our hope in God, like an anchor, secures us to the truths about God and His Word, even when we are being assailed by temptations and trials (James 1:2-7). A hope that is steadfast, reliable, and strong, regardless of the challenges of life.

God has hope for us that will not diasppoint and it is rooted and grounded in Jesus, which is why today we are thinking about ADVENT HOPE!

1. A Word of HOPE - “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.”

Traditionally, Advent marks the beginning of the Christian year.

Celebrating Advent involves spending time in spiritual preparation for the coming birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas. In Western Christianity, the season of Advent begins on the fourth Sunday prior to Christmas Day, or the Sunday which falls closest to November 30, and lasts through Christmas Eve, or December 24.

Celebrating Advent typically involves a season of prayer, fasting, and repentance, followed by anticipation, hope, and joy.

Christians also celebrate Advent not only by thanking God for Christ's first coming to Earth as a baby, but also for his presence among us today through the Holy Spirit, and in preparation and anticipation of his final coming at the end of the age.

Anticipation, watching and waiting in a backdrop of difficulties, pain and suffering are a part of the Messianic promise and the Nativity stories:

Take Isaiah 9 for exampe, where the Messiah to be born, brings light into a gloomy situation “there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness, have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”(Isa 9:1-3).

Or take another example from Simeon in Luke 2:25-32, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not asee death before he had seen bthe Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when cthe parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to lyour people Israel.”

Advent, acknowledges that not all is as it should be. People are worn down and worn out. They are tired, grieving and burnt out. As Gary Charles says, “The stories of Advent are dug from the harsh soil of human struggle and the littered landscape of dashed dreams. They are told from the vista where sin still reigns supreme and hope has gone on vacation.” - Gary W. Charles: Feasting on the Word Year C, Volume 1, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor).

However Advent also tells us that things are ABOUT TO CHANGE, that into our darkness, a GREAT LIGHT has come to offer hope and salvation!

And this is the case with out text today!

According to Jeremiah 32 says, “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the tenth year of Zedekiah King of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. The army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was confined in the courtyard of the guard in the royal palace of Judah.” Scholars place this moment in the year 587 B.C.

And yet, inspite of the dire cicumstances that are facing Jeremiah and Jerusalem, the “weeping prophet” is uncharacteristically hopeful. Jeremiah had suffered fierce persecution because of his prophecies criticizing the leadership of Judah and its temple worship practices.

These words are a profound message of hope in bleak times, as Jeremiah speaks to a nation under siege, with ruthless enemies closing in, with the prospect of destruction and captivity, under a ruthless despot.

They speak boldly to a people in dire need, offering hope to a people in fear of losing everything they knew – their homes, their livelihoods, the breakdown of the whole fabric of their lives; social and political, and possibly their loved ones or their very lives and if accompanied by the destruction of the temple and their opportunity to worship, their very understanding of how God was present in the world was destroyed.

John Calvin describes the context this way: “As they were then exposed to slaughter,… the children of God saw thousand deaths; so that it could not be but that terror almost drove them to despair; and in their exile they saw that they were far removed from their own country, without any hope of a return.”

And yet there is a word of hope! “The Book of Consolation” as Chapters 30-33 have been dubbed. Four chapters offer hope to a people in catastrophe.

The first two chapters offer this hope in a poetic form while the second two chapters are written more in prose.

The people of Judah were experiencing real suffering, and the words of the prophet spoke of a real hope that their situation would not always be so bleak.

Just as Jeremiah is confined in the courtyard of the guard, the people of Judah are entrapped by their enemies. Thus the hope presented in these chapters is concrete. In the same way that the day and the night continue their covenant with God, God will be faithful to his people.

In fact, not only would their situation change, but God would restore them in ways beyond their imagination. Not only would they return from exile, rebuild their temple, eventually no longer be under Babylonian rule, but the Messiah, the hope of the entire world would come from them.

But what does this hope look like?

There are multiple layers to this hope. At its most immediate, the words of these four chapters are words of hope to the people of Judah that one day, their enemies would perish (Jer 30:16).

One day they will return to the promised land (Jer 30:3).

Jer 32:42-45 describes a more grounded hope – that God will give Israel prosperity and economic growth.

The ultimate aim of this, though, is that all Israel would be restored to God (Jer 31:1) and this is encapsulated in Jeremiah 31:31-34 which proclaims, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make pa new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, rthough I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it ton their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, wfrom the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

2. A SPECIFIC Hope - “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Our text here in Jeremiah 33:14-16, points to multiple layers of this hope.

They address the immediate hope of restoration and safety from Israel’s enemies and also a future hope of a righteous branch, sprouting form David’s line.

Jesus is that “righteous branch”. This is why Matthew, includes a “book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham”(Matt 1:1) and Luke’s Gospel links his genealogy to the beginning of His ministry let us know that He is “the son of David”(Luke 3:31). begins with genealogy!

Jesus, in his ministry, fulfilled the words of this promise. Not only would he ensure a continuation of David’s reign, but he also would become the ultimate sacrifice, fulfilling the priestly role as well.

At the surface level, these verses and the those immediately following it are saying that the Davidic monarchy and the priestly work of the Levites will continue in Israel. These two things are the guarantor of the continuation of Jewish culture, so it offers a profound message of hope.

