Hope

HOPE DEFERRED

At this time of year, we try to remind ourselves of the good things that are around us. We often spend time with friends and family. We think about generosity and good will. We expect a little more from each other, because, after all, it’s Christmas time.

But of course, everything isn’t as it should be. Many of us get stressed over the gifts we have buy and pay for, all the expectations we have to meet. This year, we’re worried about whether we can even get together with our loved ones because of the pandemic. And of course, a few weeks of warm-fuzzies may distract us from other, pressing problems, but it doesn’t make them go away. We may find ourselves disappointed.

How do we respond to this disappointment? Do we resign ourselves to the idea that the world will always fall short of our expectations? Or, do we choose to believe, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, that better days are ahead. Can we hold on to hope, a hope that God is working to set things right, a hope that God is on the winning side, a hope that God is bringing his kingdom here on earth? In the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament, God communicates a promise that he will fix things. In the New Testament story of Jesus’ birth, we see God take decisive steps to bring that hope to reality. And yet, the job remains somehow unfinished. We enter into the story as people who see what God accomplished through Jesus. Yet, we also see how the world in which we presently live still refuses to live up to our expectations. And we, like Jesus’ contemporaries must settle for ourselves whether we hold on to our hope in the promises of God and his ability and willingness to bring those promises to their conclusion. God challenged them to believe that the coming of Jesus was the fulfillment of their hope. Likewise God challenges us to believe that the return of Jesus will be the fulfillment of our hope.

ISRAEL’S CATASTROPHE

In the Old Testament we read the long story of how the family of Abraham and, in particular, his grandson Jacob became a nation, Israel. What made Israel a nation, what gave them their sense of collective identity was their covenant with God. Part of that covenant was a promise that they would possess the land of Canaan. Another part of the covenant was their agreement to live according to God’s laws and decrees. Later on, God added another dimension to the covenant: a king from the line of David.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the law that was given to the people of Israel before they began the conquest of Canaan, Moses tells the people that if they obey the laws God has given them, God will bless them. If, on the other hand, they disobey the laws, God will curse them. The curses run the gamut from poor harvests, to disease, to childlessness and foreign occupation. The culminating curse for God’s people would be exile where the people would be taken from the land and moved somewhere else. Since the very identity of Israel was so invested in the land, their removal from the land would functionally be a death sentence for their nation.

EXILE IN BABYLON

If you know the story, you know that’s exactly where it went. After the high point of David and Solomon’s kingship Israel split into two kingdoms. The Northern Kingdom, Israel, lived in total rebellion to God and in 722 BC they were swallowed up by the Assyrians, resettled in other places, and never heard from again. The Southern Kingdom, Judah, had a spottier record. At times they faithfully served God, and at other times, they didn’t. Eventually they became just as wicked. God sent prophets to warn them that they were headed for the same fate as Israel, but they didn’t listen. In 587 BC the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem and took its inhabitants into exile.

But the prophets had promised this wouldn’t be the end of the story. Throughout the books of the prophets before the exile, we see promises that while the exile was coming, God wouldn’t abandon his people completely. They would be brought back. So, for example, Isaiah wrote:

says the Lord your Redeemer.

So when their plight looked especially dim in their exile, the people could look back at God’s promise and trust that he would one day set things right.

A PARTIAL RESTORATION

That hope looked like it was coming true when the Persian army defeated the Babylonians. The Persian King, Cyrus, authorized the Jews to return to their former homeland and to rebuild the temple. A small remnant of people returned, but the restoration failed to live up to their expectations. Life in the land was dangerous and hard. They lived under a string of foreign rulers, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. Eventually the people came to the conclusion that they were still in exile. Yes, they had been allowed to return to the land, and even to build a new temple (which was a pale comparison of the temple Solomon had built) but they couldn’t fully be God’s people without the king from the line of David. A strong king would cast off the yoke of foreign oppression and allow the people to worship God in the way he ought to be worshiped.

