We Need a Little Hope (2)

We usually wait until a few days after Thanksgiving to put up our tree. Placed in front of a window, the lights are on first. Then a long strand of glittering tinsel. Then my favorite ornaments, some that hung on my Gramma Marie’s tree. A little every day, slowly adding decorations around the house, until we’re ready for Christmas.

But this year, I felt this strong need for Christmas to come early. So I put up the tree on November 15th!

So, I have to admit something to you this morning. I may — just possibly, in years past — I may have poked a little fun at people who started playing Christmas music too early and who put up their decorations before Thanksgiving.

But this year… it was me blasting the Elvis Christmas album, singing along as I wrapped the tinsel around the tree.

Later that day I posted a picture of the tree on Facebook. Almost immediately I started receiving comments back. And they weren’t the responses I was expecting.

Like this one from my friend Maple: “This is really early, but we so need these lights.”

My cousin Nicky: “Same with us ... ready for some JOY!”

And Cheri: “Anything to get us through the rest of 2020!!” (With two exclamation points!!)

So many friends and family, leaping into the season ahead of time.

And I started singing:

“Haul out the holly

Put up the tree before my spirit falls again

Fill up the stocking

I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now

For we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute

Candles in the window

Carols at the spinet

Yes, we need a little Christmas

Right this very minute

We need a little Christmas now!”

(If that song is now stuck in your head for the week, sorry!)

I realized that in this ridiculously challenging year 2020, what we needed — really needed — was a little Christmas now.

The traditional themes for the Sundays of Advent are: hope, peace, joy, and love. This year, we need more of each. We’re longing for them, in fact.

We need a little peace, instead of the anxiety that is pervading so many people’s lives.

We need a little joy to push out the despair that so many are experiencing.

We need a little love to counter the indifference plaguing our country.

We’ll be looking at each of these in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Today, we need a little hope to bring us through some very real grief.

Dictionary.com defines grief like this: “distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.”

This year has been difficult for many reasons. We’ve experienced intense political conflict that has divided our country, and has damaged relationships with family and friends.

We continue to face unresolved questions of injustice and cruelty, with factions pitting themselves against each other in bitterness and resentment.

Add to all that a pandemic, the virus COVID-19 now claiming almost one and a half million COVID lives worldwide; over 260 thousand in the US; and rapidly approaching 4,000 deaths in Miami-Dade County alone.

I’ve talked with people who are ill with COVID, people who have lost loved ones, people in quarantine, people who’ve lost their jobs when businesses closed.

People who are struggling with the loss of their “normal patterns” — gathering with friends and family, dinners out in busy restaurants, going to see their favorite team play in a stadium, coming together for worship.

In all my years of pastoral counseling, I’ve never before had so many people struggling with what I’ve come to recognize as grief.

GRIEF! All throughout the world, my clergy colleagues are reporting seeing the classic initial stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression.

It’s no wonder so many people were ready to jump-start Advent this year! Right now, we need a little Christmas. We need a little hope.

You’ve heard me talk before about that word: hope. In our New Testament, that word (elpis in Greek) means a confident expectation, even in the midst of difficult times. It means to look forward to the future knowing — knowing — that God will fulfill God’s promises.

No. Elpis means confident expectation of what is sure, of what is certain. It means living your life in positive, confident knowledge that God is faithful and in anticipation of the fulfillment of God’s promises to us.

This is the first Sunday of Advent — the four weeks leading up to Christmas. In churches across the world people are lighting  the candle of hope on their Advent wreaths. And today’s scripture reading from the first chapter of Luke is all about hope.

We could all do with a little more hope in our lives.

(Can I get an amen?)

The opening words of our scripture today:

When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old. (Luke 1:5-7)

It may seem a bit strange to begin our Advent season by not talking about the main characters of Christmas: Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. But we’re starting today where Luke begins: with a couple facing some serious uncertainty in their lives, people who are in a seemingly hopeless situation.

We’re told that both Zechariah and Elizabeth are righteous and blameless. In Greek, dikaios and amemptos, meaning people who closely observe God’s laws, who have lived a life that is above reproach. These are good, devoted people. They have lived faithfully, in line with God’s laws.

And, yet, they have a deep grief at the core of their relationship. They weren’t able to have children. In the time they lived, being childless wasn’t understood as a result of physical or environmental factors. It was considered a divine punishment.

They both knew that the people around them would have wondered what it is they had done to deserve to be so afflicted. And, indeed, Zechariah and Elizabeth themselves probably wondered this at times. They had lost hope.

But regardless of their personal pain, as a descendant of Aaron, Zechariah was required to serve as a priest at the Temple in Jerusalem twice a year for one week.

Verses 8 through 10: One day Zechariah was serving God in the Temple, for his order was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priests, he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. While the incense was being burned, a great crowd stood outside, praying.

There were many ways for a priest to serve in the Temple, but the burning of incense to the Lord was a special, once-in-a-lifetime honor. It was randomly assigned to those serving that day. Over the years of his service, Zechariah had been carefully trained. He knew how to walk in to the sanctuary, where to stand, what actions to take, how to use the incense, what words to say and when to say them.

