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Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, looking at the Old Testament reading from Jeremiah as the text, please be seated. People generally like to look forward to certain things: vacation, parties, births, anniversaries. And of course, this time of year, we’re looking forward to Christmas. It’s the start of the season of Advent. Advent means arrival or appearance. We’re looking forward to the arrival of baby Jesus.
All three of the readings today have a sense of looking forward to them. Advent is a wonderful season in the church year, a season of looking forward. But maybe you feel like you don’t have much to look forward to recently. I know students at UT are not looking forward to the crunch of this last week of the semester and then final exams looming just beyond that. Maybe you’re not looking forward to the shopping hustle and bustle of holiday preparation. Maybe you don’t even see how you can pull Christmas off this year.
But more seriously, maybe you’re not looking forward to facing a certain situation in your life right now. It seems out of control. You don’t see a way out of it. You don’t see a resolution to it: finances, employment, relationships, health concerns, or whatever your situation. You’re not looking forward to it, but you know you have to face it. When that happens, it’s hard. It’s difficult.
Looking forward can be hard because it involves waiting. And waiting… waiting can really stink. Waiting for a new job or any job. Waiting for a pink slip that you know is coming. Waiting for relief from pain. Waiting for a diagnosis. Waiting for the death of a loved one. Waiting for someone, anyone, to come and comfort you. Well, if that’s you, Advent is for you. Because Advent is a season of looking forward, but it’s also a season of waiting.
Advent is the shortest season in the church year, but it’s reflective of the longest season in life: the season of waiting. Advent affirms your waiting and gives you hope even if you’re not looking forward to something. You’re waiting for the arrival or the appearance of a way out. You’re waiting for a resolution to whatever situation is going on in your life right now. Advent is for you because in Advent, we wait.
But Advent offers something to look forward to, even when you’re not looking forward to something. Again, all three of the readings today have a sense of waiting and looking forward to them, but especially that Old Testament reading from Jeremiah; it’s a waiting with hope. Maybe you heard them as it was read, but do you see in that reading all of the wills and ours there are in there? Just the first verse alone: “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.” I mean, twice in the first verse alone, the days are coming and I will fulfill the promise.
And then there are five more wills. Seven times in just three short verses are these promises that God makes—promises of justice and righteousness and salvation that is to come. Jeremiah was waiting and looking forward to it, but with a promise of hope. Jeremiah was looking forward to a promise— a solution, a resolution that is. A way out of the situation at hand. And God’s promise of hope comes.
And it’s a promise that God is going to show up. God is going to be there. He’s going to be there with a way out. He’s going to be there with a resolution to whatever is going on in your life. No, I can’t tell you particularly how your situation is going to work out, but there is a way out. There is a resolution for whatever is going on.
Now, you may have to be a part of that coming about, and it may not be easy; it may be uncomfortable, and it may even be painful, but there is a way out. There is a resolution, and God is going to be there. He’s going to show up. There’s hope. And that’s exactly what God offers in Advent: something to look forward to in your waiting. Something that gives you hope in that situation in your life.
There’s something to look forward to in those situations, but even more so, there’s hope in your sins. Yeah, hope, even in the things that you’ve done that are against God’s laws. Things that are selfish. Things that hurt other people. Things you’ve done, said, or thought that are against God: some behavior, an attitude, maybe some habit that is against God’s law. Things for which you deserve, as we confess, temporal and eternal punishment. There’s not much to look forward to in any of that, is there?
Maybe you don’t look forward to facing the consequences of whatever sins you’re committing. Maybe you don’t see a way out of it. You don’t see a resolution to it. You’re stuck waiting, and that’s hard. But Advent is for you. There is something to look forward to, even in your sins.
But it’s not by you resolving that or coming up with a way out of it. The forgiveness of your sins arrives and appears in Jesus. Looking back at those verses from Jeremiah in the reading, what was going on at that time that was causing this waiting of Jeremiah? The Israelites, they were in captivity. Their land had been invaded, Jerusalem had been destroyed, and most of the people had been taken to another country. And they’re stuck there, waiting, with nothing to look forward to.
They’re looking for the arrival and the appearance of a resolution, of a way out of their situation. And God showed up— first through Jeremiah, with these promises of the reading today. And then God showed up. They were eventually freed, and they could return to Jerusalem. But it was years later that God showed up in truly keeping those promises: the promise of justice and righteousness and salvation. They came. They arrived. They appeared in Jesus Christ.
He was born in the family of Judah and was a descendant of David as promised. And justice, righteousness, and salvation arrived in the birth of Jesus. In the life, in the death, and in the resurrection of Jesus. In Jesus, God literally showed up and truly kept those promises: the forgiveness of sins. God literally showed up with a way out, with a resolution to our sins in forgiving them.
In Jesus’ birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection. And we don’t have to wait for it. No. In Advent, we look forward to Christ’s birth and celebrating it again, but it’s already happened. He’s arrived. Jesus appeared, and He’s come and has brought justice and righteousness and salvation to us. It was promised and now fulfilled, and we enjoy the benefits of that.
All of those ours and wills have become is. Maybe familiar verses to you from 1 John chapter 1. In fact, we say it in our other liturgy, our other services: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He is faithful. It’s not just a promise that He will be faithful; all the will-be’s have become is. It’s now.
And that means for all of your sins, even those that you don’t look forward to facing or confessing. Even the ones that you’ve long awaited a time for a way out of it, for a resolution. Well, it’s arrived. It’s here in Jesus. There is hope to look forward to. There is forgiveness now.
Now today we lit the Advent candle for hope. The first candle is the hope candle. And that hope, we know, has arrived in Jesus. Personally, I don’t know how people in the world who don’t have that hope, who don’t have that hope to look forward to, get through life. I don’t know how they get through life with any comfort at all. I look at it this way: without hope, how do they cope?
And maybe that’s you. Maybe you don’t believe in that right now. But God has that hope for you too. The same promise to Jeremiah and to his people today is for you too. You also have that to look forward to. Or maybe you know somebody who’s having a hard time coping without that hope. Maybe you can be the one that brings that to them, who brings that comfort.
They’re probably waiting for it, even looking forward to something more in life that they need for whatever situation is going on. Maybe you’re the one who can bring that to them because waiting is hard. But when you can look forward to something, then the waiting is worth it. In fact, that’s, I think, the definition of looking forward: is waiting with hope. Looking forward is waiting but with hope.
And right now, St. Paul Lutheran Church, that’s us. Okay? We’re looking forward. We’re waiting with hope. Yeah, it’s been three plus months now since being vacant of a pastor and a minister of music. But we’re looking forward, right? We’re waiting with lots of hope. And I think we’re doing a pretty darn good job of it.
The council, the elders, the call committees, and each of us are continuing God’s work here at St. Paul. Let’s hang in there, okay? The process is going. It’s going well. Let’s keep looking forward. Let’s keep waiting with hope and with patience and unity and joy as we look forward to God’s promise to provide a new shepherd and a new minister of music.
May each of you also look forward to that promise, look forward to God’s providing, and look forward to God’s forgiveness. Even if you’re waiting for it, wait with hope. God provides it. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which goes beyond understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
