Salt Lake City, Utah
November 26, 2006
November 26, 2006“Emmanuel: Looking Up For Hope”
Introduction
Every year I remind the children of the church of the meaning of each of the candles of the Advent wreath. One year an exuberant 7-year-old jumped in and listed them: “There’s love, joy, peace, and…” With that pause, his younger sister chimed in with “Peace and quiet!” Maybe some peace and quiet is what we all need in these few weeks to come.As we enter the season of Advent, I am always confronted with the tension between what is already fulfilled, known and accomplished in God’s plan for life and faith and what is not yet. With Advent and Christmas we hear and celebrate all that Jesus Christ accomplished in his life, death and resurrection. It is a season of hope, knowing that God came into the world to save us. But it is also a season of hope as we look forward to what we have yet to experience.
I hope the Jazz will continue their winning ways as they have started the basketball season (12-2 they lost last night). I hoped that the Utes would beat BYU again this year (they should have won that game). Many people hope that Congress will be more effective with the shift in power to a Democrat majority (I doubt it). All of us hope that the nations of the Middle East will find a way to peaceful coexistence. From relatively meaningless hopes to those of great significance, is this the kind of hope that the Bible offers? I hope not!God’s word of hope says it this way: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (that’s Hebrews 11:1). Pinning one’s hopes on the Jazz, the Utes, Congress, the economy, other nations of the world will almost always disappoint. Pinning your hopes on God in Christ holds a very different dynamic.St. Augustine described how we human beings have a “God-shaped vacuum” that only God can fill. Most people unfortunately want to control their own lives by filling that God-shaped hole in their lives with other things like sports, politics, money, position, power, and the like. We even can seek beauty while ignoring or rejecting the One who creates both beauty and our ability to perceive and appreciate it. As the apostle Paul notes in Romans 1, we so often worship the creation rather than worshiping the Creator.So, when we put our hope in something or someone other than God, the vacuum goes unfilled and we are left disappointed. People of faith have known this for a very long time. And yet each one of us needs to learn it for ourselves; the psalmist of some 3,000 years ago needed to learn it; the apostle Paul of 2,000 years ago, St. Augustine of 400 A.D. and every believer since. I. Where Is The Hope? (vs. 1-3)
“As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God… Yet other people say to me all day long with doubt and derision, ‘Where is your God?’Whether it comes from our own compulsions, addictions, or disorders within us or it comes from the problems of living that come at us, this life has problems, hurts, disappointments, difficulties to deal with. From age to age, generation to generation, person to person, the fallen nature of human beings is well documented. When you come face to face with a debilitating struggle of some kind, the apparent absence of God in a time of need, or a situation that seems hopeless, what do you do? Curse God? Reject belief? Endure it with a vaulted human optimism? Give up and wait for the end? Or do you look to God, to your Savior, to the One who knows exactly what you are going through?What is the most often said, recited or quoted prayer? “Help!” It is the best way to go. The psalmist put it this way: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” The Psalms are so honest in their constant call to God for help. Psalm 3: “I call out to the Lord.” Psalm 4: “Give relief from my distress; have mercy on me and hear my prayer.” Psalm 5: “Hear my cry for help.” Psalm 6: My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?” Of the 150 Psalms about half of them cry out to the Lord in these ways.So, step one to a life of hope, real hope, is recognizing your need for Christ and call out to the Lord for help. The Advent message is “Emmanuel, God with us, look up in hope.”II. Remembering Where Hope Comes From (vs.4)
“These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go to the house of God under the protection of the Mighty One with shouts of joy and praise among the festive crowd.” Notice how the psalmist’s thoughts go back to better days when he was able to worship the Lord with great gladness of heart. It seems a renewal of hope can begin with a renewal of worship. When we take our eyes off ourselves and our problems and focus them on the glory of Christ and the worship due our Creator, hope, real hope has a chance of returning.That’s why it is so important to come to worship in the church regularly with God’s people. The songs, the prayers, hearing God’s Word read, the message, the being together opens us up to the amazing work of God’s Spirit to minister his hope to us. Hopefully, your church experience here at First Presbyterian is better than the strange church sign that read: “God Cares About You” Sundays 10:00 AM only. Our times of worship together are meant to open up avenues of God’s care for us not only today but throughout the week and throughout our lives.Where else are you going to hear the good news of God’s hope. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” That’s how Paul concludes his letter to the early church in Rome (Romans 15:13). You won’t hear that on National Public Radio. “With minds alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” That’s what Peter writes to the first generation of Christians. You will not hear that on Fox News or see it as a headline in the New York Times. “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.” That’s in a personal letter to Titus in the New Testament (Titus 2:11-14). When was the last time someone wrote to you about the blessed hope in Christ? Most Christmas cards (I mean, “Holiday” cards) on the shelves are more concerned with little birdies, holly, wintry scenes, and season’s greeting.Here is where you can join with the psalmist, with God’s people throughout the ages and with one another today to discover and rejoice in real hope“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” This refrain is sounded for us in verse 5; again in verse 11; and again in Psalm 43, verse 5. “Put your hope in God.”All of human history including your life and mine is moving from creation to consummation in God’s plan and purpose. From the blessing of all the nations intended in Genesis 12 with Abraham the father of faith in the Old Testament to redemptive and prophetic promise fulfilled in the One came and will come again as witnessed in the pages of the New Testament, the season of Advent and Christmas continues to announce God’s hope for every person. In Jesus Christ, God is Emmanuel (God with us) and comes to bring our personal lives and all of history to their appointed goal and fulfillment.Conclusion
So, where is your hope? With the Utes or the Jazz? Wall Street or Congress? In yourself and your ability to control or just accept life as it comes at you? Or is your hope in the God of the Bible? Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus the Christ? The Advent of Jesus, the coming of Christ has indeed happened in human history. The Advent of Christ, the coming of Jesus again in the complete fulfillment of history is sure to come. Has the Advent of the Savior come into your own life? The risen Lord said, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in” (Revelation 3:20). Open the door this Advent/Christmas to the Savior. Open the door to hope, real hope in Christ.Let us pray together.
