Happy New Year! It’s true. The first Sunday in Advent begins the New Year on the church calendar. Advent is a four week season that precedes Christmas. The word Advent means “coming” and the church uses it as a time of preparation to get ready for Christmas and the coming of the Christ child into our world again. A question it seems to raise is, “Why does our new year start four weeks before we celebrate the birth of Jesus?” Wouldn’t Jesus’ birth be a logical place for a new beginning? Why is this preparation time important? And as we stated at the lighting of the Advent Wreath, we have focused this first day of preparation as a day to think about hope. So a second question is, “Why is hope the beginning of our new year and how does it help us prepare ourselves to receive the Christ yet again into our lives?”

In our Call to Worship, hope was defined as the light in the midst of despair. A standard definition of hope for me has been, “Hope is the recognition that our present does not have to be our future.” It has been that reminder to me that if I am facing a hard time in my life, a painful time, that it can change and that my future can still be one of joy and happiness and wholeness again. And I have continuously found this aspect of hope to be true in the living of my life. Through the pain of my mother’s death or the despair of a divorce, hope has rung true for me. The hurt and brokenness of life is never the final word. That a hurtful present has opened to a more joyful future, and hope has again been found in my life. So hope has been an important and integral part of my life, as it has for so many of you I am sure.

Yet, this definition of hope does not truly represent my present life. Life is good for me and it is hard to imagine how I could experience it much better than I already do. In every area of my life, I could not feel more blessed. So I realize that changes that I may face in my future may not always be ones that bring life in a better way. In fact, I know there are going to be times in my future that I must address issues that will be emotionally hard for me. My daughters are already talking about college and being exchange students, all times that will be exciting, but bring about changes in our family that will also be times of sadness as the day to day intimacy of our lives will change. Rachel keeps reminding us that she is only 7 months away from being able to get her driver’s permit. A future I am not yet ready for. I sadly know that my future will hold the losses of those lives that are now present and whose love is presently there to be shared. Yet, because of my experiences that hurt or even despair are not the final words, that new life and joy can and do emerge even from tragedy, I know hope in my traditional understanding will prevail.

But how about those who do not have the same opportunities as me? Do they have a different perspective on life and hope? We have a friend who has started an orphanage in Ethiopia especially to house young girls. With AIDS taking the lives of so many in Africa, and leaving so many children to wander the streets his heart would not allow them to have no chance at all. His eyes always tear as his heart aches when he tells the story of seeing three year old children on the streets fending for themselves. He named his mission and orphanage, “Hope for the Hopeless.” Where there was no chance for any change and new life, there is at least a chance for some, because of his care, compassion and support. But where is the hope for those orphans who find no room at the inn to use our Christmas imagery? Those who cannot find shelter and food in the midst of their lives, and wonder where they can turn for help? My friend so anguishes over these children that he is constantly looking for places to tell their story and find aid for their lives, for he knows in his heart that God has entrusted these children to his care, and he will do all in his power to ensure as many of their futures as possible will not be hopeless. He knows that their lives will not change by wishful thinking or blind optimism, but through the work God has given to him. And it was and continues to be hard work. Yet, after years of raising funds just to get by, his biggest hope has started to come to fruition. Someone finally gave enough money to build their own facility. A new future, but one that took many years of faith to build.

Old Testament Theologian Walter Breuggeman reminds us biblically that hope is not just some nebulous belief that our lives are going to be better or more fulfilling. It is not blind optimism or wishful thinking. Breuggeman wants us to know that real hope, scripturally, is a confidence and even an expectation that the future is rooted in the promises of God, promises of a future that will bring well-being and good far beyond any present situation. There is confidence and expectation because hope is rooted in the character and promise of God. Today, serves as a reminder that in the child who comes at Christmas we find the promise of God that will lead us and our lives into our future, whatever that future may hold. We know that whatever we face this coming year, we will not be alone for God has promised to be with us, and support us and guide us in all we face. And the promise is found in the next three weeks of preparation. The promise is one that brings peace, shalom in it fullest meaning of wholeness and well-being to us and the world. It will be one that leads us to joy, because it is one full of God’s love. The words of Paul share our confidence. “I am convinced (now there is a statement of confidence). “I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come (anything in our future), nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus. God’s love is always the final word, and what more could we place any trust or hope in.

This understanding of confidence and expectation is what excites me as I prepare to meet the Christ again in my life personally, and as we walk together in faith and trust and confidence as the community of faith called the church. Hope, Paul tells us is found in things yet unseen. Surely, our future is wide open. There is a promise in these words that I would like to focus on for us as the church as we ponder what it means to be a community of hope and as we prepare to receive the presence of Christ into our corporate life as the church for the coming year. Paul tells us in Ephesians that this God who we have faith in, who we trust, in whom we place our hope is able to do things in our lives beyond our imagination. Beyond not only what we see, but what we can even conceive. I believe this is the attitude that prepares us to enter into our future. To trust so deeply in God and God’s presence and direction in our lives that we may accomplish what we may not even be able to imagine let alone articulate in our vision, our goals, our hopes and dreams for the coming year. Real hope is trusting in the one who comes, who asks us to follow, and be open to where we may be asked to go for we may not yet know who we become hope for.

This first Sunday in Advent is one that asks us actually to focus on the Second Coming of Christ. It is what you heard in the Gospel reading in Mark. That Christ will come again. The message is important, for it reminds us that this season is more than simply remembering an historical event. It is asking us to remember that God has come into our world in a personal and intimate way. And, that this life of the person we call Lord and Savior, is one that is still with us, still active and asking us daily to walk with him and to carry on what he started. Yet, let us also remember that many missed his coming, because they were looking in the wrong places and brought their own understandings of who this Messiah would be and what he would do. As we approach this coming year in hope, let us do so with an attitude of awe and wonder, being open to the one who comes to lead and guide us into our future. The one who promises to do more than we can even imagine, so let us not limit God’s work among us by limiting it to our hope, but to the hope of the one who comes to lead us into a new and wondrous future.

May we enter into this year with the most profound sense of openness, with no preconceived ideas as to where God may lead, but with a sincere desire to listen and keeping our hearts and our minds open to all the possibilities of God. For if we can, and if we do, we will not only achieve what is now unseen, but even more than we can even imagine. What a wonderful attitude with which to start a new year together.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on November 27, 2005.