First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
14“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”
Psalm 25:1-10
1To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me. 2Let none who look to you be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes. 3Show me your ways, O Lord, and teach me your paths. 4Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long. 5Remember, O Lord, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. 6Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O Lord. 7Gracious and upright is the Lord; therefore he teaches sinners in his way. 8He guides the humble in doing right and teaches his way to the lowly. 9All the paths of the Lord are love and faithfulness to those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. 10For your name’s sake, O Lord, forgive my sin, for it is great.
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
9What thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? 11Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you 13so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Gospel: Luke 21:25-36
25{Jesus said,} “There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, 26people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” 29And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. 30As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all has taken place. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 34But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. 35For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. 36But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Days of Promise
Here we go again. Our readings for this Sunday come to us unexpectedly. It’s the first Sunday of Advent, and one would think that our lessons would focus on Shepherds, or Mary, or Joseph, a virgin birth, or of Jesus coming to us as a babe in a manger. Instead, we have apocalyptic type passages about signs and wonders and the end of times. But consider for a moment, that the events our readings address all have a common theme, Christ is coming, and we need to be prepared, whether we celebrate His coming to us as a newborn in a stable, or as our Lord and King returning in glory. Both happened, and will happen again, during troubling times.
Without a doubt, the most troubling time in the history of the United Sates was the Civil War era. Devastated by the ruins of war, the country was drained emotionally and spiritually. The hostilities experienced weren’t just between regions of the country, they also spilled over into families and institutions. At many points during the war, people questioned whether they would ever be able to recover from the devastation that had been wrought upon the nation. The future was in serious doubt.
Because the period was so traumatic, those impacted lost all perspective on time. Many in this country found it impossible to imagine the future, or any type of recovery. After Gettysburg, General Meade wrote that he had lived thirty years in the last ten days. The young Henry Adams, on a mission in London with his father, wrote that people lived these momentous days “without a second thought, what at another time would be the event of a year, perhaps a life.” The people lived in such turmoil, in such a depressed state, they thought they would never get their lives together again.
In our First Lesson for today, we hear a prophetic word from God, written at a time when God’s people were facing a similar circumstance. The people were paralyzed by their lack of defense against the siege of their city by the Babylonians, and their ultimate defeat, all of which had been foretold through the Prophet Jeremiah. However, even as the prophet’s words called for the carrying away of the Hebrew people into captivity, the same prophetic word would give them the assurance of future restoration and hope. In addition to words of punishment, the prophet also proclaimed a word of promise, because God can, and always does offer a word of deliverance and hope for His people.
For Jeremiah the word of hope begins, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord.” Our hope in difficult times is, that the future is in the hands of God. Indeed, all of history, according to the prophet, is in the hands of God. The prophet is proclaiming that God is the mover and shaker of history. Regardless of how large the events are, or how far-reaching the affairs of the rulers of the earth are, God is the One who ultimately decides how things will turn out according to His will for His people. Obviously, the rulers of this world, and the people of any age are not always cognizant of God’s will or purposes. Thus, we, as self-centered creatures, tend to shape events and situations to suit our own desires and will.
At times, we can even be hostile to the will of God. God oftentimes works against the will of those who oppose Him. This means that God sometimes chooses to work through the people opposed to His divine will. The result is that God must set the stage for working out His purposes through whatever is at hand. And in this, we must remember that God chooses the right time, the favorable hour, and the most helpful circumstances for achieving His divine goals. In this season of Advent, as we prepare for the observance of the birth of our Lord, think of how God chose the most favorable moment for the birth of Jesus and the most advantageous time for the expansion of Christianity. The Apostle Paul spoke of that as the “fullness of time” (Galatians 4:4).
