Advent Hope

I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more I long for the days of Christmas past. You could search high and low, and I’m convinced that you wouldn’t find anything quite like the anticipation and hopeful waiting for Christmas that overwhelm our senses as children. Throughout the season, there’s family gathered round the tree and little ones bouncing on Grandpa’s knee. All month long, you can smell the cookies baking in the oven and feel the warmth of the fire on your face as you lay on the floor crafting your perfect Christmas wishlist. When you finally make it to Christmas Eve, you can hardly stand the anticipation a moment longer. Yet, there’s a peace as you drift off to sleep, knowing that when you open your eyes, it will finally be Christmas Day. After all that waiting, all is quiet in the house, and as the famous Christmas poem says, “Not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse.”

Maybe that was your experience, but not mine. We were more of an “arose such a clatter” kind of family. I can’t remember a single Christmas Eve from my childhood when all of the cousins weren’t crammed into Grandma and Granddad’s house, making joyful noises. After an elegant dinner gathered around the big, long table, and a less distinguished one a few feet over at the kid’s table, we would all assemble in the living room to open our gifts.

Each year was essentially a carbon copy of the one before it, so all of those memories have kind of melded together in my mind. Still, there’s one Christmas Eve so out of the ordinary that I will never forget it.

After dinner, we adjourned to the living room. The adults found their favorite chairs, and the kids took our assigned spots on the floor near the tree. One of my aunts somehow navigated her way through us and began to pass out presents as usual. However, when she lifted up the third or fourth gift, she unwittingly disturbed a mouse, and it darted out from under the tree. Suddenly, kids were screaming and diving out of the way, parents were jumping up on furniture, and granddad was laughing hysterically. I’m honestly not sure how that chaos ended. Did someone catch the mouse? Was it driven out of the house, or did it find somewhere else to hide? Who’s to say? But I’ll never forget the feeling of being jolted out of the ordinary and quickly realizing that this was a night to remember.

That’s what Advent is, or what it’s supposed to be. Too often, we turn this season into a countdown to Christmas. If you go to the store right now, you’ll find no shortage of Advent calendars that give gifts of chocolate, cheese, wine, toys, or even bath bombs as we cross days off the calendar. Still, this season invites us to something more. It raises us from our slumber and encourages us to look both backward and forward with great anticipation of what lies ahead. We remember Israel’s longing for a Messiah who would come to save them, a hope fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. And we look forward to Christ’s second coming as the perfect fulfillment of God’s redemptive promise to set all things right. Advent is a time to pay attention, to watch with wonder, and to live with hope that our world could be different. It’s a season when we embrace the familiar and ordinary in our traditions but expect to encounter the extraordinary hope, peace, joy, and love promised to us in Jesus Christ.

Though Luke’s Gospel offers us the most familiar Christmas story – the one with the humble manger, the too-busy inn, the stinky shepherds, and the singing angels – this Gospel writer also encourages his readers to pause and reflect on things that seem out of the ordinary. Case in point, the telling of this Christmas chronicle begins not with Mary and Joseph and Jesus but with Zechariah and Elizabeth and John. It’s astounding that the birth of John the Baptist, the forerunner to Christ but not Christ himself, gets more lines in Luke’s narrative than does the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Perhaps the amount of emphasis Luke puts on the birth of the one who will prepare the way for Jesus is preparing us for the season ahead. It’s signaling that there’s significance in this story and purpose in our waiting.

Waiting dominates the early pages of Luke’s Gospel. The author begins with a dateline that places this careful account of events in the reign of Herod the Great. Of course, this name is a bit of a misnomer, and the circumstances surrounding God’s people during this king’s reign certainly weren’t great. It had been roughly four hundred years since God had last spoken through the prophets. While the Book of Malachi ended with a hint of hope, Israel had nonetheless been waiting a long time, looking forward to the coming day of the Lord when the sun of righteousness would rise with healing rays and rescue those who revered the Lord. Still, their Messiah had not yet arrived.

Among those who had been waiting as generations came and passed were Zechariah and Elizabeth. In addition to being known as the eventual parents of John the Baptist, this couple earns their distinguished place near the Christmas story for two primary reasons. First, they were getting on in years, which I guess is the polite way of saying they were very old. Even more so, though, both were noted and remembered for their faithfulness through desperate times. “They were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.” (Luke 1:6). Like Israel, Zechariah and Elizabeth had hopes and dreams that had not been realized. They, too, longed for a deliverer who would be a great light for those walking in darkness. They sought a savior who would increase their joy and lead them unto the path of peace. On a personal level, they hoped for a child but had been unable to conceive. Still, they remained faithful to the Lord.

Maybe I didn’t need to explain all that. You’ve heard Zechariah and Elizabeth’s story before. You’ve sung the Christmas hymns that tell of the yearning for Israel’s consolation and the bitterness of a bleak mid-winter in which all creation moaned in despair of an earth that stood desperate and hard as iron, water like a stone. Perhaps you’ve felt that pain personally, as we’ve all suffered tragic losses in our lives. Maybe when you consider the collective pain of this world, you’re at a loss for words and losing hope that it could ever be any better. But remember, as we stand with one foot in the familiar and ordinary – the pain and disappointment we know all too well – this season of Advent invites us to place the other in the hope of Christmas as we expect the extraordinary movement of God around us and through us.