However, the promise is not limited to the restoration of the Levitical system, because as we know, though Solomon’s temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian exile in 596 BC and again restored by Herod, beginning in 20BC, there is now no continuous presence of Levites offering sacrifices today ever since the destruction of the temple in AD 70.

Also, similar language is used in Jeremiah 23:5-6 , but there it does not also refer to the ongoing Levite presence. So yes at the surface level this refers to the restoration of the Priestly system but it reminds us of what has been called the “Already, but Not Yet” nature of Biblical Prophecy and Promise, where the restoration of that system acts as a SIGN of the true fulfilment when Jesus the Righteous Branch, comes to restore, not only Israul but the whole world to God

So, in ascribing this passage to Jesus the messiah, we acknowledge that there are dimensions of these promises throughout chapters 30-33 which have not completely come to pass?

Take for example the statement of Matthew 4:17, when Jesus began his formal ministry: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection inaugurated this new kingdom. The Kingdom of God is at hand here and now already, but not yet fully realized. Jesus has gained victory over sin and death at the cross on a day we call, Good Friday and through His resurrection on Easter Sunday but it is still being worked out in the every day of life up until His Second Coming!

Or take as another example the words of Jesus in John 14-17, when Jesus gave his farewell discourse to his followers and closest friends. He promised that he was going to prepare a place, and he will one day take us to be with him. In the meantime, he has given us his Holy Spirit to be with us; instruct us and keep us in His peace! Now, we are in a world of hostility to Jesus and to our faith, so there will be trouble in this world, and He has prayed for our preservation in the world and has overcome the world!

So, through the lens of the gospels, we can read these words of the prophet as speaking of multiple realities.

Not only did they offer a concrete hope to the people of Judah as described above, but they also spoke of the coming Messiah, Jesus.

And even still, they describe a day to come when Christ will return, when his kingdom will be fully realized.

We have A WORD OF HOPE - Jesus! We have a SPECIFIC HOPE - Jesus! and we ALSO have a TRANSFORMATIVE HOPE...

3. A TRANSFORMATIVE Hope - “In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Jer 33:16 describes a new name for Judah – “The Lord our righteousness.” This is a word play directly in contrast to King Zedekiah, who’s name means, “The Lord is righteous.” So with the presence of this righteous branch, sprouting from David’s line, Israel will finally experience God’s righteousness in a way Zedekiah never was able to provide.

As a result of Jesus’ presence, the people would take on a new name – “The Lord is our righteousness.”

The messiah would be living in distinction to the king of Jeremiah’s day, Zedekiah. Where Zedekiah had failed, the messiah, would succeed. And we profess this messiah to be Jesus.

Ultimately, this passage, as a part of the Book of Consolation, invites God’s people to embrace hope in the midst of catastrophe – God’s people in all times and places.

This passage reminds us that Advent is about Waiting in Hope! Advent is a season of waiting. As a child, this waiting seemed to take forever. At the end of Advent was Christmas!

We wait not just for the coming of the Messiah on Christmas morning, but also for the second coming, when Christ will return, making all things new, as described in Revelation 21.

We are a people of hope because God is still at work in the world. We are a people of hope because God is still working in us, just as the Apostle, Paul, in Philippians 1:6 reminds us, that God who began a good work in us, will be faithful to carry on to completion the good work that He began!

Of course not many of us like to Wait!

Waiting can frustrate us or worry us, for example if we are waiting in traffic and going to be late for our appointment or we are waiting for results from a blood test or for a check up in the GP surgery.

But waiting also shapes us. In the waiting, we can grow bitter, letting resentments fester. We can become paralyzed with fear. We can use the waiting as an excuse to do nothing. On the other hand it can teach us patience and gratitude and alter our perspective on life.

Also remember waiting, does not have to be passive. We can wait in hope in the Lord who is faithful and will fulfil His promsies to us!

God will restore and redeem His people. The God who brought the Messiah, Jesus, into te world will one day, command that this “same Jesus”, will return again. And we are called to be active and to be alert, whilst we wait, joining in God’s mission to bringing about God’s kingdom in this world so that God’s will is done “on earth as it is in Heaven”.

In our day, there is much for which we can despair.

A global pandemic undermined our confidence in science and the medical profession as well as the political classes to solve all of the world’s ills.

As well as masses of people dying, there is ongoing economic uncertainty and political unrest as a consequennce not only of the Pandemic but of war across the world, as typified by Ukraine and Russia.

Then there is all this uncertainty around Global Warming! The world of the 21st century continues to cause despair, worry and anxiety - a loss of hope!

However, just as was the case in Jeremiah’s day, God is still at work. The Christ of Advent is still our source of hope and strength. Let us look to Him and celebrate Him as our Hope!

“Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art; dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart.”

Oh that we might have this longing in our heaerts this Christmas as we wait for King Jesus to set us free from Satan’s tyranny, from our sin and fear.

Let us join the joyous proclamation that God and sinners have been reconciled!

It doesn’t get much better than this”! “God and Sinners reconciled” to embed the HOPE of the advent season, deep in our hearts.