This sermon was preached at the Evangelical Covenant Church of Belvidere, in Belvidere, IL on November 29th, 2015, another church that supported my parents for years before transferring their support to us in 1993. It was the first Sunday of Advent.
Jeremiah 33:14-16, Luke 21:25-36
Life is often inexplicably complicated. Hardships seemingly come and go without any rhyme or reason. Our lives as individuals and as members of society at large can be such a roller coaster ride. The experience of the Jewish people as recorded in scripture was no different. They went thru a lot and much of it was beyond explanation. At their core the Jewish people believed in a God who was essentially good; a God who had a specific plan for them, to bless them and protect them. And yet the setbacks they experienced often made it hard to understand, hard to comprehend. Why would a loving God allow so many bad things to happen to them? The unanswerable question of “why”… As a nation they experienced strife among themselves, eventually breaking into two kingdoms. Simultaneously they faced overwhelming threats from neighboring nations. Eventually they were brutally defeated and their nation ceased to exist. It was seemingly so wrong; so out of sync with what they thought to be God’s plan. It even seemed to suggest that maybe God didn’t really even exist, or worse yet, did exist but just didn’t care about them.
And yet… there were promises in God’s word that gave hope to the people of Israel. Promises that seemed to fully recognize all their pain and agony, and still affirm that one day they would be rescued and redeemed. These promises were the only source of hope for so many. And so it is that we see a long history of hanging onto hope in the face of really tough times. Today is the first Sunday in Advent, a time when we the church, the body of Jesus Christ, intentionally turn our thoughts to that theme. Faithfully waiting and hanging onto hope in the face of hardship. Clinging to the hope that God’s promise of redemption will be fulfilled.
READ Jeremiah 33 text
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
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.
In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The LORD is our righteousness.”
In the tradition of Advent, for the next four weeks we purposely remember those who waited, as a way to prepare ourselves for what happened next in the Bible story. At the end of this season we celebrate an historical event that took place two thousand years ago, an event we believe and proclaim to be God’s answer, God’s rescue of humanity, the fulfilment of God’s promise. But waiting is never easy, is it? As followers of Jesus, we know what it means to wait. We hold dear to our belief that Jesus was God’s act to redeem all of creation.
Jesus was the long awaited answer to those who waited in the face of so much pain. And yet as followers of Jesus we also know that when Jesus was preparing to return to God’s presence he once again initiated a period of waiting. Jesus told us that he would be leaving, and upon his departure we would see many horrible things alongside all the beautiful and wonderful things Jesus showed us. But then Jesus left us with a great promise; a promise that was intended to give us hope as we await the final chapter.
READ Luke 21:25-27, 32-33
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
And so it is that we find ourselves in the mysterious place between the “kingdom now” and the “kingdom to come”. The light has shown and God’s plan has been revealed. We have witnessed the victory of resurrection in Christ, and yet… And yet we are called upon to stand firm and wait for the final consummation of our redemption. God’s work of reconciling all of creation to God’s self has definitely begun, the work of fixing everything that we’ve broken. But the day of completion, the day when God’s victory will be seen by all, that day is still in the future. We live in that gap between what God is doing and what God will do. This is the world into which we have been placed by God. So while we are called to action, to continuing the work of Jesus Christ with everything we have, we are also called upon to wait.
But waiting is never easy. For some the task of waiting is much harder than for others. The Jewish people suffered horribly as they waited for the messiah to come. And today we still see a seemingly unfair and disproportionate distribution of hardship throughout humanity. Followers of Jesus in Japan know the hardship of waiting. After all, it’s hard to wait in hopefulness and anticipation when there are so few people who share your beliefs and convictions. Less than 1% of Japanese people are following Jesus. On the packed commuter trains and crowded streets, each follower of Jesus has to deal with the reality that if there are 99 people around them, they are probably the only Christian in that crowd.
Come to where we live, in a rural mountain community and there are even fewer Christians. Sure, if I look at my list of Japanese Facebook friends I’ll find a higher percentage of Christians. Maybe even 50%, but the moment I step out my front door and into the real world I am faced with a very different reality. Churches are small, averaging 20 to 30 people, and there just aren’t very many churches in any town. As I travel around this country I’m always amazed at how certain parts of almost every town seem to have a big church on almost every corner. When you are such a minority it can be hard to be hopeful, hard to be “fully convinced” of the truth we proclaim, hard to really believe in the eventual victory. But look again at what Jesus says as he seeks to prepare us for that wait.