As Zechariah entered the temple for his priestly duty, even this likely once-in-a-lifetime honor of burning incense before the altar was a largely regimented activity. His division was on its regular, though infrequent, duty, and he was chosen by lot to go into the temple, as was the custom. We know Zechariah to be an observant Jew of priestly descent whose service to the Lord was exemplary, so he probably wasn’t cutting any corners or making things up as he went. I imagine every one of Zechariah’s steps was carefully planned and calculated. Yet nothing could have prepared him for what would come next. The Lord’s priest was jolted out of the familiar, out of the routine, out of the ordinary by an extraordinary movement of God.

Without warning, the angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah with a divine message. Your prayer has been heard, the angel said, and you and your wife Elizabeth will have a son. You are to call him John, and he will go on before the Lord to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

You might say that Zechariah was stunned into silence, but it was far more than that. Zechariah’s struggle to believe this hopeful news from Gabriel earned him a sentence of silence until after the birth of John. How could a son be born to us at our advanced age? Well, Zechariah would have a lot of quiet time to reflect on that question over the next several months.

Interestingly enough, it was Zechariah’s silence as he emerged from the temple that alerted others to the fact that something out of the ordinary was happening. Those who were waiting for the priest to come out from the sanctuary noticed that something was up when Zechariah could not speak. He has seen a vision from God, they speculated. Still, the soon-to-be parent remained unable to tell his story. There were simply no words.

I think this is one of those areas where Luke gives his story room to breathe and invites the audience to reflect upon the absolute wonder of what just happened. After generations of silence, God has spoken. All the rest of the world goes back to its regular activities. You can almost hear the hustle and bustle of their everyday ordinary resume as they leave the temple courts, but Zechariah goes home in silence.

In this season of Advent, when the world is zipping by us, preparing for parties and rushing to get to Christmas, might we be wise to sit in silence and ponder the message given to Zechariah?

Hear this message, this truth: God is not content to leave this world without hope. Jesus the Messiah is coming, but there’s work to be done to prepare for his arrival.

In a couple of weeks, we’ll experience the ultimate example of God with us as we celebrate the birth of our Savior, but let’s stick with Zechariah, Elizabeth, and John for a while longer as we consider how we might prepare our hearts for this coming gift. Let’s wait with hope and pay attention to God’s movement in and around us, lest we miss the true spirit of the season.

One of the distinctive characteristics of this preparatory period in Luke’s Gospel is the movement of God’s Holy Spirit. If you’re looking for a way to capture the true spirit of Christmas and be filled with hope once again, look no further than the movement of the Spirit in Luke’s lead-up to Jesus’ arrival.

Time and again, the Holy Spirit moves within people to prompt praise for what God has done. This reflection on what God has done for us in the past gives us hope for what God is yet to do. In the latter months of her pregnancy, Elizabeth was visited by her relative Mary, who herself was pregnant with a child conceived by the Holy Spirit. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, John leaped for joy in her womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and sang God’s praises for what had been and what was yet to be. In a loud voice, she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:42-44)

Likewise, after Zechariah regained his voice following John’s birth, the priest was filled with the Holy Spirit and sang loudly of God’s faithfulness. His song in Luke 1:67-80 is known as the Benedictus and is a combination of praise and prophecy. Zechariah sang in the opening verse, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.” Later in the song, the father of the Prophet Most High told of John’s role in preparing the way for Jesus, the fulfillment of God’s promise. He said, “You, my child, will go before the Lord to prepare the way for him, to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.”

Zechariah sang powerfully as he proclaimed that God had indeed kept his promise, and in its coming fulfillment, God had promised so much more – salvation through the forgiveness of sins, deliverance from slavery to sin and death, freedom in Jesus the Messiah, the coming One. Later in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus, the son to be given, would say this very thing about salvation. Repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached to all nations to show them the way. John the Baptist first preached the message, but his father prophesied it in the power of the Spirit.

All the while, the Holy Spirit seemed to be doing an even deeper work in Zechariah. As he waited hopefully for what was to come, Zechariah seemed to be fully aware that he needed Jesus as much as anyone. Think about that for a second. This man has been described as righteous and blameless before the Lord. He was divinely picked to burn the incense the day the angel visited the temple and to be the father of the one who would prepare the way for Jesus. Yet, as he sang his song, Zechariah said we all need this. We, all of us, even me, need the rising sun of heaven to shine upon us and guide our feet into the path of peace.

More than merely prompting praise or prophecy, God’s Holy Spirit continues to move within humans to make us aware of our need for salvation through the forgiveness of sins. In a season filled with children singing and sleigh bells ringing, I don’t mean to be a downer, but this is the message of Advent. Repent and turn back to God. Get ready because Jesus is coming.

It may not make for a catchy Christmas carol, but it is the truth. Better still, it’s such good news. As John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus, our way back to God, this very message inspired countless numbers of people to put their trust in Jesus, who saved them not because they were righteous, not because they were blameless or sinless but because they turned their hearts to him.

As we celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth once again and await the great promise of his return with Advent hope, let us embrace the movement of God’s Holy Spirit among us. May it prompt us in this season to sing praise for what God has done and what God is yet to do. May God’s Holy Spirit shake us out of our slumber and make us aware of the sins for which we need to repent. May the Spirit shape us into the image of Christ as we turn away from those sins. And in all we do, may we seek the path of peace which through God’s mercy has been revealed to us through the sun of righteousness, our Advent hope, Jesus the Messiah. Amen.