9 December 2012

2 Advent C
HOPE: from the prophets ... through Jesus ... for US
“Hope on the horizon”
Baruch 5:1-9 / Luke 3:1-6
9 December 2012


The scene on the front of the bulletin this morning … yes, I know, it’s a little difficult to make out … but it’s a scene familiar to anyone who has traveled the “high line” … Highway 2 through Montana, taking “the old road” back to the Midwest and beyond.
This was our favorite way of traveling back and forth to the Northwest during our years in Minnesota … the old highway is slower, quieter, easier in many ways than the Interstate.
And my favorite part of the trip was always this … what we have before us today. It’s somewhere west of Cut Bank, Montana … the point in the trip west when you wonder if you’re ever going to get across eastern Montana … when, in the distance, on the horizon … faintly at first, then, increasing, slowly but surely, the closer you get … rise up the Rocky Mountains of Glacier National Park.
When we saw the mountains … our spirits always rose, and we were filled with hope, hope because once we saw the mountains, we knew we were getting closer to home.
Now, of course, there were, there are, miles and miles of driving ahead to “the wet side” … at least three sets of mountains and passes to climb over … deserts and valleys and lakesides and, depending on when you cut over to I-90, one large city (Spokane) to maneuver through.
But at this point … home is getting closer… you can see it, you can almost taste it … hope is on the horizon.

HOPE on the horizon. That also sums up our reading from Baruch. These words come around every three years as an alternate Sunday text – alternate because they are from the Apocrypha, books recognized by many but not all Christians as canonical and authoritative … these are the books “between” the Old and New Testaments in many editions of the Bible.
I like Baruch because historically, he is Jeremiah’s secretary … recording Jeremiah, whose words, small signs of hope, words of encouragement to his people Israel, in exile, taken away from their homeland and held as prisoners and slaves … those words, we heard last week, God’s promise that God would raise up a righteous branch, a leader for his people from David’s line, who would “execute justice and righteousness in the land.”
Now, this week, Baruch’s words not only echo, they increase the volume of Jeremiah’s words of hope.

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Arise, Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remember them.

Baruch’s words … the prophet’s words of true HOPE … they’re the inspiration for our closing song this morning, “People, look east” … they represent the words, the hopes and dreams, the people of God of that exiled time and place … that God would keep promises, and bring the people of HOPE back to the land of HOPE and fulfilled promise for them.
Granted, that HOPE was still a long ways off. To those carried off into exile to Babylon, they were thousands of miles and hopes and dreams away from home … for those left in Jerusalem, waiting for friends and family there amid the ruins of their homeland, their religion, their way of life … it also looked hopeless.
But God’s words, through Jeremiah the prophet, and recorded by Baruch, they came as words of HOPE … HOPE on the horizon, afar off, but look, but see, God’s promise, God’s promise of redemption and release, from exile and slavery and all that beset them, God’s promise is there, on the horizon, drawing ever closer … ever closer, to HOME … a place, and more, a feeling, a state of body and mind and living, that says, HERE, here I am, and here I belong, with those who love me and who I love, and more, HERE I am at home in the deep, merciful, everlasting heart of God.
Fine, wonderful words from a somewhat obscure source … for God’s people then … and for us, NOW … people, look East, look toward the rising of the Son … the Son of God … God’s promises fulfilled in flesh and blood , promises of deliverance from all that exiles us from what God wants for us … deliverance from a bad economy or poor health ... aging or illness ... addictions, bad relationships, greed, selfishness, or just, plain poor choices ... for everyone needs deliverance from something ... and everyone needs deliverance to something ... the something of God ... life, full, abundant to overflowing.

