Sermons at St. John's Presbyterian Church

Lead Us Home to Hope, O God

Transcribed from the sermon preached November 28, 2010

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

St. John’s Presbyterian Church
2727 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705
Telephone 510-845-6830    Fax 510-845-6837
http://www.stjohnsberkeley.org

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5, Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 24:36-44

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Advent means come, or coming. What do we do when something is coming? We wait, but we’re talking active waiting: we get ready.

I loved the adventure book and movie, the Perfect Storm. Author Sebastian Junger showed the working class life and community of the fishing village Gloucester, Massachusetts.  Loved ones of the sword fishermen spend much time anxious and hopeful, waiting for a ship to come in.  They look out on the horizon for glimpses, for the advent of a ship.  And when they see a speck out on the ocean, they look closer, perhaps a girlfriend puts on something cute, and they come down to the dock to get a closer look, to see if their boyfriend or husband or dad is coming home.  They hope everything is all right, that they come alive, healthy, and with a big haul of fish.  And then they celebrate. 

Bob Coote shared with us that the word gospel means war report.  It is news from the front.  So now picture one of Caesar’s generals returning home to Rome with a gospel.  The news that they were coming would travel faster than the army so there would be some anticipation, some preparation; the trumpeters and flower girls and the flag wavers would get ready.  Food would be prepared. Special clothes would be put on.  And then off in the distance people would see dust, and then hear the stomping of marching boots and horses.  Eventually the general and his chariots would come into view and finally arrive, and the fanfare would begin, and the gospel or war report would be brought to the Emperor.

We are not exactly sure when or what is going to come, we can’t control it, but we hope it is good and we prepare so that it may be so.  Christian advent looks back to the excitement of those who waited for the Christ child.  We look with hope to the future culmination of history in what is called the second coming, and we look for how God comes into our lives today.

We think that this 2^nd chapter of Isaiah comes from sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem.  We might think the people would lose hope, for rather than people coming to Jerusalem, they were more likely fleeing it.  Rather than it being a high mountain, it had been flattened.  And God didn’t seem to be judging much but Jerusalem itself.  Nevertheless, this great hope, this great vision carries with it the power to make a nation.  As people recommit to what is truly valuable about their common life, it gives them support for what they have been, faith that the present trouble is not all there is, and hope that despite their current downward direction, in the long haul, they would rise to their dream; rise to their dream of a nation where God’s teachings would lead to justice and peace; and people would beat swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.  I love the Psalm 122 of our call to worship: It shows an understanding that if we want peace for ourselves, then we seek peace for our neighbor.  For the sake of God’s household, we seek the good of others.  This is the hope of a great nation, a great people, God’s people.  This is a vision worth waiting for.

Now Paul and Matthew expect an apocalyptic end to the world and soon. “Salvation is nearer now that when you first became believers,” says Paul.  “About the day and hour no one knows,” says Jesus, not even himself. Two will be in a field and one will be taken, and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding meal together, one will be taken and one will be left.  Keep awake therefore.

The day and the hour no one knows, but we know it is coming.  We don’t even know how, but it is coming.  When we are young we often think we have a bunch of time.  But we never know.  In college, a friend of mine was in a van with nine members of his crew team.  The van had a blow out, spun and flipped down the freeway. Three of his teammates were killed, while my friend rolled out with a couple of minor scratches.  One will be taken, another left.

Just recently, Andy Irons, three-time world champ in surfing caught a bug in Puerto Rico and died on his way home to Hawaii.  Young, cool, talented, good looking, rich, dead, just like that. One will be taken, another left.

It is strange, but the death of my mom was more shocking to me than the almost death of my father.  We knew my dad’s heart was not that great.  He had been trying to control congestion with medicine.  So when we got the surprise call in Houston on the way home from Guatemala, I was not that surprised.  Then while my dad was still in ICU, we got the news of my mother’s cancer and she died six weeks later.  She sold a house two weeks before her death.  Feliciana’s parents went the same crazy way: her father was diagnosed with cancer; then wham, her mom was hit by a car.  One is lost in an earthquake, another left.  One drowns in a hurricane; another is saved. Two go to work in a tower; one comes home. The day and the hour nobody knows, but one will be taken and another left.  So stay awake.  Be ready.

