The Purpose of Christmas (as revealed by the Angels): Part #1 Advent #1 Are You Ready For Some Hope? Rev. D. Johns Sunday December 2, 2012

Introduction:

"I hope it doesn’t rain the day of the picnic." But you and I have no control over the weather. Hoping it doesn’t rain is nothing more than wishful thinking. Is Christian hope wishful thinking in the face of all that we can’t control? "I hope my team wins.” They might win; it’s possible to be sure, even though it’s extremely unlikely if your team is named Toronto Maple Leafs. Is Christian hope a hankering after what is extremely unlikely? "I hope we’ll soon learn to get along together, and class hostility, social conflict and financial exploitation will soon be a thing of the past." Anyone who speaks this way is most naïve concerning human nature and utterly ignorant of human history. Is Christian hope childlike naivetés with respect to our nature and inexcusable ignorance with respect to our history?

If I asked you to specify the most dangerous person in any society, what person would come to mind? The psychopath? The most dangerous person to have around isn’t the psychopath. (Besides, how many of them are there?) The most dangerous person to have around isn’t the murderer or the molester or the lunatic. It’s the cynic. The cynic is forever sneering, "What’s the use? Why bother?" The cynic’s noxious breath is breathed out everywhere. Unlike the breath of God that turned dust into life, the cynic’s breath turns life into dust. The cynic claims victories here, there and everywhere. The cynic’s victories, of course, are actually victims, victims whose new-found "What’s the use?" abandons a world that God never abandons. To be sure, the damage done by those who violate God’s creation is no little damage; far worse, however, is the damage done by cynics whose cynicism impedes the healing of the creation and disdains the signs pointing to its ultimate restoration. The cynic has lost all hope and smells of death. And into this world of hopelessness steps a life-giver, a Messiah, a hope builder!

BIG IDEA: Christmas inspires hope through the ANGELIC WORDS OF REASSURANCE from multiple locations:

• To Zechariah Luke 1:11-13 How ready are you to hear good news? What makes us deaf to good news? • To Joseph Matthew 1:18-20 Disappointment & worry tend to steal our hope? Hope grows when we know that God has a plan? • To Mary Luke 1:28-30 Uncertainty unsettles and promotes confusion which crowds out hope. God’s favor frees us to hopefulness. • To Shepherds Luke 2:9-10 To perceive God’s glory opens an opportunity to receive God’s good news. Hope is birthed.

On all 4 occasions, the messengers of God speak hope into the face of fear.

• TWO MORE ‘HOPE HEROES’ IN LUKE 2: SIMEON and ANNA

IN TIME, HOPE WHICH HAS SUSTAINED LIFE ALL THESE YEARS, FINDS ITS FULFILLMENT. How many times were these two hope-filled people subjected to the cries of critics and cynics – give it up! Forget it! Move on! Don’t be a fool! You’re wasting your time!

application:

1.Let me say it again: the cynic is a blasphemer. She maintains that struggling on behalf of a groaning world is pointless. She’s a blasphemer inasmuch as God’s struggle on behalf of a groaning world is going to issue in splendour that will redound to his praise. The cynic cruelly worsens the afflictions she could relieve and blasphemously imputes indifference or ineffectiveness to God. The cynic is the most dangerous person on the face of the earth. What’s the point in helping feeding people every month through our foodbank? The point is that a banquet has been arranged for them at which they’ll be eating something besides tinned beans and Kraft Dinner. What’s the point of resisting arms races, even as we are aware that every single arms race in the history of the world has issued in war? The point is that the day has been appointed when swords will be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. What’s the point of tireless work on behalf of deranged people? The point is that like the deranged man in the Gadarene hills who lacerated himself and ran around naked and shrieked appallingly; like that man whom our Lord touched as an instance of the kingdom, the deranged are divinely destined to be found, one day, seated, clothed, and in their right mind. What’s the point of teaching underprivileged adults and ex-convicts to read? Don’t even ask the question, for blasphemy ought never to be uttered in these precincts.

2.How is it that we who are believers live with hope while unbelievers do not? Believers and unbelievers alike live in the same world, suffer the same pain, and undergo the same treachery and turbulence and tragedies. Yet believers speak of God’s faithfulness as the ground of their hope while unbelievers see no evidence of faithfulness and no reason to hope. Believers continue to hope, continue to insist on a future certainty despite present contradictions, and never feel that their hope is misplaced. The gift of God is Jesus. The good news of God is Jesus. The hope of God is Jesus. While such hope is plainly a gift, however, it isn’t a gift only; it’s also a command. God commands his people to hope. To be sure, it’s only as he gives us hope that he commands us to hope, yet command us to hope he most certainly does. For this reason the mediaeval rabbis used to say that the arch sin is despair. Without hope, Christian faith collapses. Faith is faith in the God who won’t abandon his creation, his people, his projects so much as a nano-second. We say we believe in God. What kind of God?-The God who returns the creation to the glory with which it first came from his hand.

Paul writes a word of encouragement to the Christians in Philippi, "I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." (Phil. 1:6) Is God like a transplant surgeon who removes the patient’s damaged heart and then gives up on the surgery, leaving the patient with no heart, or with the new heart improperly connected, or with the new heart properly connected but without the after-care apart from which the heart-transplant is useless? He who has begun a good work in us is going to complete it.

Illustrations:

1. Uncompleted ‘concrete bunker’ on the main street of Creston for last 15 years! 2. Entire ultra-modern engineered city in China left abandoned

Conclusion:

Despite life’s contradictions/corruption/conditions, despite life’s unanswered questions, despite life’s pain/problems/pollution, we are to join prophets and apostles and saints through the ages in announcing ‘there is coming a day”!, that day above all days when the world’s wretched neither hunger nor thirst any more, when nation no longer lifts up sword against nation, when God wipes away every tear from every eye. Amen.

Other ‘hope verses’ to ponder:

Isaiah 30:18 “The Lord longs to be gracious to you: he rises to show you compassion. Blessed are all who wait for him!”

Romans 15:4 “for everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Hebrews 6:18,19 “it is impossible for God to lie – we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”

Philippians 1:6 "I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

You must have noticed that scripture links faith, hope and love, and groups them together again and again. Hope is the middle term between faith and love. Hope keeps faith from collapsing under the burden of disappointment and delay. Hope keeps love from dissolving under the acids of frustration. Hope fortifies love and lends it resilience. Hope stiffens faith and forestalls collapse.