Hope
Summary
Dominic Jackson explores Advent as a season of hope in the waiting—rooted in God’s promises, centered on the coming King, and forming us into a redeemed people. He reflects on the tension we all feel between fear and expectation and invites us to distinguish between hope and optimism: hope is not dictated by circumstances but sustained by God’s faithfulness. With Jeremiah 33:14-16 as a guiding text, this message draws on the experience of waiting for life-changing news and the Bible’s language of expectant, stretched waiting, calling us to look back on God’s past faithfulness so we can live forward in trust as we await Christ’s promised arrival—past, present, and future.
Questions for reflection
Where are you currently living in a season of waiting, and what emotions are most present there—fear, fatigue, hope, or expectation?
How does Jeremiah 33:14-16 expand your understanding of Advent as more than remembering a past event?
What is the difference between hope and optimism in your own words? How does that distinction change the way you face uncertainty?
Dominic suggests we “look back so we can look forward.” What is one specific memory of God’s faithfulness you can revisit this week?
The sermon emphasizes that God’s saving work forms a “saved people,” not just isolated individuals. How might hope shape the way you show up for your church, neighbors, or family this Advent?
What simple practice could help you stay attentive to God’s presence in the waiting this season (journaling, prayer, sharing hopes with a friend, Sabbath)?
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Not long ago, three friends told me three completely different stories that have stayed with me since these friends had never met. And on the surface these stories had very little in common. In fact, I probably wouldn't have even seen a common thread between them if they all had it happened around the same time. And if all three stories wouldn't have been centered around a phone call. In fact, as I look back at this, I recognize how completely opposite and how little these people had outside of me. And this phone call, the first a friend of mine shared how he and his wife had spent a lot that year in hopes of adopting a child. Not just money though that too thousands of dollars in fact, from educating themselves to travel, getting their home ready, but also they'd spent a lot of time, a full 13 months worth.
They spent vacation days, they spent sick days, but more than money or time or possessions, it was their emotions, the ups and downs. And so here they were as they had been many, many times before already in those last 13 months, and they were as far as they could be in the process. And now all they could do was wait. Wait for that last step, wait for a response to find out if the little boy that they had met and gotten to know and had fallen in love with, if he would become part of their family. And on this particular day, they were just about to walk out the door to take their golden doodle on a walk. When the phone rang the next story, one of my best friends who was in a terrible motorcycle accident, found himself in incredible pain, unbearable pain, sitting, laying, standing.
All of it was awful. And as his partially broken back was beginning to heal, he started to take pills just to get through the days. And at first nobody noticed except for his wife who had been in recovery herself, who knew all the signs to look out for, and she watched as his self-medicating, became a, and then became an addiction. And as things escalated, he lost his job, lost most of his friendships. They almost even lost their home until months later. He came home and she was gone with a note explaining that she needed some time and he needed some help, a lot of help. There were no promises, no timelines. Time passed and it took a while and it wasn't pretty, but he did the work. He went through the program and still she didn't come back home. Of course, he went looking for her, but no luck.
No one knew where she was. And then finally randomly one night my friend's phone rings not from his wife but his mother-in-law before he picks up, he gets this terrible feeling. He had had these feelings many times he called them premonitions and most of the time they never panned out to anything. He was a little pessimistic, but still, why would she be calling? And so he lit the phone ring a few more seconds, took a deep breath and picked up the phone. One more story, another friend, a mentor of mine a week before Christmas is sitting by the phone in the middle of wrapping presents, here's the phone ring and looks down at his cell phone to see a familiar number, his doctor's number. The call was coming much earlier than expected days earlier in fact. And my friend couldn't decide if that was good news or bad news because on the other end of that phone call was the results of multiple tests, tests.
That all would answer one question, had the cancer returned. Maybe you've been in a situation like this in your life, maybe you've found your life hung somewhere in the distance between a phone call and picking up that phone or a conversation or a court sentencing or a diagnosis, a last appeal, a letter in the mail. So much of our life is found in the waiting, and the longer that waiting continues, the harder it is to hold onto hope, at least a hope of our own. Sometimes it seems that with each passing moment comes more opportunity for disappointment and there comes a point where you've run out of pep talks or mantras or feel good songs or even prayers to pray at times. And so all you can do is sit and hope and wait. The older I get, the more I realize how connected these two things are.
