Wait, Anticipate, and Trust
Today, the church begins a new year. Last week we proclaimed the reign of Jesus Christ, Lord, and Savior over all creation. Today, with the beginning of a new church year, we enter the season of Advent. Advent, rather than beginning with sweet baby Jesus, barely 8 oz., and wearing golden fleece diapers, starts with the voice of the prophet Jeremiah calling the people of Israel to wait, anticipate, and trust in the promised future of God's reign and the restoration of the house of David. You will remember from Sunday school that the good ole days of Israel were found during the reign of King David. Despite his faults, King David, the giant-slaying king, was God's anointed, the leader of God's chosen people. After David's rule, Israel was conquered by the Babylonian empire. Part of the population was taken hostage in their homeland while others were forced to live in exile. A chosen people, once united, now divided and scattered.
The prophet Jeremiah was one of those held captive in his homeland.
" 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."[i] This branch would be Jesus.
Jeremiah spoke to hostages who had been unable to leave but were forced to live as a conquered people and had begun to be seduced by the ways of their captors. Many during this time were making the best of a terrible situation by bending to the changing cultural norms. Jeremiah says that turning to these new norms will not bring about God's promised redemption of the nation. The shoot out of the stump of David will be the result of the faithfulness of God and not Israel's pressure to conform to Babylonian society.
This is our second Advent living under the weight of a global pandemic. Another year apart from ones we love, hoping our holiday cheer will be enough to dull the pain and sadness of a still-spreading virus Like Israel looking back and remembering the good ole days of the reign of King David, I find myself looking back to this time two years ago, longing for an Advent and Christmas free of masks, illness, and sadness and despair.
Are you feeling the same? Are you looking back because, from your vantage point, life going forward without a global pandemic or endemic seems unrealistic? I find myself lying awake at night wondering if our new normal, masked with infection surges, will continue. Would it be easier to simply accept the way things are in the new normal? Are the way things are going to be the way things will be?
While sitting in a Starbucks in Clarendon, I wrote this sermon where employees and patrons were separated by plexiglass. If not for the sounds of espresso machines and milk being steamed, I could have mistaken the coffee shop for a bank. My fellow customers and I were spaced further apart than most kids at school, glancing, really glaring at one another to see who was going to wear a mask between sips of overpriced lattes.
Is this how things are going to be? I long for the days when I was interrupted to answer a not-so-quick question about the Bible while writing or reading. What do I need to do to right the course it seems we are determined to continue along?
Rev. Kathleen O'Connor describes Israel's state during the Babylonian hostage crisis as people "taken captive, dragged from the land and deprived of their temple. They are beaten, imprisoned, and faced death as a people, and like Jeremiah, they cried out to God in despair."[ii] God's promise to never abandon or forsake and raise a Righteous Branch is not a quick fix for the condition the world found and finds itself in. Jeremiah calls God's people to trust in God's provision in the past as they, as we, imagine what the shape of God's fulfillment of promises made will take in the future.
The good ole days always seem, well, good, and the temptation that if you can't beat them, you might as well join them is a constant in our lives. Jesus told his disciples that his return would bring the fulfillment of his Kingdom, the Kingdom of God. The world will "see the Son of Man in a cloud with great power and glory." What began in a manger in Bethlehem will be fully realized, embodied to the fullest because God is, as God has promised, coming to us. Like it or not, the redemption of creation that began in the manger, longed for by Israel and proclaimed by the prophets, is coming. While we may long for the good ole days or bend to the new norms, God tells us to wait, anticipate, and trust.
Wait, anticipate, and trust because we cannot make things turn out the way God wants them on our own. We are unable to embody the righteousness required to course correct a sin-filled world.
So, what are we to do? What steps need to be taken to speed things up, so the good old days no longer seem like a distant memory?
The good ole days and even the status quo may be OK or even great for us, but for many, the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, Christ's return cannot come quickly enough. What we may long for could be a return to pain and suffering for others.
So, what are we to do? What is to be done? This is the rub; there is nothing for us to do. The prophet Jeremiah did not leave a checklist. I checked the gospels, and Jesus did not leave five easy steps to the second coming. All we can do is look forward, not backward, waiting, anticipating, and trusting the coming reality embodied in the promise of Chris's return, proclaiming the reign of Christ.
We are living between two Advents. Christ has come; Christ will come. The tension can be unbearable, and this is the life the Church lives. Between the two Advents, we find ourselves between the good ole days and what has been promised by God.
The good ole days and status quo are not good news, but because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we can be proclaimers and a community that embodies the reign of Christ, the Righteous Branch, here and now. A community of people committed to waiting, anticipating, and trusting, all the while knowing that we may look odd or seem out of place in doing so. But our oddness points away from ourselves, and toward the new normal the Christ promises is coming.
