Jeremiah was a prophet living around 500 years
before the birth of Christ, the long awaited fulfilment of his hope and words
of encouragement.
Jeremiah
had a difficult life, his prophecies and the message of warning and
condemnation of Israel got him into hot water, he was imprisoned and left to
die. He witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the taking of the ruling
classes into exile in Babylon. He was a sensitive man and did not enjoy having
to condemn the behaviour and false hope of those around him.
Jeremiah looked for a day when God would renew his
covenant with his people and restore the fallen people of Israel and rebuild
the city of Jerusalem.
It is to this hope that we turn in the season of
Advent as we too prepare for the coming of Christ.
We too prepare ourselves for God to once again renew
his covenant with humanity as he takes on our humanity in the incarnation.
We too look, with hope, to see the restoration of the fallen as we
here in a few weeks time the cry of Mary that the worlds order be reversed and
the rich are cast down and the lowly raised up.
All this leaves us with the simple question of
what difference do we expect the coming of Christ to make in our lives this
Christmas?
Hope is an essential part of our lives and faith. I
was at a reunion seminar on Friday for those of us who earlier this year had
travelled to Israel to study at Yad Vashem. The topic of hope and the Holocaust
was one of the themes we touch on – can there be any hope in the light of an
unprecedented desire by Nazi Germany to eradicate every Jew from the face of
the earth in the 1930’s?
When the heart rendering stories of survival are
told there is a fierce debate within the Jewish community as to whether or not
to leave the reader or the listener with hope or not.
For myself I cannot live without hope, and I do not
necessarily mean that kind of hope that is akin to wishful thinking, or the
kind of hope that for some is revealed by scratching a lottery card, I
mean the kind of hope that comes from faith in a God for whom nothing is
impossible.
One can have hope without faith, but is it really
possible to have faith without hope?
If faith is the seed to flowering hope then there is no
wonder that along with the denial of faith and the dismissive attitude of many
to faith, hope is also a causality.
There are so many hoping for change and
transformation in their lives and the lives of those around us
Those whose privacy has been invaded by the press
The peoples of Afghanistan, Syria, the Congo and
many other places of violence and blood shed
Even in our church there are those who campaign,
pray and live in the hope of a church that can fully celebrate the calling of
Men and Women to service within ordained ministry of the church
And the list goes on …..
Advent is a time to make room for God in a time when
there is not just “no room for the stranger in the inn" but for many of us there
is no room for God either in our modern lives.
Jesus reminds us to “Watch and pray. We must remain
alert and awake, watchful for the signs of God working in the life of his world
and in our own lives. For so often Advent is a missed opportunity, a season
that passes in the countdown to Christmas as just the number of days left to
shop in. It is so tempting to loose the opportunity offered us to spend some
time with God, to make space in our lives for God.
Jeremiah’s hope was for a world transformed by the
love of God who would make a new covenant or promise with his people.
Jesus is that new covenant, the new promise for the world,
for you and me. And he is asking us what it is that we hope for this Christmas?