The waiting and hope and the hope. In waiting, Fleming, Rutledge, theologian, pastor writer, she explains that Christian hope is what comes when human hope is at its end, which is what I'd like for us to explore this morning. What does hope look like when we reach our end? And what in the world does any of this have to do with the season that we are in? A season of carol's and hot cocoa and both ironically and unironically ugly sweaters? What in the world does any of this have to do with this Christmas season? Let's pray and then we're going to look at our text one more time. Do you guys pray with me? Lord, I pray this morning for hope as we take this, continue this pilgrimage of advent. I pray you meet us in the waiting and now on the other side of hope and what seemed like hopelessness just in my own life and the life of those I love.
I see how you were there all along with my friends and their little guy and his two siblings and the beautiful family you've bonded together. I see you in the recovery of both my other friend and then his wife and how you met them both along each one of those 13 steps, 12 steps plus one to you and how difficult that was for them both. And I thank you for how you kept them together, against the odds. And then I thank you for the beautiful life of my friend Ray who didn't get the news. Any of us prayed for that day and I imagine, Lord, that we could all go around this room sharing stories of sitting and waiting and maybe even many of us are there now. And so my prayer is simple. Come Lord Jesus, give us a hope that could only come from you in the waiting, in the future and in the present. Meet us here now. Amen.
If we haven't met my name's Dominic, good to be with you all as we continue this Advent series. We were not here last week and by the way, this was an announcement I forgot to add, but one of the ways that we communicate and get information out is in what we call the weekly, and it's an email that goes out and if you don't have that, fill out one of those connect cards if you want to hear more, especially times like when a storm blows through. It's very helpful. So good to be with you all this morning. I know that this is a very diverse community in many ways, namely theologically, ecclesiological. We all come from different church backgrounds I would assume, and if we were to take a poll, we might learn there's some common threads and some very different ones. Many of us come from different church backgrounds, traditions, denominations, some even come from different religions or like myself, a lack of religion growing up, some high church, some low church, some medium church, somewhere in the middle, right?
So I'm not sure your church background or how normal this season of Advent was for you growing up, but to me after coming to faith, advent always seemed a little strange. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but I will admit it and confess it. Advent always seems strange. Some it felt magical. Other years it kind of felt silly, almost childish for me at least, but what it always seemed to have in common was that it actually wasn't real. What was happening and what I mean is the whole thing felt like we were all pretending year after year as we would gather together from the plays to the Christmas cards to even the sermons that I would hear. Advent was a time where Christians all got together and pretended that Jesus hadn't been born yet and we would all wait and I wonder if it's going to happen this year.
And then he would. In fact, we might as well be putting out cookies for Jesus each year. That's kind of how it felt for me. And this whole church thing was new to me, but still I was scratching my head like, is this what we're going to do every year? Yeah, apparently awaiting his arrival year after year and until clockwork on the 25th of December, somebody would announce a child has been born and we'd all celebrate and go home and play with our light brights or teddy ruskins or I don't know if you don't know what those are, ask a person next to you whose knees cracked when they get up to worship here in a moment, but still whatever toys or traditions or meals awaited you for Christmas, right? That's kind of what it seemed like. The point is Christmas and the season of advents, and honestly most of the sermons and even Bible stories I heard over the years seemed like history lessons.
We were all looking back and pretending a baby was born and everything changed, and yet I still had to eventually study for the SATs. I still had to go to work on Monday. I still had to reschedule my dentist appointment with Christmas. Everything changed and yet nothing changed, at least not entirely. So you would imagine my surprise when I learned that the word advent, which came from the Latin advent meant arrival. Arrival, arrival of what the baby Jesus was born already in the past, right? And each year some kid or one year there wasn't enough babies, so we had a baby Elmo in there in the play each year would be born. Shouldn't the word be arrived past tense? Well, as it turns out, language nerd nerds will know this arrival has a past, present and future usage. At least that's clear in the Latin, which leads us back to waiting for followers of Jesus today means we find ourselves in between the arrival of Jesus in the flesh and the return of him in the future.
And what advent does for us each year is illuminate that tension in between. It's a moment to pause and recognize what it means to be living in the dash between two timelines where we find ourselves today, not just to pretend we're existing 2000 years ago nor to pretend that Jesus is going to step off the elevator any second though he might. If so, I'll be the first to sit down. But somewhere in between these two advent is a time where we embrace the dark and we sit in the waiting, we look back so we can look forward. However, this isn't it. We find ourselves yes, looking at the first arrival of Christ, the return of his arrival, but there is actually a third category, St. Bernard of Clave, the monk, mystic and co-founder of the Knights of Templar. He calls this the third advent or the third arrival.