It’s a beautiful, HOPE-filled word for us today.
There’s just one thing, though.
For some, many of us ... it’s still HOPE ON THE HORIZON.
It’s a great word ... the best, the most beautiful of words ... but it’s a long way off.
Home is a long way away.
First we still have a lot to go through ... mountains and valleys, winding roads, twists and turns.
So ... ladies and gentlemen ... allow me to introduce our guide for this part of our journey ... John the Baptist.
Groan.
Yes, yes, it’s true, you’re probably not too excited to hear the word about John the Baptist, once again, the Second and Third Sundays in Advent ... as the rest of the world around us is in a fever pitch to rush to the manger and the babe, the shopping and retail extravaganza that is “Christmas” ... but, once again, we will not be rushed there. This is what we are about as liturgical, church year, cross-centered Christians ... we take our time and mark our Advent season well.
And John the Baptist is part of that marking ... this week, and next. We prepare best to receive the Word of Hope in flesh and blood, by hearing the whole story of his coming among us.
That story, this year, comes to us from Luke’s gospel. And Luke is unique among the Gospel writers, in that he initially frames Jesus’ story with John’s. Chapter one of Luke tells the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth ... John’s parents, first ... and then, Luke introduces Mary, he has her sing her Magnificat (the Gospel text we’ll have in two weeks), then tells the story of the birth of Jesus ... and finally, ends that part of his Gospel with the word we have beginning before us today ... the introduction of John’s adult ministry, which brings Jesus’ story back into the picture through his baptism.
Luke is also unique among the Gospel writers in that he is so particular about setting John the Baptist into the timeline of history. That litany of names of rulers with which our text begins ... even today, we can understand them, some of the names, readily recognizable to anyone with a smattering of history under their belt ... and to those who read the Bible, the names are quite familiar. Emperor Tiberias ... Pontius Pilate ... Herod and Philip, Annas and Caiphas ... all of those names put together in one place allow the timelines to converge in a dating of what’s happening here, somewhere between 26 and 29 ... AD ... or Common Era.
Why is this so important? To Luke, it was the way for him to get the point across to his readers and hearers, that “the things about which they had been instructed” were not just “done in a corner” (both of those phrases, quotes from Luke’s Gospel and its second volume, the Book of Acts) ... Jesus came and lived and suffered and died and was raised again, in real time, in history, for the sake of all the world, humans, animals, the entire creation ... who live in history as well.
That was good news for them ... and it’s good news for us too. God coming and being part of history, our history, is exactly what we need, to be delivered from the things in history that beset us. God coming in history ... here, the forerunner of Jesus, John the Baptist, preparing Jesus’ way ... this is God’s signal ... then, and now, that HOPE is on the horizon.
HOPE is on the horizon. Yes. We can see it from here.
But there are still mountains to go over. Valleys to cross, winding, dangerous roads ahead. Falling rocks, potholes, bridges may be out ... and for sure, there will be HEAVY TRAFFIC.
Luke knows this too. That’s why he includes the prophetic words of Isaiah here ... words that, which, most certainly, remind us of Baruch’s poem. Why?
Both these words of Isaiah ... for Bible scholars, these would be called words of “Second Isaiah,” the later Isaiah, from the time of the Israelites’ exile ... words from the 40th chapter of that long book ... both these words of Isaiah and the words of Baruch, recording the words of Jeremiah ... both these works are from the same time ... the time of the Israelites being a long way away from HOME ... looking, hoping, praying for a return to HOME ... these words certainly speak of HOPE on the horizon for them.
They acknowledge that the road ahead may well be bumpy, mountainous, winding, through valleys, potholed, dangerous ... but they also bring that word of comforting HOPE that God will be, is there, through it all ... for them, and for us ...

Every valley shall be filled,
And every mountain and hill shall be made low,
And the crooked shall be made straight,
And the rough ways made smooth;
And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

For those who first heard, who first read, these words of Isaiah, of Baruch, about John the Baptist ... they all were signs of HOPE on the horizon. GOD IS COMING ... we can see it, see it afar off now, but it’s getting closer, closer, bringing HOPE, bringing HOPE in the hopeful word of HOME ... HOME, in the loving, welcoming arms of God, forever.
And for us too ... hundreds, thousands of years later, these words also point the way, point the way toward HOPE for us.
In the fourth year of the presidency of Barack Obama, when Christine Gregoire was governor of Washington State, when Dow Constantine was King County executive, and Pat McCarthy was Pierce County executive, and Aaron Reardon was Snohomish County executive ... during the bishopric of Mark Hanson in the ELCA and Chris Boerger of its Northwest Washington Synod ... the Word of God comes to ...
YOU.
You, O Nativity, the good news of God for you this day is that GOD IS HERE, not just on the horizon, BUT RIGHT HERE, to bring hope and health and healing, for you, for this congregation, for this community, into the world God loves.
Here as we gather around God’s Word ... in water of Baptism ... in Word read and proclaimed ... in bread and wine of Holy Communion ... in the community of each other’s presence, greeting, welcoming, praying for one another ...
In the sharing of gifts ... in the giving of our time, our talents and our treasure ... through food for the hungry, through blankets and socks for the hurting and helpless, through support to campus ministries and veterans’ housing ...
In all these ways, we show each other HOPE, and through each other, we bring HOPE into the world, HOPE, not just on the horizon, BUT RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW ... HOPE that God is with us. That Jesus the Christ has come and is coming daily, hourly, minute by minute, to comfort and rescue and deliver us from all that assails us ...
Comfort and rescue and deliver us ... FOR LIFE. For each other ... for THEM ... for the sake of this world God loves.
HOPE IS on the horizon ... but more, HOPE is ALREADY HERE. Here, to bring us a foretaste of the HOME to which, for which God sent his Son to give us ...
May your days be filled with that HOPE which is here, at this table, in this meal, in this community, in each other, FOR YOU. And more ... now, may you take that hope out into the world, your worlds, so that, when others see and hear you, they will see and feel and receive that same HOPE, HOPE FOR LIFE, rich, full, abundant, as God wants and wills and gives to us ...
HOPE ... that all flesh will indeed, see the salvation of our God.
Amen.