Sermon - Rev. Judith Perry

Let’s start with John the Baptiser who goes to live in the wilderness, not usually done. The Jews were village and city people. The wilderness was a dangerous place. 

John takes the words of Isaiah and gathers a group of curious men around him. He declares the way must be prepared, because someone was coming.  

A goodly number of people thought that he was a fanatical nut case. Did he think that he was Elijah?  

The current conspiracy theory at that time was that Elijah would return before the coming of the Messiah, who would then take charge and expel the hated Romans. 

Really John was announcing a new vision. He thought that he was announcing a new paradigm of justice, righteousness and this morning’s emphasis on peace. Today we lit the candle of peace. 

John prepared the way. When we prepare s something it is because we are planning, we are hoping, hoping about a future event. 

Last week’s candle was for hope. This week it is for peace. Whilst I, and us all, earnestly hope and pray for peace, peace is a noun, whilst hope is both a verb and a noun. 

Bearing in mind that we hope and pray for peace, I want to look more closely at that word, hope. 

Hope can mean many things. I hope the Canadiens, the Habs, get into the playoffs this year, and that the Maple Leafs hit rock bottom again. Faint hope.  

But here hope just means wish, nothing more. 

If I buy a ticket I hope to win the lottery. It is only a wish, and flimsy at best. 

I’m pretty sure that that is not what the Apostle Paul had in mind.  

He said in his letter to the Romans, that the unchanging and inspiring message of scripture fills us with hope, or when he prayed that we, his readers, would abound in hope.  

Was he writing that we should just be a bunch of wishful thinkers? Or maybe that we Christians should have a more optimistic outlook on things than everyone else? 

Now hope can also mean that I intend to do something. I hope to get my Christmas shopping finished by the end of this week. And I hope to get my floors washed, too. 

Those are my intentions, but I used the word “hope” and it works that way, too. 

But we don’t light a candle for those kinds of hope. 

And hope is always, it seems, for a future event. I really hope my nutty family behave themselves this coming Christmas. 

But then with Paul and intrinsic to our faith, there is an element of the Divine in hope. We have hope for a future that has no ending. This is the Advent message. 

Not only do we celebrate the incarnation, the coming of the Divine into our world and our existence, we hope for a future when the Divine Energy will permeate our, and the world’s, complete existence.  

Come Lord Jesus is a statement of profound hope. 

The early Christians looked back at the beginning of the Book of Isaiah which reads: 

 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the LORD shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD. 

And a few verses later: On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. 

It is as if: a green shoot sprouting from the stump of a tree, and 
the family of David will again produce a king. 

But then it gets quite fantastic, because when this hopeful event occurs, it will go something like this: 

The coyote and the lamb will play together; the hawk and the pigeon will share a nest; the bear and the rabbit will eat together, and a little child will lead them around on a leash like a pet dog. 

Foxes and wild turkeys will forage together; 
their kits and chicks will snuggle up to sleep; 
and sharks will go vegetarian. 

A baby will play with a rattlesnake; 
toddlers will stick their hands into wasp nests unharmed. 

He might as well have written “when pigs fly”. It seems that this hope is not grounded in material reality, even though he goes on to write: 

There will be no killing or maiming on the LORD’s holy mountain. Just as water fills the oceans, so will the earth be full of people who know and love the LORD. 

This is hope, but it is hope taken to a new level. It is a hope for which we yearn. We yearn for that peace signified by this morning’s candle.  

It is a hope for the future in the darkness of today’s reality. 

From the letter to the Roman’s Paul wrote; I pray that God, the source of all our hope, will give you such a faith that produces a flood of joy and peace that fills your lives and spills over into an unshakeable hope in believing  through the Holy Spirit. 

Hope is not a wish, nor an intention, it is a divine gift which is cognizant of the past and open to God’s future. 

Then there are major consequences for our living. It does not mean that we determine policies and outcomes. 

 It really means that we pledge ourselves, our bodies and our souls to radical openness and submission to God, whom we cannot understand, envisage, or control.  

It may seem like blind faith, insane bravery or even naïve stupidity. 

But if you have abandoned yourself to the loving care of  Christ, then you are in a place of joyous freedom. You do not know where this Spirit will blow, or where you will end up.  

You are on a path of joyous freedom, and your life is truly worth living. You have hope, and your soul is at peace. 

And from the letter to the Romans: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.