"May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones." -- I Thessalonians 3:13

 

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your hearts, because your redemption is drawing near." -- Luke 21:28

 

         There are songs to sing during the season of Advent and Christmas which guide us on the way. Some are familiar; they are in the hymnal. Some are passages of Scripture; they do not come with notes or a tune, but they are songs of hope, of joy, of faith, of remembrance of what God has done. These are the songs we need in this season: not what is called the holiday season, which has its own purposes and music, but in this season of our lives. It is a season that has its share of anxiety and perplexity and despair. It is a season where we are aware of terrorists, a season where uncertainty reigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also a season in the church where we are in so many ways losing our voice in this American culture. So we need songs of hope and faith to guide us to our redemption.

         These are songs of the soul, they are expressions of God's grace, and they bring light to the path that leads to the kingdom of God. We sing them now while we wait, we sing them when the earth trembles beneath us, and we sing them as we do God's will.

         I cannot sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" without remembering how it became a song of hope in a very sad time. It must have been in the early 1980's when our friend Bev Peterson died of cancer. Her husband, Carleton, was pastor in Bellingham, Washington at the time, and they were a great encouragement to us. She left three small children. I wondered what song there could be at such a time. To begin the service, a woman sang, quietly and slowly, with just guitar accompaniment, the second verse:

"O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice, rejoice; Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

That is a song of Advent hope that speaks to a true season of life.

         This year, the reading assigned for the first week in Advent puts us into the middle of a text filled with anguish and perplexity, and there sings us a song of hope. Just before Jesus goes to the cross, as he is in Jerusalem with his disciples, he predicts the destruction of the Temple. His disciples were amazed at the beauty and magnificence of this structure. Its latest rebuilding was begun in 20 B.C. and would not be completed until 64 A.D. So it was still under construction as they walked past it. Its imposing presence said clearly that God would be with his people forever. Stability, permanence, beauty, tradition: The temple was the solid ground to stand on, even as the people lived with the Roman occupation.

         When Jesus told them this temple would be destroyed, he spoke the unthinkable. But in 70 A.D., after a long and devastating siege, the Romans in fact destroyed and burned the temple. The people who first read Luke's gospel had seen this devastation, maybe even lived through it. They knew of the starvation and fear through the long siege, some had watched the temple fall; it was still fresh in their memory. They had lived with some very troubling questions:

•          How can Jesus be the Messiah, when there is no temple?
•          How can Jesus be the Messiah, when he was crucified?

It is best not to jump too quickly to the answers, but to just imagine the despair and turmoil that these must have felt who lived through those years. They were in need of a song to lead them to the resurrection and the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord.

         In this long and difficult passage, Jesus speaks first to his disciples who will see him die in a few days, and who will also see the temple fall in about 40 years. The word of Jesus to his disciples is to "stand up, and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near." This was not just a word spoken to those who would see the temple fall, but as he goes on, even when we come to the day when the sky and the sea are not stable -- "stand up and lift up your heads." Then he tells them not to be weighed down, to lose their hope in dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life.

         Paul also writes words of hope to people who live in a different place, who live in Thessalonica, and who face a different set of problems and persecutions. Paul prays for them, that God would strengthen their hearts and make their love for each other increase, so that on the Day of Redemption they would be blameless and holy.

         These words of Jesus and Paul are also for us today. Every day we are confronted with pictures: first, pictures of bombings where buildings suddenly collapse and lives are lost. Every day we see pictures of terror in the world, and these pictures tell us that our world is not stable or predictable. We cannot put our confidence in the things people have built.

         We also see pictures of prominent and powerful people caught in scandal, and the financial structures they have created can wobble. And then another picture immediately is shown to us, sometimes in the blink of an eye, the picture of terror switches to a picture of a new car to be purchased, or a Caribbean cruise which can be paid for with a new credit card, or maybe it is a picture of a football game and who will be the champion this year? All these pictures come to us at once: terror and entertainment, suffering and drunkenness or fullness, side by side. We can get drawn into the fullness that is offered, even the drunkenness, and become unable to respond, to carry out God's will in such a time; or we can get stuck in the anxiety, we can get frozen with fear and do nothing but cling to the tradition.

         The problem for us spiritually is that it is hard to pray in such a world. It is hard to come before God in silence. It is hard to feel, to think clearly, to truly experience God's presence. We are in need of a song of hope. We need a song to lead us, to awaken us, to draw us to our redemption.

         It is in the apocalyptic vision of Jesus, in verses 25-38 of Luke 21, that he gives us such a song. He is no longer speaking about destruction of the temple here, but a vision of the last days. And the word or song that he gives is that God's reign will not fail. It is a word of assurance that God is not done with his people yet, that whatever situation we may find ourselves in, whatever despair we may feel, God's kingdom is near and he is the ruler at he end.

         Jesus calls on us to wait, to pray, to be watchful, that is, to be about his business in every season. We have a living hope in Christ. Since God will not fail us, we are to be people of evangelism, people of mission, people who care deeply about conversion of the people around us, who care deeply about justice, about expressing mercy. We care deeply about the things of God, because in the end, God reigns.

         We live in a season in which we have concerns about our future. We see a whole generation of young adults who are leaving the Christian church. This week I heard a seminary student say that she did not know any of the friends of her age who were still going to church. It is startling and overwhelming when we see what is going on. And yet we seem unable to respond or to understand. We are often locked into traditions that seem to have no voice to speak to the young in our culture. It appears that the church has lost the great moral battles of the day. In the universities of our land, the Christian voice and perspective is nearly absent.

         John Kass wrote an article in the Tribune the other day. He went to a shopping mall and asked a number of people "Who or what is the object of our thanks at Thanksgiving? That is, who do we give thanks to?" No one could answer his question. No one could say, "We thank God." Nor could they say who the pilgrims gave thanks to on that first Thanksgiving Day. We are concerned about our future, and about a generation that is not hearing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

         Jesus says to us, in our despair and anxiety, "Look up." That is to say, look for what God will do next. There are indeed signs of life springing up all around us. There are encouraging reports of what is called the emerging church, the churches that are being planted by a new generation, churches which are calling young adults to a deeper discipleship, and have a new vision for what it means to follow Jesus. These churches may indeed bring us to a new day, although I wish we could all be involved together. I feel it is too big of a task to lay on a single generation. I believe that we should begin an intentional ministry to young adults, to those in their 20's and 30's who are without Christ and without the fellowship of his body.

         What is clear is that no single movement, no single call for reform or awakening, no one group with a new agenda, is going to succeed alone. We are all in desperate need, and so we are all dependant upon what God is going to do, we are looking for God to act with power, and to do a new thing for us all. That is how we are to pray. And for that mighty action of God we are to be ready. So we sing a song of hope on our way to the new day. God is not done with us yet. His reign will not fail.

"O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here; disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death's dark shadows put to flight. Rejoice, rejoice; Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

         Amen.