Sermon on Luke 21:25-36

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

Happy New Church Year!

The cycle of our liturgical year starts over again today.

And since Advent starts on December 1 this year, all the Advent calendars at the store are accurate this season, which makes the part of me that finds symmetry satisfying very happy.

But the truth is, even after almost a full year of focusing on Sabbath in this congregation, there is still a lot of weariness in the world. Can you feel it?

The world feels heavy. And December is one of the busiest months of the year for many of us, even amid (and maybe because of) the joys of the season.

So, our Advent theme this year is A Weary World Rejoices, a line from the beloved Christmas carol “O Holy Night.”

Each week, we’ll ponder one of God’s promises.

This week is the promise of truth.

And one truth is that life is hard.

Jeremiah was prophesying to people who were facing hard circumstances.

The Babylonians had taken many of God’s people into exile. They had destroyed Jerusalem, including the Temple. It must have felt like the end of the world.

And Jeremiah himself was writing from prison, because he was speaking the truth God had given him.

Life was hard. Jeremiah was no stranger to that.

And there’s plenty of harsh and challenging words in the book of Jeremiah.

But still, he spoke words of hope, too. Our reading today’s full of hope.

It was hard at that time, but the days were surely coming.

The days were surely coming when God would fulfill God’s promises.

God had promised that David’s lineage would rule God’s people forever.

The Babylonian Captivity seemed to break that promise.

But the days were surely coming when the line of David that seemed to be dead would indeed continue—a branch would grow from what seemed like a dead stump.

God had not abandoned God’s people.

Exile would not be forever.

Their home would be restored, ruled by a just and righteous leader—the Messiah.

That’s why there aregenealogies in the Gospels of both Matthew and Luke. The lists of names can feel a little boring to read, but both draw a line from Jesus back to David. They affirm that God keeps God’s promises.

One truth may be that life is hard, but another is that God keeps God’s promises. And God promised faithfulness to God’s people.

God promised the Messiah and gave humanity Jesus in another difficult time for God’s people.

Their land was occupied by the Romans, there was a crushing amount of poverty, the threat of violence was everywhere, and in a few decades, the Temple would be destroyed again.

God sent Jeremiah to tell the truth when all hope seemed lost.

And God sent Jesus to tell the truth at another point when all hope seemed lost.

But lost hope isn’t relegated to the past.

There’s still war. There’s still violence. There are natural and human-caused disasters.

People get diagnosed with terminal illnesses.

There’s loneliness, isolation, depression, and so much need in so many different areas.

We served a staggering 199 households at our pantry on Wednesday. It’s of course a joy to serve, but it also indicates great need in our local community.

That’s to say nothing of global poverty.

Our world is not as it should be. God’s people (everybody) are facing hard circumstances.

It’s still true today that life is hard.

And still, the days are surely coming.

In Advent, we not only remember the promise of Jesus’ birth, but the promise of his return.

The days are surely coming when he will come again in power and glory, and the Reign of God will be complete.

He shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

God keeps God’s promises.

It’s true that there is pain now. And it’s true that God will make it right in the end.

There’s a saying attributed to many people that says, “everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”

There are tragic, cruel, and heart-breaking circumstances in this life. They can feel like the end of the world.

But they are not the end of the story.

Only God says when the story ends. And even as the story of pain, sorrow, and death ends, a new, eternal story of peace, joy, and love will begin.

Advent offers us the permission to see the world as it really is while still hoping for a future we can only sometimes glimpse.

One year when I was in college, there were a couple wildfires. It was a very scary, disorienting time. But one day months later, I was walking by a grove of eucalyptus trees in one part of the campus, and even though they had been burned, the trunks were covered in new sprouts—branches growing from what seemed like a dead trunk.

I’m not saying we have to find the silver lining in every hard circumstance. People of faith have to be able to tell the truth about the hard things in life or else we’re minimizing our own and others’ pain. People can see right through that, and it damages our credibility, not to mention that it hurts our neighbor.

We have to be able to tell the truth.

And one truth is that life is hard.

But another truth is that God keeps God’s promises, and God has promised that, as Julian of Norwich wrote, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Life is hard, and God gives us hope to cling to during the Advent time of waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Receive this blessing from Kate Bowler for “Beginning Again in Advent”:

God, could this be the year when we see it?

The goodness that is coming,

like starlight from a distant time?

Could this be the Advent when we sense it?

That the springtime of the soul will one day last forever?

Could this be the Advent when we notice

the inbreaking of your coming promises?

Promises full of blessing:

of truth so clear, so bright

that every shadowy lie must flee away.

of compassion so deep, so strong

that everyone is encircled in its embrace.

of restoration so complete, so beautiful

that there is gladness everywhere.

and of justice so satisfying and so right,

that all will be well.

May this Advent be the new beginning,

as we learn to live by the light

of your coming promises.

Glimpsing the world through tears,

while also seeing something

sacred shining through too.

Our Truth. Our Light.

Our Promise incarnate.

Amen.