November 30, 2008    Luke 21:25-36

    When my children were small, my grandmother gave us an Advent calendar that was the kind that could be used year after year.  It was rectangular in shape, and on it you could hang handmade decorations to carefully mark off the days in anticipation of Christmas.  While I did, off and on, have an Advent calendar as a child, it really was with that reusable one my grandmother gave us that the Advent calendar  became a tradition in my household.  When that Advent calendar finally wore out, I replaced it with a similar kind that is the shape of a Christmas tree.  I’ll put it up today, and once again we will begin the ritual of marking off each day in Advent as we anticipate with great wonder and hope the coming of Christ in the world - that is, Immanuel, the presence of God with us.

It is not just coincidence that the first Advent candle that was lit today is the candle of hope.   Advent is a season of hope.  And we are here today to remember that for us it is Christ who is the hope of the world,  that we are a people of hope, that our faith is grounded in hope, that we stake our very lives on it!

    We may have lit the candle of hope, yet here as we begin Advent, this season of great hope, we hear Jesus saying, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.  On the earth there will be distress and confusion.  There will be chaos and fright. Then the Son of Man will appear.”   Whatever hope may be found in these words sounds to me like a distant hope that requires a lot of turmoil before it will be realized.   Will all our hopes be dashed to the ground and crushed beneath us before Christ, our hope, is with us again?  Can such a cosmic and future event sustain us today?

    Oh, yes, the distress and confusion is most certainly real enough.  Home foreclosures, cars repossessed, banks going under, Target and Macy’s, Circuit City and Talbots closing stores, the auto industry about to go bankrupt, real estate prices plummeting, and an economy that needs a multi-billion dollar bail-out.  People losing jobs - a close friend who has been a contract attorney for Motorola for ten years is losing his job at age 66 and with a child in college.  Food pantries are showing bare shelves.   St. John’s Town Street gives away countless blankets, boots, and tents to the homeless.   And all this is just the tip of the iceberg.   War continues in Iraq.  War continues in Afghanistan.  War continues in Israel/Palestine.  Oppression and injustice seem to be around every corner.  Where is the hope?   Where is the promise?  Jesus, we cry, where are you?  Where are the signs that you are near?

    But Jesus does not just say there will be distress and confusion.  He also says, “Stand up and raise your heads.  Your redemption is drawing near.  Stand up!  Look around!  Take notice!  Your hope is not in vain.” 

    The other night at the BREAD Assembly we heard a story about a boy named Calvin who is in fourth grade.  His mother gets up at 4:00 A.M. to leave for work by 5:00.  She works until noon and then travels to the west side to get training at a trade school until 6:00 in the evening.  Calvin has three older siblings who leave for school before he does.  If he misses his school bus, he then has no way to get to school, and as a result he has missed many days of school and has become yet another truancy statistic which if it goes unabated will leave him unprepared for adulthood, unemployable, and dependent upon public assistance.

    Calvin’s mother was fortunate enough to learn about the KEY Truancy Program that began as a result of BREAD’s initiative.  Because of this program his mother now has an advocate in the school system that will help monitor Calvin’s school attendance and has seen that he has transferred to a school closer to his home so that he can walk to school.  Calvin is just one example of the impressive gains in student attendance due to the KEY Truancy Program.

    “Where are you, Jesus?” we may ask.   I wonder if you aren’t already here.
   
    Last week when I was home nursing a sinus infection, I decided to watch a movie.   I watched the movie “The Painted Veil” based on a Somerset Maugham novel.   Some of you may have seen the movie or perhaps have read the book.  I have not read the book, so I don’t know just how faithful the movie is, but nonetheless I found the movie to be powerful, and it has haunted me ever since.  The story is about a young English woman named Kitty who marries a man named Walter whom she does not love, but the match pleases her parents.  Walter is a bacteriologist who accepts a position in Shanghai where he takes Kitty as his new bride.   Kitty, however, quickly finds herself bored and without purpose.   Her attention becomes diverted by another man with whom she falls in love and has an affair.  Walter discovers the affair, and in his despair and anger decides  to accept a call to go north in China to an area that is experiencing a cholera epidemic and to take Kitty with him.  Kitty wants no part of the plan but ultimately goes with him after her lover disappoints her by refusing to divorce his wife.  After a gruesome journey north Walter and Kitty settle near the disease infested area.  Walter mentally and emotionally punishes Kitty for her betrayal by ignoring her, never looking at her, and rarely speaking to her.   Eventually, however, Kitty finds an outlet for her sense of uselessness by volunteering at a convent school.  Ultimately Walter and Kitty are able to break through the barriers that have been built. Reconciliation occurs; love is rediscovered; forgiveness accomplished, and  Kitty nurses her husband on his deathbed as he dies of the ravages of cholera.   In the midst of  pain and hardship and death their relationship endures, and they find their ultimate redemption.  For me this story is a profound metaphor for the truth that in the midst of darkness the light of Christ may be found, in the midst of distress and confusion we need not abandon hope.

    Stand up, raise your heads and look around!  Where is Christ?  He is there!  For Jesus not only says he will come amidst distress and confusion, but Jesus says, too, that, “lo, I am with you always.”

    Trees may lay dormant through the long, cold months of winter, but when buds appear and they sprout new leaves in the spring, you know that summer cannot be far away.  “Look,” Jesus says.  “Look at the trees.  Where there seems to be death, there is life.  Leaves will sprout again.  New life will appear.”

    The last time I was in Yellowstone National Park it happened that it was the year after a major fire had decimated a great deal of the forest there.  We saw field after field of charred and branchless lodgepole pines, spruce, and fir trees, but beneath the devastation grew a soft blanket of grass and flowers - Indian paintbrush, fireweed, bluebells wild geraniums, and asters.

    “Stand up,” Jesus says.  “Raise your heads.  Look at the trees and the promise of life that lies beneath their barren branches.  Within all the distress, confusion, within all the signs of death and devastation, I will be there.  You may live with the hope and confidence that I am with you now, that I will be with you tomorrow.  And my presence will assure your redemption. This is my promise.  This is your hope. Live by it.  Stake your lives on it.  My words will not pass away.  My promise is forever.”

    Jesus is the hope of the world.  In four weeks we will celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world.  Let us celebrate and rejoice once again the promise and hope of Christ’s presence among us - not just for tomorrow but for yesterday and today, this morning, this hour, right here, right now.