It was a well-known ritual, sacred, yet also routine, unchanging. He knew exactly what to expect. And so, leaving all those praying outside behind him, he walked in. Alone.

Verses 11 and 12: While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar. Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he saw him.

Zechariah had entered the sanctuary of his God, and yet he was completely shocked and terrified to encounter the divine! Everything he had been taught about the solemnity and ceremony of this moment is turned on its head. Because an angel is waiting there, right next to the altar where he would have placed the incense.

Then we hear the powerful first lines of dialogue in the Gospel of Luke. The angel tells Zechariah:

“Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John. You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord…”

Can you imagine the thoughts racing through Zechariah’s head? For years and years and years he and Elizabeth had prayed for a child. Now, in this sacred space that should have been empty, he encounters an angel who gives him this joyous news!

But the angel’s not done. The amazing proclamation continues:

“He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous — to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Being promised a child at this late stage in the game would have been enough. More than enough! But now Zechariah learns that this miraculous child is to be a beacon of hope for the people of Israel, a prophet who will turn the people’s hearts back to God.

And… then… more incredible news: Zechariah is the first one to hear that the promised, long-awaited, constantly-prayed-for Savior was coming into the world! And Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son would be the one to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah!

Now, I’m not sure when in the midst of the angel’s pronouncement that Zechariah begins to have some doubts — one big, huge doubt in particular. Zechariah can’t help himself. He can’t just say thanks and hallelujah!

Instead, he asks the angel for a sign: “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is an old woman.”

Well, the angel gives him a sign all right. Zechariah loses the ability to speak.

Take notice, guys!

Much to the delight of women everywhere, the angel makes sure Zechariah’s words “my wife is an old woman” are the last he utters for nine whole months.

Yup!

So, Zechariah mutely finishes his duties at the Temple, then returns the 5 miles to his home with Elizabeth. She conceives, and goes on bedrest for several months.

The angel’s promise has come true: they will have a child! And in their private joy at this unlooked-for, surprise gift from God, comes the knowledge that this child will be a blessing to all their people, as well.

There are several things to note in this beautiful story, things that are important as we embark on this Advent journey together, during a challenging time in our world.

First is that faithfulness and right living do not guarantee health and prosperity in our lives. And, conversely, when things go badly, when life seems chaotic and you feel lost, that does not mean that God is punishing you.

Instead, the circumstances in our lives are the means through which God reaches out to us in so many ways. There is nothing in your life — absolutely nothing — that God cannot use to bring healing to you and to others around you.

Second, this story is a reminder that God hears our prayers, and that we can count on God’s faithfulness when we are going through difficult times personally. God loves you, and will never, never, never desert you.

And, third, God hears our communal prayers, prayers we pray for our community and world. And we can count on God’s faithfulness when we are facing division in our world, in our country, in our community, in our church, in our families.

The birth of Zechariah and Elizabeth’s son John will herald the beginning of something new for the people. Regaining his voice after naming his newborn child, in verses 76 through 79 Zechariah offers this blessing, which, over the years, has come to be known as Zechariah’s song:

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

The birth of a child — any child — is an incredible, miraculous event. In it, we see the possibilities for the future. There is something about the birth of a child that rekindles dreams in us, that is an affirmation that life is precious and beautiful.

The gift of John, a son to Zechariah and Elizabeth was a gift to the world. That tiny infant would grow to be the prophet who would announce the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of the world, whose birth we celebrate in just 27 days.

The season of Advent is a pregnant time. It is a time of development, like an embryo growing inside a mother’s body. It is a time of fullness and waiting. It is a time of reflection and anticipation and expectation. It is a time of great hope.

The closing words again of Zechariah’s song, this time from The Message translation:

“Through the heartfelt mercies of our God, God’s Sunrise will break in upon us, shining on those in the darkness, those sitting in the shadow of death, then showing us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.”

The day that Zechariah went into the Temple to offer incense to God, he went in not expecting anything remarkable to happen. He certainly wasn’t expecting to meet an angel who would tell him that his world was about to change.

So… questions…

Do we really expect God to act in our world? Do we expect to meet God in worship? Do we expect God to move within our lives and transform us? Do we expect God to heal and save this world?

I pray that during this season of Advent 2020, we would be reminded of God’s promises, and would together rejoice that God will “show us the way, one foot at a time, down the path of peace.”

Because I believe that God is doing something in our world. God is using the circumstances in which we find ourselves to bring people closer to him. God is working in our midst. Every day, every moment, within us, God is awakening possibilities of healing and hope.

So whatever it is that you are going through right now, whatever worries you are bearing, whatever uncertainty you are facing, I pray that you would know that the God who loves you is at work in the midst of it all.

No matter our age — from the youngest children, just starting to understand God, to the eldest, long-faithful members — no matter how old we are: this day, this season, has been gifted to us by God.

Today is a day for us to remember the promises of God, the surprising grace-filled gifts from God. It is a day for us to recommit to allowing God to guide us — one foot at a time — on the path of peace, on the path of wholeness, of truth, of love.

That is the message on this week of hope.

May God bless you, this day and always!