Promises, Promises
An Advent Sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
December 3, 3006

Jeremiah 33: 14-16
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. ¹⁵In 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. ¹⁶In 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.’*

A word about Jeremiah: He is the prototype for a “prophet of doom”. He looks at the world and does not see much to smile about. If he was a pundit or journalist, we would call him a “crank”. He was not the type of person we would want to be around. If one was to say to Jeremiah: “Gorgeous day, isn’t it?” he would probably repy, “We will pay for this tomorrow.” Jeremiah saw storm clouds and trouble everywhere. Not the type of person we want to be around…. the only problem was that Jeremiah was right.

Today’s text from the prophet Jeremiah is from a section of his writings that is called “The Book of Consolation”(chapters 31-33). It provides a strange contrast to the rest of Jeremiah’s prophecy, because it is hopeful; even up-beat. It does not speak of doom or damnation, rather it shares a hopeful promise that a day was coming: not merely coming, but surely coming, when things would be better.

I think of Jeremiah as a contemporary. He speaks to our age well. When we read Jeremiah, we need to hear him in terms of the world political situation of his day. In many ways his prophesies were commentaries on the failure of political and religious leadership in the midst of a difficult time. What would Jeremiah write today? How would he see our world and what would he say to us? Let me take a stab at it:

First, he would give us the dark news. Something like: “We are in the midst of a difficult time. We live in an age of terrorism and war. We are often gripped by fear, and yet, ironically, this is an age of abundance for some and poverty for others.”

Then he would change his tone and suddenly a message of consolation would be voiced: “Though the news is not good, but better days are coming. I see an age of good world leadership. The emphasis of the nations will be on truth and justice for all people. The problems in the Middle East will be solved. Jerusalem, which has not known peace in years, will be at peace. The people of Israel will dwell secure and the Palestinians will be happy with the solution. The people of Lebanon will rebuild and the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq will cease. Iran and North Korea will commit themselves to peaceful solutions and the terrorists will be disarmed. The people of Darfur will be rescued and children will die there no longer. AIDS and other diseases will have cures. People will be happy and live with each other in peace. The days are coming when all of this will happen.”

I doubt that we would read that in any newspaper, and if we did, I doubt that we would believe it. This is precisely the awesome wonder of this season. Advent is a time to believe the unbelievable!. It is a time to believe that there is a possibility for peace; that human beings can live together; that conflict and killing is not the way to settle the our disagreement. Advent is a time to believe that God will bring peace on earth. This is why we call it “Good news” or the gospel… because it is.

I believe that there is a cynicism, a part of us, that believes the worse about the world we live in. It is the part of us that is not merely cynical, it is afraid, it is hurting and it is tired. We have experienced too much. T.S. Eliot described the hopelessness of human thinking in his poem, “Ash Wednesday.”

Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us.

It is so easy for us to fall into that Wasteland that Elliot and other poets described. There is a better way. That is why I find Jeremiah’s prophecy so awesome. He knows the dark side of human life, and yet in the midst of this darkness, he is able to affirm that this is not the way that things will always be.

II

When Jeremiah proclaimed that the “days were surely coming”, he was proclaiming an Advent. Advent, this season that we begin today, is a time when we affirm again, that good days… indeed the days of the Lord, are surely coming. We recall the words of prophets, like Jeremiah, Joel, Micah, and Isaiah, and the hope that they articulated of a just and peaceful world. We remember that they proclaimed this vision in the midst of some of the darkest moments in the history of Israel. We remember how their hopes were fulfilled in the baby Jesus, who is, for us, the Christ, the anointed one from the family tree of King David. But we do more than remember…

We hope. We hope against hope. Against all the cynical pundits and calculating tyrants, we hope and believe that a better day is surely coming. We shake our heads in wonder at the world and the crazy things that are going on, but we believe that it is not merely our world…not ours at all… it is God’s world, and the kingdoms of this world have become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And his reign is forever!

We also prepare. In the words of Isaiah and John the Baptist, we are called to “prepare the way for the Lord”. We are called to prepare the world to live in peace by practicing the peace of Christ and modeling it for the world.

This is what this season of Advent is all about: not merely getting the Christmas presents purchased, or the house decorated. It is not merely about the music that we like to hear and the special smells of this season. It is first and foremost about hope: hope for a world that many have written off as hopeless; hope for you, and your life; hope for mine also.

I am sure that we will hear the old tired news again and again during this next four weeks. We will hear about all the things that are wrong, and there are many. But I pray that you will also hear the hopeful words of the prophet, for these words are the good news that sustains us… “The Days are surely coming… when God’s promise of peace, salvation, justice and joy.. will be fulfilled….. the days are surely coming… “ This is the good news. Amen.

 
*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org