An end makes us aware of the value of time and eternity.  Yesterday, the Washington Huskies were down by three and got the ball back with under 2 minutes left. With their last down on the last second, they scored to beat Cal.  That was a valuable two minutes. A team will prepare all year for those two minutes. The end makes us aware of the value of time.  Death makes us aware of the value of time.  It shines a light.  We are only here for a short bit, but our short time helps us see the value of life beyond our short time.

It helps us see the value of the past, the presence of God in the past. We are thankful that we don’t have to invent the wheel and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  We are thankful that those who have come before lived the lives they lived and made the contributions that we, hopefully, can build on.  Some things are evident because of the experience of the past.  So, for instance, with hope for the future the authors of the Declaration can proclaim, all are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. They have an unrealized vision of a nation of prosperity and freedom, and they draw on the past creation for hope in the future.

Because God has come, we expect God to come again. If we have a taste that the author of life is greater than our little lives, and that by God’s grace we are in some sense one with Her, then why should we not have hope that bodily death is not the end?  We wait for the future with hope.

Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven says, “Killing a man is a hell of a thing.  You take away everything he has ever had, and everything he’s ever gonna have.”  But if we have had a glimpse of the eternal God come to earth in Christ, and we have a taste of eternal life through the risen spirit, then we do not lose everything we’re ever gonna have in dying.  In fact, we believe, we become one with God: now we see in a mirror dimly, then face to face.  It will be a beautiful day.  We will have more than we can imagine. More than that we will not have the need to have. We will just be.

These are tough times today.  As the political public, I don’t think we know what we want; we just know we don’t want what we have now.  So we swing with the winds.  Terrorism is incredibly frustrating, for we do not know who or how to fight.  The temptation is to give into fear, to use tractors to destroy homes rather than plant olive trees, put money into missiles rather than books or health care. And there are signs from the environment that Judgment day is coming whether we believe God is bringing it or not.  Most have been hit by this economy, by wars and disasters.  And there are always our own personal problems, illness, aging and death.  These are tough times.

Some of us may recognize the value of time, and see that our lives are going in the wrong direction.  We wake up and find ourselves in a spot we would hope not to be caught on the day of judgment.  So, by the grace of God, we make the leap of faith and change.  In hope for a better day, a better way, we stop a bad habit, a way of life, and we have to make new friends, better habits, and it is hard. There are times when we are lonely, and don’t know how to be, or if we can be this way.  We have to hang in there; we have to wait. But as we know Christ came with grace, so we know Christ comes with grace still.  In grace we wait for grace.  By grace we hope.

We are not starting from scratch.  We are not alone.  God has come.  God is coming.  God is here.  So rather than live in fear, we can live with the hope of a world where we say, for the sake of my family, Peace be with you.  For the sake of the house of God, I seek your good.  And even as we look to the past and realize that they didn’t get it all right, we can honor those who have come before for the vision, for the Gospel, which has been passed onto us and keeps us alive and working for the day when we can sing with joy, “God has arrived.”

We may not succeed fully in our lifetime, but at least we know what we are living for, at least we work toward a future worth hoping for.  And the war report of Jesus Christ is that this vision, this dream cannot be taken away even if we are killed, even as one is taken and another left.

But here is more good news; the vision doesn’t just depend on us.  It doesn’t die if we slip up.  It doesn’t die if our body dies.  The vision lives, it came to others before us and will be there in the end.  And we are called again and again to get back up, to get on track, to get on board, to wake up, to come put on the armor of light, to live honorably, not reveling in drunkenness, debauchery, quarreling and jealously.  We are called to seek our own peace by seeking the peace of others, to pound swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks.

And so tough times come as they may, we are here to celebrate the Good News of the Advent of Christ, the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, embodied divine love, to lift up hope for a future where God and God’s peace and justice prevail, to live as God comes from within us today. Thanks be to God, the God of Grace, the God of hope.