Context of "Advent Hope" series: In the winter of 2021, while I was still a student at YDS, I was presented the opportunity to do pulpit supply for First Church of Christ, Congregational and Hopeville Church UCC. The two churches were yoked together and were entering Advent without a resolution to a search for a new pastor. I offered the theme of Hope in the past, present, and future to walk with the two congregations through a difficult time.
Greetings. I would like to start by thanking all of you for the opportunity to walk with your congregation through the beginning of the season of Advent. When I was asked to guest preach three services, I felt the work of the Spirit in an opportunity to offer a message that fit the season and your circumstances. I chose hope as my message because I imagine it is something that one cannot get enough of in this lull between pastors. While I cannot know how you have been affected by this trial, I can appreciate the weariness and doubt that grow as days pass without resolution. I imagine there is plenty of looking to the future, praying for direction, and longing for the comfort of a consistent face every Sunday. However, instead of encouraging you to be overly optimistic, I invite you to feel the anxious uncertainty of this long wait. It might be a mixed blessing, but what you have felt and are feeling right now is exactly what you need to experience Advent like never before.
Unlike in the past, you do not have to imagine this as a time of waiting. Your season of anticipation has already been longer than a month, but now is the time when you can be intentional about considering how this wait can be more than a pause before a solution. Take a moment to let yourself feel. Give yourself permission to ignore the holiday pressure to always be merry, to feel like everything is perfect. We do not get enough opportunities to recognize the other side of celebrations and anticipation, the stress and anxiety that goes into the payoff of Christmas parties, family gatherings, church decorations, nativity scenes, and caroling routes that do not just magically happen. It is okay to be drained, to not have the same level of energy that was in abundance in the past. Show up as you are and lean on the grace of a loving God who is with us in our highs and lows. For a moment, let us forget we know exactly when Advent ends, so we might place ourselves in the position of the ancient Jewish community that did not have a date to mark when their hope would arrive.
Let us forget for a moment the birth of Christ as the starting point for the movement that became our faith, Christianity. As we start Advent, we can experience this month of anticipation as a transformative experience that brings us closer to God and Christ. To help with this endeavor, I have chosen three passages from the Hebrew Bible to reflect on hope in the future, past, and present, through the eyes of the Jewish community that Christ was born to and picked his first followers from. Today, we start with Isaiah, looking to the future and anticipating a ruler and circumstances that could exceed all expectations.
Christians tend to jump to conclusions when they read Isaiah. When Isaiah says, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” (Isaiah 11:1) most Christians are likely to assume Isaiah is predicting Jesus’s birth. It is not hard to understand why. The beginning of the gospel of Matthew clearly traces Jesus’s ancestry back to Jesse, the father of King David, Christ’s distant ancestor.
Since we are familiar with Jesus’s ministry, the rest of the passage can be read as a prediction of the exceptional character that made Christ stand out. Jesus is the standard we use to direct how we live our lives, so it is fair to wonder who else, but Jesus could possess “the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord”? I do not have an answer to that because I admit I struggle to read this passage as anything other than a prophetic vision of Christ and his ministry. Nevertheless, it is essential to read this passage as more than messianic fulfillment because such a reading does not capture the anxiety and despair Isaiah’s audience would have experienced.
To better appreciate how Isaiah’s audience might have reacted to his prophecy, let us imagine ourselves in Jerusalem, over 2,700 years ago, awaiting an imminent Assyrian invasion. It looks like the end is nigh. Assyria’s armies are not just larger than Jerusalem’s; according to Isaiah, God is on the side of Assyrians, using them as a tool to punish the people of Jerusalem for their lack of faith.
Yet right after he declares Assyria is going to destroy Jerusalem, Isaiah follows up by predicting the restoration of the Davidic monarchy. This restored monarchy will not just be great, it will be spectacular enough to shift all relationships and expectations. Predators will no longer hunt prey. They will live harmoniously with them in a manner not known since the Garden of Eden. All of this will be ushered in by a child who “shall play over the hole of the asp” and “put its hand on the adder’s den” and “they will not hurt or destroy.” This child, “the root of Jesse” will be the greatest thing that ever was…yet Isaiah mentions this good news at a moment when it would not only be unbelievable but might have even felt cruel to offer when tragedy appeared imminent.