Jesus born in a manger. Yes, Jesus appearing when he returns. And lastly, Jesus being delivered His word arrived into our hearts each day, so we find ourselves somewhere now between all three arrivals and we wait. What I didn't understand then was that we weren't pretending, we were anticipating, we were preparing, we were waiting. Speaking of waiting, if you have a copy of the scriptures, turn with me to Jeremiah 33. Our text for today probably didn't see that coming. Maybe you did, but we are going to be looking as we prepare for this birth of Jesus, we're going to be looking at Jeremiah 33. A little background. Jeremiah was a priest and a prophet. And many people today hear that word prophet, they have a picture of nos dames. If you ever watched the History Channel late at night or Sylvia Brown, do you remember her appearing on like the Sally Jesse Raphael talk shows or something like that?
And she would answer people's questions and she smoked like 10 packs a day and she would tell people where their loser boyfriends ran off to or whatever. When many people think of a prophet, they almost imagine somebody with a crystal ball who could see the future. However, biblically speaking, a prophet was actually someone who through the power of the spirit of God, had this supernatural gift of seeing the present as well. A person who was hyper aware of culture, of humanity, of direction, while also having this clear connection of what God wanted in their lives. And because of this through the spirit, they knew where they were headed, which is seeing the future and what was waiting for them. That's why when you read Isaiah or Ezekiel or Jeremiah, you get over and over and over them saying, this is where we are and this is where we are heading.
So turn back. This is how we got here. This is why we have become stiff necked. You'll read that a lot or idol or loss. If we don't turn back, if we don't repent, which is what that word means to Yahweh, this is what is going to happen. We are going to lose our land. We are going to lose our power. We are going to be enslaved, we're going to be conquered, imprisoned, killed, and I'm minimizing a bit here, but that's primarily what prophecy was and is a light tower in the dark ringing bells saying you are heading towards disaster. Turn away. And if you don't, here's what is going to happen. Here's what you can expect. However, another aspect of the prophets in addition to warning was also waiting. It's not all bad news because the prophets will also add. There will come a time when there will come a time when all of this, every rung will be made right?
There will come a time when the one that we have been waiting for will arrive and the Hebrew scriptures are filled with prophecies about that one who was to come. In fact, scholars agree that there are over 300 prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, the conservative numbers, 324 prophecies about that Messiah, the Jewish people call it Messianic, hope that one day someone will come and will check every box will fulfill every prophecy. And though even now as we sit here today, we say, yeah, of course Jesus, without realizing how absolutely wild this is, I promise we'll get to our text, but just to put this in context, what experts have landed on is that the probability of one person fulfilling just eight, eight out of 324 prophecies just eight is one in one with 17 zeros behind it, which I believe is 100 quadrillion, whatever number that is.
And according to the internet, I looked that would be like taking a quarter and writing your name on it and then throwing it in what would be 630 Olympic sized swimming pools full of quarters and then just grabbing one at random. And that being the one with your name on it, right? This is mind blowing and this is just eight. All of these prophecies, or even half of these prophecies isn't just unlikely. It's impossible outside of an act of God. You can't even call it a miracle. It's beyond that. Fulfilling aid is a miracle. Fulfilling over 300 is something in a category of itself. And so here we are hearing from one of those prophets telling about the one who is to come. So for our text, chapter 33, after warning, after warning, we get this word for the people. Jeremiah is imprisoned by the people they're tired of hearing from him.
There's civil unrest. The nation is at war with each other. A superpower has arrived. This wicked demonic forest called Babylon has infiltrated them and is making their way toward Judah and eventually Israel. And in many ways they don't know who their biggest threat is. The prophet who keeps saying things that are coming true, they can't kill him, at least not yet, but if they could just maybe get 'em to shut up, then maybe their luck would change. So I don't know if that's their biggest problem or the wicked soldiers from the east or of course their own people who they're constantly at war with. And so you've got all of these things happening at the same time, and right in the middle of this prophecy in a broken system, disappointing king, poverty, civil unrest, looming tension, unmeasurable, terror as they see the soldiers coming down the horizon, God speaks through the prophet, Jeremiah 33 verse 14, the days are coming declares the Lord.
