Prophets and Promises: HIGHWAY OF HOPE

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December 2, 2012 First Sunday of Advent Prophets and Promises: HIGHWAY OF HOPE Dr. John E. Harnish First United Methodist Church Birmingham, Michigan Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-10 Prophets and promises.

1 December 2, 2012 First Sunday of Advent Prophets and Promises: HIGHWAY OF HOPE Dr. John E. Harnish First United Methodist Church Birmingham, Michigan Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-10 Prophets and promises. A few years ago I received this anonymous letter, recopied from an original which was actually written (for those of you who remember such things) on a real typewriter! This paper has been sent to you for good luck. The original is in New England. It has been around the world nine times. The luck has now been sent to you. You will receive good luck within four days of receiving this letter, providing you in turn send it on. Don t keep this letter. It must leave your hands within 96 hours. An RAP officer received $70,000. Joe Elliott received $40,000 and lost it because he broke the chain. Constantine Dias received the chain in He asked his secretary to make 20 copies and send them out. A few days later he won the lottery for $2 million. Dalah Fairchild received the letter and not believing, threw it away. Nine days later he died. Remember, send no money, but don t ignore this. St. Jude it works. Well, how would I know? Because of course I didn t copy it and send it on. But on the other hand, I didn t die, either. There are all kinds of prophets and promises. Today, talk radio, TV and the internet are filled with lots of handwringing prophets of doom, announcing the demise of American democracy, saying the world as we know it is coming to an end. Just this morning the New York Times reported that there is quite a bit of hysteria in Russia over the Mayan Calendar and the possibility that the world will end on December 12. On the other hand, TV prosperity preachers, not unlike my chain letter, promise all kinds of goodies if you just plant a seed of faith, that is, if you send your money to them. But that is not the biblical role of the prophet or the nature of biblical promises. In the Bible the prophets are the proclaimers, not the predictors. They lift up the vision of God s judgment and hope for the world, and in so doing, describe the implications. Their role is that of

2 a witness to God s intent, God s vision, God s purposes, and to call the faithful to live by that vision. Enter Isaiah. I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to study the book with Todd Hibbard. Todd is a biblical scholar and teacher whose specialty has been the Old Testament with a focus on Isaiah. The book of Isaiah is a sprawling narrative (some believe it is actually two books) covering times of crisis and blessing in the life of the nation. Many of Isaiah s best known words are the ones we associate with Advent, the hope of the Messiah and the coming of God s kingdom. Looking back through the lens of the Christ event, we see them as glimmers of the kingdom and signs of the promises which are fulfilled in the coming of Christ. All of that is helped along by the fact that George Frederick Handel chose to use them as integral parts of his musical masterpiece, Messiah. This Advent season we will follow Isaiah s prophecies as we look for the signs of the coming of Christ in our lives: on the highway of hope, the pathway of peace, the odyssey of love, and the journey of joy. Today the highway of hope. Now hear this eloquent and poetic promise from the prophet. (read Isaiah 35:1-10) This package saved my life. * * * * * * * It s the final scene of the movie Cast Away. If you remember the movie, Tom Hanks played a FedEx trainer named Chuck Noland. He is a sort of modern-day Robinson Crusoe, the only survivor of a plane crash on a deserted island. All he has are a few of the FedEx packages which washed ashore with him: a pair of ice skates, some videotapes, and a volleyball he names Wilson, his only friend on the island. There is one more box, however. It has angel wings on the outside, but he never opens it during the four long years he spends as a castaway, and when he is finally saved, he takes it with him. In the final scene, he drives down a lonely Texas country road with the package on the front seat and Elvis Presley singing what else? Return to Sender. Which is exactly what he does. He is returning the package to the sender. He arrives at the house, and finding no one home, he leaves a note which reads, This package saved my life. Of course, what he meant was, Hope saved my life. 2

