Advent II – Expectation of future glory

Romans 15:4-13       St Luke 21:25-33

 

The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

 

Advent is a season of hope and expectation and our readings this morning are about hope.  And as last Sunday was about love and the judgement of our loves, this Sunday is about hope and the judgement of our hopes.

What is hope?  In the Divine Comedy, Dante puts himself as a character in Paradiso and is asked this question by the Apostle James.  What was Dante’s answer? Hope is – “a certain expectation of future glory.”  [Dante Paradiso, Canto 25]

Hope is a gift, a virtue, giving us by God that ennobles our nature – it opens us to grace to become beyond what we can be by nature.  It is not simply about attaining some earthly happiness, that is a natural hope, which is something we might also expect along the way.  But with supernatural hope our stability, our rest, cannot be in any of the things which are passing – our job, our vocation, our wealth, our home, even our earthly loves and family, our own health.  But with supernatural hope we look for real change in our very being – a real transformation of who we are into the likeness of God.  And we learn what “the likeness of God” looks likes in a human being when we look at Jesus Christ.

This supernatural hope is a kind of spur that moves us – it is a gift, a virtue, given from above that adorns our will, and moves us to do what we know to be right.  And the more we do what we know to be right, the more we become like God, and that in turn gives us more hope.  It is tied to God’s eternal purposes for us.

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Our readings this morning are about the way that God’s Word stirs up this supernatural hope in us in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

When the Law or the Prophets were read by Israel – it always brought a judgement and it often also brought the hope of renewal of life and the renewal of communal life.

In our Epistle reading Paul is speaking to a Gentile, that is, a non-Jewish, audience.  He is explaining why the Scriptures – which, when Paul wrote his letter, was only the Old Testament, and which contains all these stories about the Jewish people and the promises of God to the Jews – he’s explaining why it is important also to them.

Paul quotes very deliberately passages about the Gentiles, the non-Jews, from the three major sections of the Old Testament – the Law (Deuteronomy 32:43), the Writings (the Psalms 18:49; 117:1), and the Prophets (Isaiah 11:10).  He wants to show us that there is a thread throughout the whole of the Old Testament proclaiming that whatever gifts that have been given to the Jews – the Covenants, the Law, the Promises of salvation, and ultimately through the Jewish Messiah, the root of Jesse, Jesus Christ – these gifts and this person are to be shared with all peoples, with all nations.

Paul speaks specifically about how through “endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”.

I already said that the more we do what we know to be right, the more we become like God.  And so as we build endurance in our spiritual trials, and see the likeness to God being revealed in us, this renews our hope.  But the other part that renews our hope is through “the encouragement of the Scriptures.”

How do words on a page give us hope?

We know it must be more than simply information on a page.  Probably many, if not all of us, have had the experience of reading the Bible without it affecting us at all.  It is very easy for our minds to wander.  And probably many, if not all of us, have also had the experience when reading the Bible, even something we’ve read many times, and suddenly something happens, we are moved – the Word has a profound affect on us.

So how is it that words on a page can move us?

St Augustine had a certain theory of knowledge.  In his Confessions, Augustine writes, ‘In the Gospel, [God] spoke through the flesh, this he addressed to human ears externally, that it might be believed, and sought and found inwardly in the eternal truth, where the good and only master instructs every disciple.’

So we hear the Word without and it rings true, or awakens the truth in us, a truth that we have access to by the gift of our creation in the image and likeness of God.

Henry de Lubac, a 20^th century Roman Catholic theologian, follows a similar understanding when he described it this way:

“Scripture and the soul are a temple in which the Lord resides, a paradise in which he can stroll.  Both are a fountain of living water – and of the same living water.  Both conceal the same mystery in the depths of themselves.  Consequently, the experience of the soul is in prior accord with the doctrine of Scripture.  If I need Scripture in order to understand myself, I also understand Scripture when I read it within myself.  To the degree that I penetrate its meaning, Scripture makes me penetrate the innermost depths of my being.”