READ v.25.
There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.
Four and a half years ago on March 11th, 2011 Japan experienced one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded. The resulting tsunamis were the biggest to hit Japan in over 1,000 years. The devastation is hard to describe in words and numbers can never do it justice. But just for reference, over 350 miles of coastline was ravaged. Total damages were estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Nearly a quarter of a million vehicles were lost. More than forty five thousand buildings were destroyed. And by the next day there were 18,000 fewer living souls in Japan than there had been the previous morning. The nuclear power plant in Fukushima lost its cooling system and three of the six reactors experienced catastrophic meltdowns, releasing significant amounts of radioactive material into the surrounding air and water. Over 300,000 people were evacuated, many with only hours notice and even now many of those towns and villages surrounding the power plant are completely deserted ghost towns with little hope of every being repopulated.
On September 27th, 2014 the earth once again trembled. The weather was perfect, fall colors were at their peak and throughout the mountains of Japan climbers and hikers were enjoying a gorgeous Saturday of climbing. Mt. Ontake in Nagano prefecture was picture perfect that day. It was almost noon, and there were about 200 climbers enjoying a lunch on the summit before heading back down. But then at 11:52AM the ground began to tremble and within minutes the mountain experienced a major volcanic eruption sending hot clouds of debris hundreds of meters into the sky. As that debris came crashing back down to earth climbers were trapped in a storm of falling rocks, many larger than bowling balls with nowhere to run or hide. In the aftermath 57 bodies have been recovered and 6 more are still missing. It was the deadliest volcanic eruption in over a century.
Just over two months ago as we prepared to leave Japan and come to this country we were in the middle of our annual typhoon season. Unusual atmospheric conditions led to a huge storm system getting stuck right over the Kinu river from its headwaters all the way to its mouth. Torrential rain storms pushed water levels way higher than normal and on September 11th multiple levies failed and widespread flooding engulfed the communities along the river. Hundreds of thousands of residents were evacuated and hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed. With today’s instant media coverage we watched live footage from the air as homes were swept away, often with residents stranded on the roof waiting for help. I don’t know how many homes were lost that day, but many people were injured and eight lost their lives.
These are only a few of the countless disasters we’ve experienced in Japan.
READ v.26
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
We’ve seen it, we’ve experienced it, and for many it is indescribably terrifying.
When Jesus spoke these words he made it clear that the signs would begin right away.
READ v.32
Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.
The very people with whom he lived and worked would see the signs. They would experience the hardship, pain and fear. History makes it clear that he was right. Widespread persecution of Christians began only a few decades after these words were spoken. And the temple in Jerusalem, the spiritual and emotional foundation of Jewish culture, was destroyed in the year 70, less than forty years after Jesus spoke these words. While scripture also makes it clear that no one knows exactly when Jesus will return, the signs of his return began occurring right after his death and have continued to this day. So we live in expectation, knowing that it is coming, just as the new leaves on a tree signal that summer is coming. But what does it mean to live in expectation? It would be one thing if the signs were pleasant, like new leaves in spring. We would simply get excited, be filled with anticipation, and redouble our efforts to do what needs to be done to get ready for summer. But Jesus’ words make it clear that the signs are not pleasant at all. No, the signs are terrifying. They fill our hearts with fear.
READ v.26
People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Sometimes in the Church we have a tendency to try to rise above it all and just detach ourselves from the rest of the world when bad things happen. If we can just somehow ignore all the pain and strife of this world, all the suffering and hardship and focus our attention on heaven maybe we’ll get thru it. And it is probably easier to do that when we live in a wealthy country like this one and when most of the world’s suffering people are a long, long ways away from us. But eventually the attempt to live in that sort of fantasy world breaks down. Eventually the fearsome signs get too close to ignore, too close to not feel, too close to not be afraid. Sadly, when that happens we often fall into the trap of letting fear control our actions. We find ourselves pre-occupied with national security. Risk reduction begins to determine how we look at people and how our laws treat those who are different from us, even if they are suffering greatly.