3 The box represented the hope that one day he would be rescued, the hope that one day he would be able to deliver the package to its owner. That wild, irrepressible hope kept him going through those long and seemingly hopeless years of desperation and disillusionment. At one point, the drudgery and overwhelming loneliness almost leads him to commit suicide, but the hope of returning home keeps him from doing it. This package is the package of hope. The package, he says, saved my life. That s what hope does. Hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism looks at the evidence and says, Things are getting better and better. Hope looks at the world as it is and then holds out the promise of something more, something better, something that goes beyond the evidence at hand and envisions a new future. 1. Biblical hope means living in two worlds at once the world as it is, and the world we hope to see. Some of you might remember the author John Indermark who was here back in 2008 as our Lenten scholar. One of his books is entitled Hope: Our Longing for Home. He writes: While hope keeps its eyes fixed on the future, hope also keeps feet planted firmly on the ground and has it hands thick in the mix of life lived now. We walk and work, we choose and hope now. In this moment, in this place, with our eyes fixed on the future. (John Indermark, Hope: Our Longing for Home, page 12) It s like living in two worlds at the same time. Christian faith sees this world as it really is: no Pollyanna paint-over of the harsh realities no fanciful denial of the world as it is no imaginary ignoring of life as it confronts us We are called to live in this real world, as it is, but we also live with our eyes fixed on the future, knowing that even as we live in this world, we claim the hope of the Kingdom and the promise of God s future. I am convinced that right now, somewhere someone is watching a rerun of Seinfeld. Remember the time Kramer was planning to move to California? He barges into Jerry s apartment as he always does and Jerry asks him, So when are you going to California? He answers, In my mind, I m already there. As Christians, in our hearts we are already there. We live in this world but we live in the promise of the world to come. Every time we break this bread and lift this cup, it is an acknowledgment of the real world in which we live: 3

4 a world where truth is often trampled and where goodness ends up on a cross a world where all too many people suffer and even the Son of God is forced to wear a crown of thorns a world where all too many bodies are broken and all too much blood is shed But at the same time, we lift this cup as a sign of our salvation and we break this bread as a sign of hope. We look forward to the time when all of God s people will gather around his table and we will feast at his heavenly banquet. We anticipate the day when his kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Hope means holding in our hearts and minds the vision of God s kingdom and living in this real world with the hope of the world to come living in two worlds at once. So Isaiah lifts up the vision. Living in the world as it is with his eyes fixed on the promises of God s future, he poetically envisions a time when the wilderness and the dry land will be glad, a day when the desert will rejoice and blossom like a crocus, a time when weak hands will be strengthened and the lame will leap for joy. 2. Biblical hope means living in two worlds at once, and biblical hope depends on the character of God. For Isaiah and for the prophets of the Old Testament, their hope was not based on the historical evidence around them or on the strength of the nation or on their own wisdom or strength. In fact, it was usually just the opposite. When things looked hopeless, when all the evidence pointed in the opposite direction, when their own wisdom and strength and the wisdom and strength of the nation had failed, their message of hope rang loud and clear because their hope was not based on historical evidence or personal wisdom or communal strength, it was rooted in the very nature of God. In the 39 th Psalm, the Psalmist cries out of his depression: I was silent and still and my distress grew worse. While I mused, the fire burned within me. Lord, let me know what s going to happen to me. My life is short, I feel like my life amounts to nothing but a breath of air, like a shadow. Out of his despair, he asks the question: Lord, what am I waiting for? And the answer: My hope is in you. Martin Marty comments on this Psalm in his book, A Cry of Absence: Reflections on the Winter of the Heart. He describes this kind of experience, when faith seems cold and dead, when God seems distant and hope is thin. And who of us hasn t been there? In those times and in this 4

5 Psalm, when the Psalmist feels abandoned, when he can t find anything worth living for, when his life feels as inconsequential a breath of air: Then, Marty says, with a wonderful suddenness and no sense of logic or continuity, the next line says My hope is in you. (Martin Marty, Cry of Absence, page 49) At that moment, everything turns on the character of the living God. Simply, My hope is in thee. No other props. No secondary rationales. No scaffoldings. Not even any promise that the one he is turning to will change anything. Just the rock solid hope rooted in the character of a loving, living God. I had someone in my office just this week, saying much the same thing. I don t know what s happened to my faith. I just don t seem to feel it anymore. Dealing with lots of stuff, I just feel lost. And when there is nothing else to turn to, we simply turn to the God who has come to us in Jesus Christ, the God of Advent who is known to us as Emmanuel, which means God with us; the God of Advent who has touched our world with love and grace in a baby born to Mary. We rest our hope on the character of this loving, living God. That s the wild hope of Advent and the promise of the prophet: that this God still remains faithful and that this God will come to us once again. that one day the wilderness and the dry land will be glad that one day the desert will rejoice and blossom like the crocus That s the promise and the hope of God s kingdom: that one day weak hands will be strengthened and feeble knees made firm that one day the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped that one day they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will flee away And Isaiah says a highway will be there and it shall be called the Holy Way. It s the highway of hope. And it is hope that ultimately saves our lives. 5

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4 WHAT DID YOU GO OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS TO SEE? Isaiah 35.1-10; Matthew 11.2-11 December 11, 2016, Advent III Tim Phillips, Seattle First Baptist Church Isaiah 35:1-10 35The wilderness and the dry land