[de Lubac, History and Spirit. (Ignatius Press, 2007) p. 397f]

So something is going on, beyond what we can easily explain, when we pick up the Bible and read it for ourselves in quiet.

Paul calls us to endurance, and to read the Bible to experience encouragement in our suffering – He says it leads to supernatural hope growing in our souls as we come to know ourselves and to know God.

How do we read God’s Word and not just have it be so many words passing by us on a page?

There are many suggestions through the history of the Church.

Anglicans have, since the Reformation, strongly commended the daily reading of Scripture by everyone [see that the very first of the official Homilies of the Church of England is "The Reading and Knowledge of Holy Scripture" urging people to read, and in the Preface to the first authorized English translation of the Bible, Archbishop Cranmer emphasis that all people should read, and indeed the Collect for this Sunday is composed by Archbishop Cranmer].  It has been and is part the impetus for the Protestant mission emphasis on literacy worldwide to make possible each person's engagement with Scripture.  There is an Anglican plan promoted in our church for daily readings, found in our service sheets and in the Newsletter and on our website.  It will lead you through most of the Old Testament once and the whole of the New Testament twice each year.  Try it or find another pattern that works for you.

If you’re going to read, minimize distractions and choose to read at a time when you are alert, and have an expectation to engage with the Word of God beyond merely a rational engagement.  We want our minds enlightened but also our hearts to be set on fire.  If we discover our minds went elsewhere, return to the passage and read it again with more attention.

Lectio divina – is a practice which has this expectation of the Word of God bringing about in us a change.  Fr Jean has provided us examples of how to do this for the Gospel reading for almost every Sunday of the year – on our website.  A passage is read, then meditated upon, then prayed on, and then contemplated.

The Word of God has been given not just for us as individuals but also to change our way of living with each other.  It leads to a shared supernatural hope.

In our Epistle today, Paul immediately moves from speaking of us being personally strengthened and encouraged to have hope, to speaking about living in harmony with one another, and together with others, glorifying God, welcoming one another as Christ has welcomed you!  Reading Scripture does not just lead us to “me and Jesus”, a private relationship, but to “me and Jesus and the Church” that Jesus has founded and is building.

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Finally, in our Gospel, Jesus speaks to us about the end times, about His Second Coming in glory.  How is this connected with hope?

There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

It is a frightening vision of the end of times.  For one thing it says that humanity will not figure out in the end how to live in harmony – we are to seek peace, but whatever we achieve on earth it will not be universal peace and justice.  Humanity will not save itself.  The Bible teaches, and the Church has always taught, that Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.  Many other ages have wondered if it was their time, from this description…and it wasn’t, so that might make us skeptical when many wonder if it is in our time.  Whether it is in our time or in a thousand years, we simply do not know – but we are told, to hope for it, to pray for it, and to be ready for it!

How do we look to this judgement with hope?  Jesus tells us if it happens in our time, to Straighten up and raise (our) heads!  That is the hope, that is the confidence we are to have through our faith in Jesus Christ.  No matter how bad things appear here in our midst, a greater world is being prepared, “straighten up and raise your heads, because your Redemption is drawing near.”  These are powerful words from our Lord's mouth!

Today’s Gospel, is good advice to us even if today is not end times.  Jesus comes to us now, daily, by His Word written, by His Spirit, by His presence in our fellow Christians, to judge all our worldly ways of thinking, our worldly hopes.  When those worldly expectations that each of us have, fail us, we are to lift up our heads, and look to the supernatural hopes which Jesus shows us – Christ in us, the hope of glory, the promise of eternal life.  Every movement in our souls when we transfer our hope from the worldly to the eternal is a part of our full redemption.

This morning, perhaps we’ve heard a voice of judgement, the Spirit or God's Word convicting us.  We’re not to cower, but we’re to repent, and to come forward in faith to receive the Body and Blood of Christ – to be washed and fed with spiritual food. And then we are to return to our seats our backs straightened up and with our heads raised.  Jesus is welcoming us this morning, and we are to welcome one another strengthened in that shared hope.

Amen +