When I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah in those days, and at that time I will make a righteous branch sprout from David's line. He will do what is just and right in the land. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called the Lord, our righteous savior. I really liked how Bethany Allen frames her commentary on this text. I'm going to steal it from her. She sees this and breaks this text down into three categories, a promise, a person and a people. And so first a promise, our text opens, the days are coming, they are inevitable. God is saying, I see it all. I have a plan. I have not forgotten you. Basically, here is something to put your hope in. He begins with, when I fulfill the promise I made, God has not forgotten his promises that one day a king will come.
One day they would have a leader that they could actually put their trust in. A king who would not only lead but would save. Verse 15, how would this king reign? He will do what is right in the land. And though the Israelites have seen what is right to other people or other nations or other influences, what they haven't seen is what does righteousness look like from God? What does it look like when God is on the throne? All of their other morally, their authority was short-lived. What would it look like to allow God to take the lead one day they would find out according to this promise. Additionally notice this king has promised before would come from the line of David. Once again, God has not forgotten his promises. Also, the language uses that this king, this savior would arrive as a sprout. Interesting.
Jesus even calls himself a vine. You get a lot of this agricultural references, right? It's almost because something needs to be buried and reborn, rebirthed, there's renewal in it. And also we notice a seed has been planted and one day in a war, torn, fallen, corrupted land, the seed will be born right there. It will grow, it will extend and stretch and spread, but it will come from within. Which leads us to the second part, a person not only from the seed of David, but the promise was this person would be from one of them. This particular place basically this king, this savior would not visit them as an alien or an invader or a spectator. He would be one of their people. And here, Yahweh does not just mean Jewish or Israeli, but human, the ultimate human would come. And to many of this was exciting.
And of course it was a huge honor. One of us will save the world. But I also imagine that there was a bit of anxiousness in hearing this and apprehension one of us, we got ourselves into this problem to begin with. I mean, imagine I were to spend half of the sermon today listing off all of the problems in the world, all of the problems in this community and in this culture. And then halfway through I say, but here's the good news directly from God himself. I'm not saying this, but imagine one of us is going to be the solution to all of these problems. And part of me would be thinking if I were to hear that, I don't know. I know the people in this room. I love you guys, but I've seen us. I've seen us going through things. I've seen us all at our lowest or even more than that.
We're very human here, right? A human to save humanity. There's got to be more to it than that, right? Which leads us to the last part, A people verse 16. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called the Lord, our righteous savior. Once again, in those days, we get a promise, we get a person. And what will this result in salvation words that might jump out to us as we read this? You see, safety saved savior at this time. This must've been so confusing. This would've seemed so foreign at this point. The prophecy could have said rescued. Sure there's a Hebrew word for that, but it doesn't. It talks about the salvation, which is confusing, considering if the promises, all of those other promises that God said was going to happen, would be fulfilled, Israel would be thriving, evil was going to be defeated, right?
If there was no more threat and no more war, why in the world would the people need saving? What was hard to understand for them here is Israel needed saving from themselves. And also the king who would do it wouldn't just rule on the throne, but it also rule in their hearts. This word savior is ongoing, continual. It wouldn't just be a one-time act, but a continuous safety and salvation that people wouldn't just be saved, they would become a saved people. So why do we look at this story, this text? Why do we read a story about this birth or this one to come every year over and over? Well, as acknowledged before we find ourselves in this tension between the arrival of Christ and the preparation for his return, we find ourselves with nothing to hold onto. Since he's not here, he's not on the throne.
He has gone and not yet returned. We find ourselves in a place of waiting, a place called hope. Hope for one day, hope for fulfillment, hope for what has been will be again, and all of those promises that haven't come true, that one day that they will. And so in the tension of waiting, and also there's fear and also excitement. We all find ourselves in many ways sitting at that kitchen table waiting and the phone rings and in the three steps it takes to pick up that phone, it might as well be a marathon. And in a world where we are sold aspiration and desire and expectation, instead, we have an opportunity to choose hope. That regardless of what's on the other end of that phone call in our lives, there is good news that God keeps his promises that a person, a savior, has come and will come again.
And that we as God's people will not only be rescued, will be redeemed and reconciled. But please hear this, there is a big difference between hope and optimism. Optimism is an assessment of a situation and assuming things about the current trajectory that is happening, right? Something happens. And I'm going to choose to be optimistic about how this will turn out, whether that's a new job or a new city or a new relationship. Assuming the best hope, however, is not dictated by situation or circumstance. Hope isn't about how a situation will end up. It's in sustaining, stretching, waiting. It's not about how something will end, is how you and I will remain what we will hold onto in Hebrew. Two of the most common words for hope you'll find over and over in the Old Testament. The first one is Al, which means an expectant waiting, waiting for something with patience and anticipation.