We look to the future because, no matter how much we examine the past, it does not make it any easier to believe our current hopes will not be shattered. In the UCC, we know this all too well. We are a tradition of “what’s next?,” looking to lay stepping stones to a trail to a promised land that sees all people as God’s beloved, without judging them by gender, race, sexuality, or economic status. Yet, for all the milestones and firsts our tradition has achieved, we have only known a present that does not live up to the peace and unity we desire. We dream of what can be but live day-to-day struggling with what is.
Hope is a fickle thing. It is easiest to access when times are easy, and hardest to hold onto when it is needed most. When we look to the future, hope resides alongside all possible outcomes, both good and bad. For minor events, hope does not matter as much. While we might look forward to a certain present under the tree on Christmas, for enough snow to go sledding, or for a favorite tv show to get renewed, our world’s do not end if such hopes are shattered. There are more Christmases, more chances for sledding, and other tv shows to watch.
However, the ways we experience hope at its fullest are often at the breaking points of a future we can stand versus one that risks utter despair. In this way we can empathize with the people of Jerusalem. Unlike the people of Jerusalem, none of us currently find ourselves under threat of attack from the Assyrians. They are long gone, no more than an ancient villain set aside as a historical footnote. But we can relate to obstacles and odds that strain our hearts and weigh on our souls. Whether it is praying for a cure for a terminal illness, longing for a job or promotion that can free one from check-to-check living, or addressing cultural and historical scars, we are not strangers to hope that hurts. Even though it is Advent, we do not have to look back 2,000 years to find instances of great promises and painful realities.
If we want to empathize with the people of Jerusalem, we only must go as far back as a century ago to find masses of people who hoped they could vote, have gainful employment, marry whomever they loved, or live free of harassment and persecution. If we go a century further, we would find the hopes of our Black brothers and sisters who fought to be recognized as people, not property. If, as Christians, we go back all the way to the death of Christ, we would find a fractured community that would have struggled to realize why everything had not changed, why predators still hunted prey and empires grew while the beloved Messiah perished. With each example, we have the luxury of looking back and mapping out the results that people hoped for, the birth of Christ, voting rights, federal protection of identities, the abolition of slavery. The list goes on. However, looking back is the work of a passive observer. And our tradition is not a passive one.
Mapping changes does not capture the anxiety of living in a reality that actively denies or works against the future one hopes for. We can look backwards for an assurance that change happens, that hope has a place in our hearts, but the process of living in this lull between moments can only begin when we lean into hope we cannot see.
As we find ourselves at another Advent, let us treat this as more than another repetition of a liturgical cycle. Take time to feel the longing for change that is not seen. In this season of anticipation, we come to terms with the most real, the most human part of our faith journeys, the lull between moments. In looking to the future, we do not know how long it will be until our hopes are realized, or, if they will be realized. For Isaiah’s audience, a savior that came over seven centuries after their lifetimes would feel too little too late.
Our Christian lens ignores the multitudes of generations that separate the birth of Christ from Isaiah’s prophecy. After this prophecy was delivered, each generation would have had to wield their longing for a messiah, against the brutal realities of exile to Babylon, destruction of the Temple, the end of the Davidic kings, and a return to Jerusalem that was marked by conquest from a succession of empires that colonized God’s people without repercussions. Yet, the remnant survived. Although their hopes were only bright in the future, they endured in the present until an unseen hope was realized. So too do you endure. A remnant that carries the legacy of this church in the memories and actions of every member turns a building into a living tradition. Pastors, like prophets, come and go. It is the community’s that survive and keep the spark alive. As you continue your search, find hope in the reality that lulls are not ends.
So, as we start this season of Advent and look forward, I ask each of you to take this moment to reflect on what you hope for. Where do you hear God calling to you? If you have found yourself weary and downtrodden, who or what can you look to for strength to carry through? If your heart is full, how can you help reignite hope in others? What is the difference each of you can make to have your home, workplace, church, community, nation, and planet be a defiant stance against despair until change arrives? You do not need answers now. You have the coming weeks, the short days and long nights to reflect on this. Let this advent be one where nothing is taken for granted so, when the end comes, you might find endless joy from the birth of a savior that changed everything.
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