So the people felt that a key ingredient was still missing. If only God would send his promised king, then then their punishment would finally be completed. The people longed for God’s promised ruler to arrive because his reign would mark a new era for Israel.

GOD’S ANSWER

It’s into this environment of frustration and hope that Baby arrives. His birth is miraculous. He is born to a virgin, and to a family that hails from David’s line. But at the same time, it’s unexpected. His parents are poor, working-class folks. The law demands that a mother of a new baby boy must dedicate him at the temple 40 days after he was born. When Mary shows up at the temple to do this, she encounters two characters that confirm Jesus’ status and also, speak to his role in God’s promise.

When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,

you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and the glory of your people Israel.”

The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

AN UNEXPECTED MINISTRY

Simeon and Anna both confirmed that Jesus was the promised king who would fulfill God’s promises. But that doesn’t mean that Jesus played the part people expected him to play. People thought Jesus would be a conquering king who smashed his enemies and took Israel’s throne. Instead he was a suffering servant who died a sacrificial death, seemingly humiliated by the foriegn oppressors everyone was hoping he would remove.

But that’s not the full story, is it. God raised Jesus from the dead. With the resurrection, we can see that our hopes were far too small. Israel had hoped for someone to end their struggle with foreign oppression. God had in mind to free them from the power of sin and death, a far more pressing problem. God’s people put their hope in God and God gave them far more than they asked for or imagined they could get from him.

God doesn’t play our games. He doesn’t promise he’ll fulfill our expectations because our expectations are often misdirected and far too small.

So what does this have to say to us, today? A good Christian will tell you that Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross. But if they’re really honest, they might admit that the world doesn’t seem like evil or tragedy has been defeated. While we can (and should!) take solace in Jesus’ victory over Satan on the cross two thousand years ago, we also recognize that the fullness of that victory has not yet come to its completion.

Jesus’ contemporaries longed to see the fulfillment of God’s promises. In Jesus, they saw the inauguration of God’s kingdom. But the church functions as the downpayment on a more glorious reality that will come to its fullness when Jesus returns. So God’s people longed for Jesus (even though they didn’t realize it) and we long for Jesus’ return.

Or do we? The Bible represents the story of people struggling with conflict and suffering. It germinated in the psyche of a people who had experienced slavery, brutal and barbaric warfare, deprivation and exile. As a people their collective experience was one of disappointment. Hope was all that kept them going.

Our lives are markedly different. Individually we experience loss: the death of a loved one, a financial reversal, or a frightening diagnosis. But as a people, our lives seem comfortable (with COVID 19 being the sole crack in that experience in a long time). This comfort can rob us of the sense of urgency that God’s kingdom demands. We’ve resigned ourselves to this reality and our great hope can become the maintenance of the status quo. God invites us to long for something more.

In order to do that, we, as the church, need to allow ourselves to experience the hurt of the world around us. A couple of weeks ago Kevin James asked me to join a team doing a documentary on the Opioid crisis in this area. In my day to day life, I don’t often deal with the hurt this epidemic has caused. And yet, this is an opportunity for me to open up myself to the reality of people whose lives aren’t comfortable. Paradoxically, if we’re comfortable people, it’s only as we enter into the discomfort of others, to weep with those who weep, that we enliven our own sense of hope in Jesus’ return. When we see how life feels cruel and unjust we long to see Jesus’ return to set all things right. When life feels fine, then we’re OK to wait. “Jesus, come back when you’re good and ready. But no hurry.” Our comfort has led us to a hope that is far too small.

So this Christmas season ask yourself. Are you comfortable with the world as it is, or do you long for Jesus to come and put it all right? If you are comfortable, ask yourself, who around you is not. Can you bring them peace, by caring for their needs, praying for them, inviting them into your world (admittedly in a way that takes seriously the reality that we’re in the middle of a raging pandemic). Can you show with your words and actions that that little baby has begun the process of changing this world. And can you live as if you believe deep in your bones that your suffering or the suffering of the people you care about will one day give way as Jesus returns to set everything right.