A Service of Hope and Remembrance by The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
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Trinity Episcopal Church
Service of Hope and Remembrance
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Isaiah 9:2-7; John 1:1-18
During this season of Advent, one of our spiritual tasks is to open ourselves to imagine the Kingdom of God and what it might look like here on earth. I don’t mean waiting for the birth of Jesus. We know that has happened already. We know the story, and we know how it ends. As 21st century Christians, that story has been around for over 2000 years, and we know it so well that popular culture has actually hijacked it to be a season of parties and neutered it of much of its original excitement and meaning.
Theologically – and theoretically – we think of this time as a time of waiting between the “already” birth of Jesus of Nazareth and his “not yet” promised Second Coming. But this explanation doesn’t do much for our souls. A more spiritually profitable Advent discipline is to place ourselves in the shoes of the people to whom Isaiah was writing. A people waiting in hopeful expectation for a time of peace, justice and righteousness, where the yoke of oppression would be no more and the light of God’s presence would shine throughout the world.
And Lord knows the Bible is full of God’s promises for us to anticipate. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus invites us, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6.
But waiting in “hopeful expectation” is still “waiting.” And Lord knows there is plenty of waiting that goes on in the Bible. Abraham and Sarah waited until way beyond normal child bearing age to have a child, as did Hannah and Elkanah before the birth of Samuel , and as did Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah. Moses spent some 40 years waiting for a call, and then spent the next 40 wandering the wilderness leading his people to the Promised Land. Turning to the “Christmas Story,” there must have been many an anxious moment for Mary and Joseph as they awaited the birth of this miraculously-conceived child to be named, Jesus. And we should not assume that these were peaceful moments of waiting: Both Joseph and Mary were prime targets for public shame and ridicule, and one can only imagine the mixture of “hopeful anticipation” and fear and trembling as they awaited this blessed event that they neither asked for nor particularly wanted.
Waiting is not easy for any of us, particularly if we don’t know how the story is going to end. It is one thing to be waiting to see if you are getting the latest I-technology or a new flat screen TV. And I actually DO know adults for whom that is of importance these days.
But what about those of us facing more serious situations, circumstances in our past or in our future that leave us vulnerable, sad, angry, grieving, perhaps hopeless. What about those who are awaiting test results that may dictate the course of their lives in the immediate future? What if we are mourning the loss of a loved one and time doesn’t ease the pain of the loss or provide interest in trying anything new? What if we are in a seemingly hopeless cycle of poverty or drug use or psychological illness from which there seems to be no exit? What if we are trying to recover from a broken relationship and we can’t let go of the “what ifs” and begin to imagine an alternative future? Or in this post-election time, we may be struggling with the reality of recently having savored the assurance of equal rights and protections only now to be experiencing anxiety and new vulnerability in the threats of extremist groups and individuals at the very center of power to take away those hard-won protections. Or on this, the longest night of the year, we may be, like Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus, have no safe or reliable place to live or source of food or income.
No, waiting is not easy when we can’t see into the future and we don’t see easy answers or hear reassurance. And we humans do not have the best track record when it comes to taking matters into our own hands – in fact, we often make matters worse.
And so we gather this evening for this service of Hope and Remembrance, I ask us to focus on the opening words of the Gospel of John as we wait:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. . . .From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
God chose to become one with humankind, and in that act, became one with each of us individually. In the birth of Jesus, God reminds us that “to all who received him, who believed in his name” that we do have the power to be children of God – to be strengthened and to grow, day by day until OUR last day, closer and closer to becoming the people God desires for us to be, living the lives that God desires for us to live, with God’s help.
On this night and throughout the coming Christmastide and beyond, may we hold onto the holy hope as we wait in hopeful expectation of those brighter days when we experience even just a glimmer of God’s light that shines in the darkness, that light that no darkness can overcome. AMEN.