First Sunday of Advent

Jeremiah 33:12–16 (NIV84)

12 “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘In this place, desolate and without men or animals—in all its towns there will again be pastures for shepherds to rest their flocks. 13 In the towns of the hill country, of the western foothills and of the Negev, in the territory of Benjamin, in the villages around Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, flocks will again pass under the hand of the one who counts them,’ says the Lord. 14 “ ‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. 15 “ ‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.’

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If the season of Advent is about anything, it’s about hope.

We’ve talked a lot over the years about how this theme is somewhat lost in our immediate gratification culture.

Advent is meant to be about waiting in anticipation

Then celebrating the fulfillment of hope at Christmas with the arrival of Jesus

But we don’t delay Christmas celebrations and we don’t really sit in any place of longing

That is what it is at this point and I’m not sure we can put the toothpaste back in the tube as they say

And of all years, if putting your tree up early brought you some joy I say go for it

But if we zoom out beyond the Christmas season I think we realize all of us are living in a season of waiting and anticipation anyway

So maybe we just need to acknowledge it and pay attention to it

We could frame it a million different ways

We’re hoping the pandemic doesn’t keep morphing and disrupting life the way it has

We’re hoping the Church in America can course correct and become a healthier expression of the way of Jesus

We’re hoping our country changes to become a more JUST society

And in our unique individual lives we’re hoping for all sort of things, big and small

For jobs, for kids, for health

Point is, I don’t know that any of us think everything is as it should be now

and we’d just like the whole world to stay like it is.

and there’s nothing we hope to see resolved or changed

Sometimes the only thing that keeps us going is the idea that it won’t always be like this and that things will be different one day.

And of course the biblical narrative is built on THAT reality

That history is arcing to a cosmic resolution where everything is set right when Jesus returns

And things might get worse before that happens

Almost assuredly they will in some way

But we are meant to live as a people of anticipation and hope

The challenge is, of course, remaining hopeful when the circumstances don’t exactly instill hope.

And that’s what’s interesting to me about this passage.

What we have here is a specific promise to the prophet Jeremiah that the place where he lived would flourish again.

Not only that, a new ruler would come and instill justice and safety

A branch from King David’s line.

And you can imagine Jeremiah receiving this news in the best of times and rejoicing “Oh thank you God.”

But it’s the circumstances of the promise that make this an especially powerful witness.

Because Jeremiah is receiving this promise while the Babylonian army is laying waste to Israel, overthrowing Jerusalem, and carrying the people into exile.

What do you do with a promise like this when the world seems to be falling apart? How do you hold onto hope?

Do you just give in to the despair?

It’s easy to do that.

You can justify anger and self-medication by pointing at the circumstances.

You really lean into your cynicism and feel totally justified for it.

Maybe instead you hold onto some hope but it’s just a private wish-dream.

You’re kinda hoping something will change but you certainly aren’t going to commit any emotions, time, or resources to something you don’t have any real confidence in

You just ride the wave, as bitter as it may be

Or maybe, you take concrete action that anchors your hope.

Jeremiah gives us an example of this in the previous chapter.

What does he do? He buys a field. Big deal, right?

Well, he buys a field right near Jerusalem, which is being conquered as he’s signing the paperwork.

Oh, and he was also essentially in prison at the time, falsely accused of working with enemy forces.

Why buy a field then? Seemingly at the worst possible time?

BECAUSE he believed the promise of God that there would be prosperity in the land again one day.

Hope is an act.

He didn’t just privately hold this crazy conviction that something might happen. He acted on it in a real way.

Eugene Peterson once said, “What we call hoping is often only wishing. We want things we think are impossible, but we have better sense than to spend any money or commit our lives to them. Biblical hope, though, is an act - like buying a field in Anathoth. Hope acts on the conviction that God will complete the work that he has begun even when the appearances, especially when the appearances, oppose it.”

Jesus tells a parable about buying a field too, It’s in Matthew 13:44

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

The point being that the man got a glimpse of the kingdom, that reality where God sets things right again, and the man cashed out of every other hope and said THIS is worth investing everything I have into

So we might ask ourselves

What are the promises of God that we can hold onto

And what does it look like to act on them in real ways.

Let’s be clear here that God has not promised to fulfill all of our wishes

Praying for something specific is not the same as God making a promise to us

So we rightly bring our real desires to God and ask expectantly and remain open to God working but we hold those things with open hands

On a macro level though

We can hold onto the promise that the kingdom is breaking in and that Jesus is making all things new.

How do we act on that promise?

Like the man who buys the field with buried treasure we go ALL IN with Jesus.

We build our lives around his teaching.

We try to live out his calling on our lives.

We look for ways to participate in the renewal that we see happening.

We can also hold onto the promise that he who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it

How do we act on that promise?

We continue to pursue healing and growth

We press in and do the work of gaining self-awareness, and dealing with our hurt and our sin

We prioritize disciplines that help us connect with God in deeper ways and be sensitive to his voice

And as it relates to this Advent season, we can hold onto the promise that Jesus said he is coming soon

People in Jeremiah’s time (and hundreds of years after) were longing for the messiah to come and may have given up hope but he came

And when he lived and died and rose again he ascended to heaven and said I’m coming back

And we may be tempted to give up hope now

Maybe this advent season we can press in to where our level of hope is

And we can think about what it would mean to live as though our hope was real

Not just an idea

Not just a nice platitude that would be cool if it worked out but we’re not banking on it

A hope that would lead us to buy a field.

That is, to make real choices in our lives that anchor our hope in the promise of a savior and king who will set the world right again.