God’s fullness of time allows the events of history to ripen and come to fruition so that God can use the time to His advantage. The prophet envisions God saying, “I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” For a prophet, it was inconceivable that God could not or would not fulfill any promise He had made. The Hebrew prophets emphasized the Jewish belief that any promise God made, was as good as fulfilled. And because God had demonstrated His faithfulness repeatedly, one never had to question whether a promise made by God would come true. As far as the Hebrew people were concerned, the moment God makes a promise, “It was as good as done”. And for us today, we need to adopt this same outlook, if God said it, then we can believe it, and that settles it. The word of God can be trusted, because God is the One who has given the word.
We have a saying when we talk about people we can trust, “He or she is as good as their word.” About God we can say, “God is as good as God’s word,” and “God’s word is as good as God.” The custom of not leaving a worship service before the final blessing and benediction comes from the tradition that held that God’s promise of providence and grace for the week was a promise God would keep. The sermon may be just so-so, and other parts of the service may not always be inspiring, but one can always trust the blessing and benediction, or the promise from God. This Hebraic concept of God’s promise being a sure thing, is indeed surer than anything else.
Another thing we can count on, is the fact that God always chooses the right moment to deliver on His word of promise. God says, “In those days and at that time.” For the prophet, this meant that God chooses the zero hour, the time when things can and will converge to accomplish whatever God has in mind. The whole of history, the past, the present, and the future can be interpreted in the light of this fact. Our eternal God, who is timeless and lives beyond time, is willing to cross the dateline, lift the pages of the calendar, and set an alarm clock, to meet the opportunity to manage the affairs of the day in favor of God’s people.
Because God’s actions, at God’s own discretion, do determine the events of human life and all history, it’s vitally important for people to live accordingly, to live in anticipation of Christ’s return. Therefore, we must take the words of God seriously. Whether God is being revealed in law or gospel, we should be equally attentive to what God has, and is, revealing. In his case, the Prophet Jeremiah wanted to arouse the people of his day to what God could accomplish even in the midst of their crises and depression. And the Hebrew model is an example for us, of how we should consider the promises of God in times of tribulation and despair.
This is especially helpful in our time when people express their frustration with local and world conditions. Regardless of how it is for everyone else, we know our own circumstances have a way of getting out of hand and leaving us depressed. This is why it’s good for us to recall how the prophet could be certain of how God works in our lives.
God’s efforts of dealing with what happens in history aren’t limited only to what will happen at the end of history. God is active in the here and now. The days and the time in which God acts are not postponements and delays as signs of God’s immobility and indecision. God is constantly working to fulfill His will. Therefore, one must consider that what’s occurring in our world just might be the result of God’s judgment upon what people are doing. It’s a sobering thought, and too often we get that turned around.
Sometimes we think that the people, trying to frustrate the will of God, are winning. Often turmoil is the result, because God allows the planning and execution of evil to bring judgment upon the evil doer’s own heads. The opposite is also true. God can interrupt the activities of people by breaking into history with the freshness and newness of the revelation of good will. That’s the nature of the promise which Jeremiah wanted to hold out to the people of his time.
Jeremiah records God words: “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” (33:15). The prophet could proclaim this, even as the people remembered their beloved city laid to ruins by the Babylonians. The people had refused to listen to God’s many warnings. They even charged Jeremiah with being a spy, accusing him of working for their enemy. However, the handwriting was on the wall. Because of the people’s rebellion, Judah was destroyed.
Despite that, God tells His people, that in due time, the Righteous Branch would bring justice and peace to His people by revealing the blessing and healing the gracious word of God offers. In contrast to the power plays of the conniving enemies of the people, and of God, from both from within and without, the Messiah would bring peace and consolation to the people of God. The Righteous Branch, the Holy One of God, will fulfill the irrevocable promise of God. The presence of the Messianic figure will guarantee the good word the prophet delivers from God.
Jeremiah reinforces this promise even further by reporting that God says, “I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.” The reference obviously is to what God had done for Israel through the servant king David. David had been that ideal king whom God had established upon the throne for Israel. David had been successful, because he had trusted God, and the covenant God had made with the people. Because David had been this model, God had promised that He would continue the line of rulers who would be able to rely upon God’s goodness and providence through good kingly rule. But for the people in captivity, they couldn’t see that it could work out that way.
