Advent: Remembering Stories of Hope

1 Advent Cycle b      November 30, 2014

Is. 64:1-9     Psalm 80:1-7

1 Cor.1:1-9   Mark 13:24-37

 Lectionary Link

Priya: Do you know what the prophet Isaiah sounded like in our reading for today?

Hailey: He writes as though he is a perfect older brother or sister living in a house that has been trashed by all of the younger siblings.

Catherine: I can identify with that, I'm the oldest.

Priya: So am I.

Hailey: And so am I.

Priya: Yes, it is such a burden to be so mature.

Catherine: You go girl! Preach it sister!

Priya: The prophet is like an oldest sister complaining to mom and dad about how misbehaved all of her other younger siblings have been.

Hailey: But the prophets then offers a bargaining prayer.  Remember Father, you are our Dad.  So what are you going to do with us?  Don't be angry with us.  We need forgiveness.

Catherine: Sometimes bad things happen in life because they just happen.  And at other times bad things happen because we do things which result in bad things happening to us.

Priya: The people who wrote the Bible often were trying to figure out why bad things happened to them and why they had to suffer.

Hailey: The writer of  Psalm 80 was very discouraged and asked, "How long O, God will you be angry with us?"

Priya: When things are going bad it can seem like God is angry.  But sometimes the writers of the Bible treated God too much like us human beings?

Catherine: What do you mean?

Priya: Well, we human beings get our feelings hurt and we get angry and we may want to correct the behavior of people by punishing them.  And because we are like that sometimes we think that God must be like a parent who is disciplining us by forcing us to go through hard times.

Catherine: Why do you think people would think God is angry?

Hailey: I think we like to think that we can discover a reason for everything that happens.  And when we can't we just say things like, "God must be angry at us."  One of the reason we say that the Bible is true is because it includes the honest reactions of people just like us.

Priya: I think that we like to believe that there is a concerned and caring personality who still is with us no matter what happens.

Hailey: Well, a lot of the Bible was written in very difficult times for the writers and for their families and their community.

Catherine: What do you mean?

Hailey: The people of Israel only had a few years of actual success and freedom.  So much of the writing of the Bible happened in bad times.  And they were always trying to understand why the times were bad and they wondered about when the bad times would end.

Priya: How do people survive during difficult times?

Catherine: I think that people survive through having hope.

Hailey: And how can we learn to have hope?

Priya: People need leaders who can inspire hope and comfort in difficult times.

Catherine: Jesus was a person of hope and he told stories of hope.

Hailey: But did Jesus live on this earth when life was good or bad for his friends and family?

Priya: When Jesus came, his homeland was occupied by the Roman soldiers.  Life was good for the Roman Caesar.  Life was good for those who had conquered Palestine.

Hailey: But life was difficult for people in Palestine.

Catherine: It was hard to be hopeful when times were so difficult.

Priya: But Jesus had studied the prophets of Israel.  And he lived in a community which had stories of hope.

Hailey: What were these stories of hope about? 

Priya: They were like our super hero stories.  The super hero stories were stories about a Messiah.  The Messiah would be someone greater than King David. So it was a hopeful comfort for people to hear a story about a new king like David.  It helped them continue believe that when life wasn't fair, they could still believe that fairness was normal.   The belief in the Messiah meant that they believed that someday someone would be able make life fair and equal for everyone again.

Catherine: Was the Messiah the only super hero?

Hailey: No, there was another super hero called the Son of Man.  And the Son of Man was one who was like a really good and powerful judge who someday would establish justice on earth.

Priya: The Gospel writers thought that Jesus was such a wonderful prophet, teacher and worker of miracles, they were comforted by his stories about a future hope.

Catherine: How did Jesus encourage people to be hopeful?

Priya: Jesus encouraged everyone to be prepared and be ready because at any time a new day of hope could happen.

Hailey: And what about for us today?  What about the superheroes Messiah and Son of Man?

Catherine: We still have a season of the church year for the stories about the coming Messiah and the Son of Man.

Priya: We began this season of Advent today on the First Sunday of Advent.  This is the first day of the new Christian Year.  So Happy New Year.

Hailey: Well, thank you.  I wish I had known so I could have partied until midnight last night.

Priya: Advent is a season of the stories of hope.  Advent is a season when we need to be reassured that justice and fairness, love and kindness are normal.  And when injustice, hatred and cruelty are present, we need to reassert our hope that these things will end.

Hailey: It is a strong truth for people to want to have hope about love, justice and kindness.  And we especially need the truth of hope during difficult times.  And so we use the entire season of Advent to assert that in the end, love, justice and kindness will win out.

Catherine:We need the story of the Messiah and the Son of Man to give us hope about the truth and triumph of justice.

Priya: Advent is a season of preparation.  We need to be prepared for the victory of justice even as we also need to be prepared to respond to any hard times and suffering.

Hailey: So what good news do you have to give to the people of St. John's on this First Sunday of Advent?

Catherine: Well, we should tell them to be prepared...like good Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.

Hailey: And we should remind them that justice, love, kindness and freedom from pain are what is normal in life and they should always have hope to believe this.

Priya: And we should remind them that they can heartily believe in Jesus as Messiah and Son of Man as a past, present and future superhero.  Why should we so easily entertain ourselves with all of the Movie superheroes and forget about the Messiah and the Son of Man.

Hailey: Happy Christian New Year to all of you.  And please give yourself permission to believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of Man as a very worthy superhero of the past, the present and the future.  Amen.