The other one is caval, which means it comes from a chord or a tension. Think of a bungee cord. The tension of a chord being pulled as much as it can. The tension between the cove, the cord, that specific spot that is being pulled at the Titus where it's about to break, that's called caval or it's translated hope. Basically the place between what you hope for and what you experience. This is tension and why both words are used for hope, both waiting and tension is because there is a connection between them. Hope, waiting, tension, all of this is connected for the Christian. We call these things together in this space we find ourselves in. We call this expectation. We're all in this tension, not just when we're going through something, by simply being human and awaiting the advent or arrival of Jesus. And so what do we do in this tension?
The polling. And where does our attention go? What do we do? In the meantime? We look back and we look forward. First, we look forward, Gregory of Nisa talks about the experience of new creation, the fulfillment of every hope we've ever had of being made new, of being in a new body. He's talking about paradise. And he writes that. He calls this a paradox Because of who God is and our experience to God and how vast and complex and beautiful God is, he says, we will not only be satisfied in heaven, but we will also continue to hunger. If you've ever wondered if you will get bored in heaven, this is what he's writing about. And he calls this epic ptosis, which is a fancy word of saying that in order for God to remain God and for us, for the creator to remain the creator and the created to remain the created in heaven, he explains that we both hold onto hope while also being filled with hope.
Our waiting will be met with waiting, and our longing will be met with longing. And this is good news. He compares it to eating a delicious dessert. All of those old monks were always starving themselves, so they always compare it to like delicious food, but he compares it to this dessert that has the power to both fill us up and to only make us crave it more. And so we take a bite and that bite reveals to us how good it is. And we have a new hunger growing. CS Lewis calls this a God size hole in our heart, that we were all born longing for more. And the beauty of our worship is we only want more and more and more. And so in the tension and the waiting, we know one day we'll be face-to-face with God and we'll find ourselves being filled up while also desiring more.
And the beauty is the closer we get to God now and the advent and the waiting is that according to Gregory, we can experience that feeling on a smaller scale here today in our hope on earth as it is in heaven. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we recognize our desire to draw near to him. And things change when we see our circumstances as not things to hope for, but places to experience hope. So that's looking forward. Secondly, we find ourselves in that tension. We look back. A couple other things that have been helpful for me. The first is to look at God's word. On your way out, you'll find an advent reading plan. If that's something you're interested in, feel free to grab one of these. Or if you're part of another reading plan, it's a way designated passages about God and promises that were made hundreds and thousands of years ago before that first Christmas.
And you'll find that God stands by His word and you read those promises and we look back so that we can look forward. And one of the best places to do this is in scripture. And then lastly, just on a practical level, this has been helpful for me, and I've mentioned it a few times before, but keeping a journal takes 60 seconds at the end of your night. Or if you're a morning person, just jot down two things. And it could be a paper journal, I'm old school or a note on your phone. Or sometimes I'll email myself. I'm not very techie, but still just two things where you are hoping to see God in your life in that moment. And how did God show up? That's two things. Just answer those two things. It could be a prayer request, it could be receiving direction.
It could be trusting in God in between, but just jotting down those two things every day. 60 seconds, where are you hoping to see God? And how did God show up? But the point is when you find yourself in that tension in the waiting, it's so helpful to me. Whenever I'm going through something really hard to flip back and look at all the times that God had showed up before. And sometimes I'll see this thing that I've been praying about for weeks, months, years, even God will show up in that space. And then because I am flawed and sinful like a child, I'll move on to the next prayer request and forget and stop and forget to stop and praise God in that moment. And so a journal is helpful to flip back, especially when it's hard to see God in that moment. We look back so we can look forward. Advent means arrival. The story of a king who arrived on earth in the lowest place. The story of a savior who will return one day and the story of a God who is arriving in our lives, in the waiting here and now. Let's pray together.
Lord, help us to hope. Help us in the waiting. Help us to see you, trust you, to follow you. And as we find ourselves in that tension, like that cord being pulled, whether that feels comforting or straining, let us turn to you. And so Lord, prepare our hearts in this season, this Christmas season, this time of advent. We ask for your grace, for your love, your peace, your joy, and for your hope for all these things. Perfect name of Jesus. Amen.