The succession of kings who followed David didn’t all walk in God’s steps. The kingdom had been divided, and monarchs in both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms failed to give a consistent witness to the gracious rule of God, which they were supposed to represent. And during all that time, God sent prophets to remind the people how it once was and how it could be again. And the prophets, like Jeremiah, had not been afraid to deliver this word within the courts of the kings.
Now Jeremiah said that God would restore the fortunes of His people by sending One who would be in the line of David, One who would resurrect the image of the king as God wanted the kings to be. In making that promise, God demonstrated how He runs the past through a sieve to make it work for the benefits of the future. God remembered how poorly the kings had performed, but God had not forgotten the promise He made to David for the sake of the people.
The effect of God acting on behalf of His people is that His people will be preserved and be saved. “In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety.” We know God did preserve the people of Israel in the time of the Babylonian Captivity. The people were also brought back to Jerusalem and lived through the difficult time of the Restoration. Later, the people managed to survive with the leadership of the Maccabees when the Hebrew faith was made illegal, and the Temple was profaned. And more recently, the Hebrew people have endured, persisted, despite the many holocausts and attacks launched in an attempt to destroy them. So also, the Christian Church has survived periods of turmoil and persecution.
The Christian community has also survived threats to the faith from within, that come from efforts to distort the message of grace by turning the gospel into cheap grace, or universal salvation, or by making church organization more important than the gospel, or by replacing the good news of Jesus Christ with the social gospel. In our own nation, where Christianity has had freedom to flourish in the past, some Christians feel uncertain about the future of the Church. The great pressures to now, haven’t been direct or overt persecutions, but our affluence and the competing forces for the commitment of believers, these are the serious problems for the church to deal with. Additionally, there is compelling evidence that political forces are working against the freedom Christians once enjoyed.
Many Christians are afraid that there are pressures for the Church to liberalize its own confessions and positions. However, when we take a moment to reflect, we can reflect on the fact that the church has already survived a great deal. We can think of the 1960s as an era in which all major institutions, including the Church, were under severe attack. Or we can think of losing a whole generation of the nones and dones, who are hopefully making their way back into the Church. When given the opportunity to consider what the church has survived, Martin Marty likes to quote a favorite professor who says, “We do not know enough about the future to be absolutely pessimistic.”
While it’s true we can be somewhat optimistic about the future, when we look at the world and the history of humanity, we cannot hope for a great deal. We know that the future is fraught with problems, pain, unbelief, and failure. At the same time the people of God can be more than just romantic or optimistic about the future. As the people of God, we can be absolutely sure, because God has assured us of an eternal future. We know the prophetic word of Jeremiah was Messianic. God did fulfill the promises He made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. God sent the Branch of Righteousness, the Son of David, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save all of humanity.
Jesus came to fulfill God’s promise by His death upon the cross and His resurrection from the dead. He executed justice and righteousness in a world filled with injustice, war, and unrighteousness. In Jesus we are justified, and God gives us the gift of eternal salvation by the forgiveness of our sins. In so doing God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. By faith we are saved, and as Jeremiah’s prophetic word proclaims, we are now given that name by which we are called, “the Lord is our righteousness.” We cannot have it any better than that. Advent is the time for us to realize that we live in the days of rich promise which God has fulfilled for us in the sending of Jesus, the Infant of Bethlehem.
We live in a season in which the world will make the frantic effort to beat last year’s or the best year’s Christmas sales, yet at the same time, it wonders if there’s anything it can do to stop the murderous behavior in our metropolitan areas, solve problems of the environment, reestablish peace in the Middle East and Europe, and solve the social problems of drugs, crime, and human trafficking so enormous one doesn’t know where to begin. Advent is a time when we can think seriously that the future holds great promise for us, because we know how God has fulfilled the promises He’s made in the past. These are days of promise for us, because of Immanuel, God with us.
Amen