When America experienced the first full-fledged foreign military attack on U.S. soil the date was December 7th, 1941. Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor and the results were devastating. Never before had America felt so vulnerable. The reaction was swift and widespread. One of the saddest parts of America’s response was to forcibly take into custody, relocate and incarcerate close to 120,000 American citizens of Japanese descent. It was a colossal mistake that continues to haunt U.S. history even now but the reasoning behind this grave injustice has always been clear. One thing, and one thing alone motivated this action… fear! Today this nation faces similar questions of how to deal with national security, how to act in the face of increasing threats and danger. And one of the biggest questions is the degree to which we allow our response to be determined by fear. So how does this all relate to our journey as followers of Jesus?
As humans, we generally have one of two responses to fear. If we are in a position to fight back we tend to want to do so. History shows that when Christians were part of a society in which their faith was in the majority they used all the forces available to them to fight back when threatened. In the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries we saw the crusades. Horrible wars primarily motived by the fear of Muslims taking over. In the following centuries we see countless examples of the Roman Empire violently suppressing all who threatened the stability of the church. In many ways the United States has also been a place where Christians were able to fight back against things that were perceived as threats to our “way of life”. That is the one response to fear; fight back.
But then what about when you are too weak to successfully fight back? Church history also includes many painful stories of Christians who faced persecution. Situations in which there is no real option to fight back, no feasible way to protect ourselves. When the situation seems hopeless fear has the power to make us bury our heads and somehow hope to survive by taking the lowest profile possible. The two basic responses to fear; fight back or bury our heads and hunker down.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus provides yet another way. In other words, Jesus rejected both of the common reactions; fighting back and giving up. Many of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day were ready to fight back. That’s why they expected and longed for a rebellion against Rome. Many hoped that Jesus would be their leader in that uprising. And yet we know that Jesus refused to go down that road. And then when harsh persecution of his followers began, many were inclined to run and bury their heads in the sand. But Jesus provides another way.
READ v.28
Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.
Jesus tells us to “stand up and raise your heads”. Don’t bury them in the sand and give up. Raise your heads. This isn’t a call to arms, it isn’t a battle cry in the traditional sense. In the face of hard times Jesus calls us to stand up and raise our heads. The reason for doing that is clear, “because your day of redemption is drawing near”. We know how it will end so we are to raise our heads and fix our eyes on that promise. I can’t see the future if my head is buried in the sand. So we raise our heads high and look to the promises that have sustained God’s people throughout time. But first we must stand up. While that isn’t a call to arms, it is a call to action.
And so it was that the followers of Jesus stood up when north eastern Japan was ravaged by the earthquake and tsunamis of March 11th. We were there within days, motivated by the love and compassion of Jesus. We joined the wave of volunteers who swept over that region, seeking to do whatever we could to help those in need. While only one percent of the general population in Japan are Christians, the percentage was much, much higher among the volunteers in the disaster zone. And as the days, weeks and months passed most of the volunteers returned to their regular lives, but the presence of church based relief efforts in that area has remained strong. God is opening doors, and so when victims ask us why we’ve stayed there when so many others have left we get to tell them of the hope in which we live. We get to show them what it means to raise our heads and fix our eyes on the promises of God. And that story has been repeated in the aftermath of the eruption of Mt. Ontake, in the aftermath of the flooding along the Kinu river. The small and seemingly weak church of Japan has seen the power of God at work in our midst. We’ve seen the miraculous power of Jesus that takes small seeds and grows them into big trees, the power that turns water into very fine wine, the power that takes a little boy’s lunch and multiplies it into a feast for thousands, the power that takes a ragged band of 12 flaky followers and turns them into multitudes.
So I ask you a simple question this morning. As we enter this season of advent, the season of waiting, where is your heart today? In the midst of things that have the power to make us tremble in fear, where is your head today? Is it buried in the sand or is it focused on the promises of God’s word? And where are your hands and feet today? Are they turning to run? Are they itching for a fight? Or are you hearing the call to stand up and carry on the good work begun by Jesus? To be sure, it will be difficult so I join you in praying for God’s strength and sustenance just as instructed by Jesus.
READ v.36
Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.
As we offer those prayers I leave you with the promise of God’s word.
READ v.33
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
Amen
Speaking the Word 