Looking Ahead to November 29, 2020 -- First Sunday of Advent -- Hope

 

This week we are pleased to celebrate the sacrament of Baptism.

The Scripture passages for this week are:

• Isaiah 64:1-9
• Mark 13:24-37
  

The Sermon title is Resetting Hope

Early Thoughts: Where do we look for hope? How do we define Hope?

In these readings there does not seem to be a lot of hope. 21 years ago, when I was on internship, I was preaching on the first Sunday of Advent. When I phoned the Scripture reader for the week to tell her what the readings were her comment was "they better not be depressing". To be fair, this is not the most depressing part of Mark chapter 13, but still it is not the most hope-filled passage of Scripture.

And then there is Isaiah.  Read those opening verses...is that really our hope? Do we want to mountains to quake? Possibly, thought probably with a few caveats.

The hope of Advent, this time of preparation, is that God will break into the world and bring transformation.The hope this Advent is not that things will get back to "normal" before Christmas (hot tip -- they won't) it is that God will make God's self known and transform the world.

What gets in the way of you being hopeful this year?

I think we might need to stop and reset ourselves so we can see the hope in the world this year. Between 8 months of COVID-tide and the unceasing news coverage of the US Election and everything else that 2020 had given us hope might start to seem awfully far away.

But still there is hope. Still there is new life. 

A baby is, to me, always a sign of hope. A baby brings forth those hopes of what they will become. A baby makes us think about what sort of world we hope they will live in as they grow older.

What fills you with hope this year?

God is still present. God is still working in the world. God is still transforming the world -- even if not as quickly or visibly as we might wish. There is still hope.

And that is a good thing.
--Gord