There is an old mountain say that goes like this: "there is nothing that is too bad to happen." Now that is a hopeful, comforting start isn't it? It goes along with something that Blair brought into the office this past week-a small book being marketed to people dealing with grief. The title: "Experiencing Grief," to the side of the title was a sticker-"bulk copies available," almost as it to say the book was marketing quantities of grief. And maybe we know the truth of these things, that there are quantities of grief to go around; and there is nothing that is too bad to happen. We have had more than our share of both personal and corporate pain lately. Waters have swept across many lands, winds have torn apart communities, and the foundations of the earth have shaken lands apart. We listen to the stories of those whose lives have been wrenched by unimaginable tragedies. Dare we speak of hope in the midst of all that?
Quite simply the answer is yes-we dare. It is fitting this year that our readings for Advent start in a different place than we are used to. We will not hear the stories leading up to the birth of Christ. Instead we begin with stories of wind and water, of portents in the skies, of the heavens being shaken opened. Isaiah longs for the day when the heavens would be torn apart and the mountains would quake. Mark looks for the sun and the moon being darkened, and the stars tumbling out of the sky. Both looking for God to break into the world and usher in a new day. In a year when there has been so much destruction from the forces of nature we find texts that speak of the forces of God combating both the powers of nature and the evil powers of the world. Therein lies the hope of the world.
The gospel text is known as the "Little Apocalypse." Apocalyptic literature is written for desperate times when people need to find hope. Literally the word means "unveiling." The texts deal with God's breaking into time. The writer looks around and sees no possible way through a situation and so prays for God to come in and totally rearrange what is. Mark's words are taken in part from the book of Daniel. In Daniel's day, Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonian empire. Daniel wrote of a deliverer, a source of hope for the exiled Jewish nation. The writer of Mark's gospel would have witnessed the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD-again a time when the people would be looking for God to break into their time. Looking for a hope that would deliver them. The words in Mark's gospel are not threats, they are not meant to induce further terror. They are instead words of great hope and comfort for the community of faith as they face persecution and despair. They are reminders of God's power and promises. Mark's readers are then urged to keep awake so that they might see the indwelling of hope that will come. It is the dream that gives hope for the future and waters the parched longings of all the people.
As people living in a state of hope-filled readiness we can be alert to the signs of hope that come our way. In the daring to hope Michael Downey, a professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at Villanova University, writes: In the deepest sense, hope moves us to a new perspective, enabling us to see the present in light of some future good, which we realize can only come as a gift. The more difficult the circumstances in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper is the hope. Hope is not the same thing as optimism that things will go our way, or turn out well. It is rather the certainty that something makes sense, is worth the cost, regardless of how it might turn out. Hope is a sense of what might yet be."
The Jewish community of Daniel's time, and again both the Jewish and Christian community of Mark's day dared to have hope, to dream of something different. Yes, they had cause for lament, and they certainly gave rise to that. This morning's Psalm, Psalm 80 speaks of the lament of their condition: "O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us the scorn of our neighbors, our enemies laugh among themselves." I believe they dare lift up their lament precisely because they did so in the safety and trust of God's power. They knew there was something more than their present circumstances. They knew that God was bigger than their exile, bigger than the destruction of the temple and that God was big enough to handle their tears and cries of despair. Their laments were a way to give voice to what they could not yet conceive, yet still hoped for.
If we did not lament what is, there would be something wrong with us. We can not be content with what is as long as there exists poverty and injustice, hunger and despair anywhere in the world. It is not enough for us to come to church and experience the beauty of this place-what we experience here must translate into action in our lives. December 1st is World AIDS day. While in this country the disease is becoming almost a chronic disease, for most parts of the world it is a death sentence. Some countries will experience a decrease in population due to AIDS. And while we may be better at treating the virus, we still live in a time of mis-education and prejudice. Imagine this scene: Thanksgiving dinner, the table is set, with the best china, the candles are lit, the family has gathered and sits down. The best china is at all the places but one-the family member with AIDS is given paper plates and plastic utensils. We do indeed have further to go!
Again, we lament what is. But we do so in the context of God's promises to us. For me hope is not the ability to make sense out of what is. One of two things happen if that is what we reduce hope to. With either become Pollyanna optimists, ignoring the pain and horror of the world; or we become mired in despair because we cannot envision anything out of what we see. Instead, hope is the trust in God that there is something beyond what we can possibly envision. That hope does not necessarily give us peace of mind, but it does spur us to action. It says that what is…is not enough…that there is something much more than what is. It is that hope that gives us the audacity to go on in the face of overwhelming odds, in the face of pain that pierces to the core of our souls, and in the face of numbers that threaten to collapse resources.
It is not an easy thing to hope. Maybe that is why the apocalyptic texts are so frightening, not so much because of their imagery, but because they call us to hope. It is a risk and it is painful and it is downright hard to hope. Mark calls us to keep awake. Keep awake for hope is in our midst. God is indeed with us. For we declare with Paul: "For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hope for what is seen? …and what will separate us from the love of Christ? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In hope we begin our Advent journey, waiting for God's love to break into the world as a tiny, fragile baby-a way that no one could have imagined. In that same hope we gather this morning, knowing that God will break into our lives in ways we can not yet envision. And that hope sends us to a world that waits with hunger for what we have found here.