Isaiah 64.1-9; Mark 13.24-37
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
My two front teeth
….
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Wishing, hoping, praying … we throw three coins into the fountain, we bury a prayer slip in between the stones of Jerusalem’s ancient wall … we tie a prayer cloth to a tree in Scotland … we make a wish and blow out our birthday candles.
Hope is the stuff of life … from our two front teeth to things more elaborate:
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the treetops glisten and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow
Hope grows more complicated in fractured times - politics - polarized … Christianity - confused … a world at war.
I want to be careful when I speak of hope … hope in my life is of a different order than hope for those who’ve lost loved ones and homes in war … those caught up in vast and tragic social changes - the hills of West Virginia soaked with fentanyl, the dark alleys of St. Louis - folks stricken with sudden tragedy, illness, violence … everything turned upside down in the blink of an eye … hope vanishes like an early morning fog.
This much I know: those who wrote the Bible were women and men of suffering and sorrow … they knew the loss of home and loved ones … they knew the horrors of flood and famine, plague and death … the words of the Bible are written in the Valley of the Shadow of death, in wilderness regions where hunger and thirst are daily realities, in times of war and desolation … when all the usual hopes of life are destroyed.
The sadness on most every page of the Bible gives their words credence … they who know the deeps of sorrow speak to our needs, to our hopes.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want … yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death …
Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies … thou anointest my head with oil.
Hope is the golden thread of the Bible …
God created the heavens and the earth with hope.
With hope,
God created you and me.
I hope you will love the world I’ve given to you … I hope you will love one another, and practice kindness and mercy … I hope you will take care of the Garden, and help it grow, rich and beautiful …
But even God lost hope one day.
I regret having made this creature, said God … this creature of death and confusion, this creature who kills it’s brother, grabs for everything it can - I’m done with it, I’m outta here, I care no more, said God.
The rains came, hard and heavy, and washed the world clean … but God couldn’t give up hope, entirely.
God saved Noah and his family … told ‘em to build an ark, and take along all kinds of animals, two-by-two … you know the story …
When the waters receded, Noah and his family, the animals of the ark, were the beginning of a new day, a new world.
Rainbows in the sky.
But it goes bad quickly … family discord, distress, craziness, nonsense … war, famine and destruction … What’s God to do?
God taps an Old Man, an Old Lady, on the shoulder, Pssst, may I have few moments of your time?
The Old Man and the Old Lady turn out to be Abraham and Sarah … and then a child, Isaac … and from Isaac, Jacob … and from Jacob, the 12 tribes … and from the 12 tribes, a nation, a people, a plan … a hope.
But the same struggles emerge … hate, jealousy, greed, violence, and murder …
King Saul fails badly,
King David sins terribly,
King Solomon comes to ruin.
What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?
God empowers the Prophets …
Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.
Hope takes a turn to something new … hope for a Messiah …
Who would reknit the unraveled story of love …
Who would face the worst of it, and conquer all of it …
Who would walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and come through it with life abundant …
Who would enter into the pit of hell and quench the flames of death.
Who would do it right … and do it right for all the world.
A messiah, a savior, the Anointed One … The Christ.
When we say “Christ,” it’s not a name … it’s a title … like saying Judge Thompson, or Dr. Ramirez, or President Biden.
Christ, in English, is the Greek word, Christos, from the Greek word, chrio, which means “to anoint” … a translation of the Hebrew word for Anointed … מָשִׁ×™×—ַ … hear the word, “Messiah”?
Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One … in that little manger in that little town in the dark of night of so long ago … hope is born.
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
in light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.
Hope still lives and breaths in this world of ours:
Rosa Parks on the bus … Martin Luther King, Jr. on the Edmund Pettus Bridge … Jesus climbs into the boat and crosses the Sea of Galilee … Paul the Apostle on his way to Cyprus … Peter in the city of Rome … missionaries, monks, and musicians, travel far and wide to bring the gospel of hope to the world.
I think of our diplomats crisscrossing the Middle East in the search for peace … people throw their hats into the ring to run for local schools boards and library associations to protect our books and promote learning.
A grandmother loves a child … a friend offers a hand … millions of folks who do good.
They serve the church as elders … they sing in the choir … they decorate the Christmas trees … they’re faithful in worship, Sunday by Sunday - they show up and keep the lights burning … they sing the hymns and say the prayers, they hand out bulletins, and bring on the donuts!
Paul the Apostle put it like this: Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Holy God, Holy Light,
eternal peace ever bright.
Be with us in these days, we pray.
With Christ, to keep us on our way.
Hallelujah and Amen!
