First Sunday of Extraordinary Time
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
“History rarely repeats itself but it often rhymes.” That pithy saying has often been attributed to Mark Twain. It certainly sounds like something he could have said, even though there’s no indication that he ever did. Whoever deserves credit for the line, it’s become well known because it rings true. Current events don’t play out exactly as they did in history, but you can see the similarities without having to squint.
For example, a large expansionist nation state from the East invades its much smaller neighbor to the West. Civilians are terrorized, land is seized, populations are carried off into exile as the invaders seek to erase the conquered nation’s identity as a people. Is this ancient history from the Book of Jeremiah, which describes the devastation wrought upon Jerusalem by the armies of Babylon in the sixth century BC? Or is it a headline from today’s news describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is now well into its third year? History may not repeat word for word, line for line, but it sure does rhyme.
After months of reading from the Gospel of Mark, and a brief detour into Revelation last Sunday, we find ourselves today back in the Old Testament. For the next few weeks we will hear from the prophets, as they share visions and pronouncements of God’s surprising plan of salvation for a humanity that has lost its way.
It’s December 1, the first day of the last month of the year. So says the calendar. It’s also the first Sunday of the season of Advent and the first day of the new liturgical year. Happy New Year! Don’t worry. No one expects you to make any resolutions. Between Pentecost, which was all the way back in May, up through last Sunday, we had been in what the church calls Ordinary Time. It’s ordinary not in the sense of commonplace but as in ordinal numbers, e.g., first, second, third. For those keeping score, we worked our way all the way up to the twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time.
More than any other season of the church, Advent marks Christians as out of step with the broader culture…extraordinarily so.
While there is nothing ordinary about Ordinary Time, Advent truly is extraordinary time. More than any other season of the church, Advent marks Christians as out of step with the broader culture…extraordinarily so. When the world around us wants to rush headlong into Christmas, Advent says “not so fast.” When retail stores overnight change their decor from orange and black to red and green, Advent unfolds before us in royal purple because the King of Kings is coming.
While in popular culture Christmas songs and Christmas movies play on feelings of nostalgia, Advent looks to the past and the future simultaneously—to Jesus’ first coming as a child born in Bethlehem and to his second coming on clouds of glory. And while front porches and window sills are wrapped in festive displays of light, Advent begins in the dark.
Unlike the line about history rhyming, “Advent begins in the dark” is a line that we can correctly attribute to its source—the retired Episcopal priest and author Fleming Rutledge. At 87 years young, she is still going strong, a passionate teacher of preachers and a first-rate theologian who happens to live not far from here in Westchester County. To say that Advent begins in the dark is to acknowledge the shadow of sin that darkens every human heart and that corrupts every human endeavor, even those meant for good.
Take social media, for example. Tech entrepreneurs promoted their platforms as global public squares that would allow us to communicate instantly with friends across town or strangers across oceans. But despite the best of intentions on the part of the tech bros (a dubious assertion, but let’s grant it), social media platforms have become sources of disinformation and conspiracy theories, factories of narcissism that encourage the worst kind of attention seeking, and megaphones for trolls whose only interest is creating mayhem and sowing discord. So harmful are the effects of social media on youth, particularly girls, that Australia has just instituted an all-out social media-ban for anyone under the age of sixteen.
Yes, Advent begins in the dark. While on the radio we hear ’tis the season to be jolly, in the church we sing about captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here. At the time in which Jeremiah is writing, only a fraction of Jerusalem’s population has been carried off into exile, but a much larger exile is looming. The Babylonians are laying siege to the city. Jerusalem is surrounded. Food is scarce. Fear is rampant.
I’m not going to get too deep into the historical weeds, but knowing just a bit about the history of what led to the exile will help us understand the theology that leads out of exile to the fulfillment of God’s promises. Even at its peak under David and then Solomon, Israel was a small kingdom, much much smaller than the empires that would arise around it in years to come. After Solomon died, the kingdom split in two, north and south. The northern kingdom, which retained the name “Israel,” fell to the Assyrian Empire in the 8th century BC. It was erased from the map. The ten tribes that comprised the northern kingdom were lost to history. If you’ve ever heard about the “lost tribes of Israel,” that’s what it refers to.
The southern kingdom of Judah survived for another 135 years until it fell to the Babylonians, which is described in graphic detail in chapter 38 of Jeremiah. Judah’s destruction, however, was not a given. Jeremiah had prophesied to the king a way to avoid that fate—submit. Submit to Babylon. Don’t make alliances with other nations thinking that will save you. Don’t place your hope in some foreign power. Submit to Babylonian rule and live or resist and die. It’s that simple. (You can imagine how popular this message made Jeremiah in the royal palace! Among other things, he was thrown into a well and left for dead.)
That was the choice before Judah—total annihilation or complete humiliation. And yet this is the context in which Jeremiah writes, “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” I can only imagine that these words in that context must have seemed like madness. Madness to those who were already in exile, madness to those who remained in a city under siege, and madness especially to the Babylonians who held Jerusalem in a vice. How does the prophet dare speak of hope in the midst of such desperation? What hope? Hope based upon what?
Christian hope is grounded in the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the righteous Branch who was nailed to a tree, who died, who rose again, and who now reigns as Lord of all.
This word “hope” is so often misunderstood. That’s because the way the church understands hope is nothing like the world’s understanding. Outside the church, we say things like, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow.” Or when facing a difficult situation, we might say, “Let’s just hope for the best.” What we’re really talking about in each of those examples is more of a wish. We could substitute the word “wish” for “hope” in each sentence and the meaning would not change. “I wish it wouldn’t rain tomorrow.” “Let’s just wish for the best.”
But Christian hope is not a wish. A wish has no foundation. A wish is sent up into the air like a puff of smoke and dissipates in the slightest breeze. Christian hope, on the other hand, is well founded because its foundation is Jesus Christ. And it is Jesus Christ whom Jeremiah calls the righteous Branch to spring up for David. Judah may be cut down, felled by the axe of Babylon, but God will cause a righteous Branch to spring up. Jerusalem may have seen the last of its earthly kings, but the King of Kings now reigns, not only over Jerusalem but over all creation, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land, which we could sorely use.
Christian hope is grounded in the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, the righteous Branch who was nailed to a tree, who died, who rose again, and who now reigns as Lord of all. It is Jesus, the Lord, who is our righteousness. The hope of the church is not in the strength of our numbers—not the number of people in the pews nor the number of dollars in the church checking account or investment portfolio.
Trust me, I say this as someone who spends far too much time dwelling on all of those numbers. I am ever tempted, as we all are, to want to trust in my own righteousness. I’m always looking for ways to bring about the outcome that I want to achieve. In effect, I’m saying to God, “Let me handle this. I’ll call you if I need you.” It’s no different than Judah brushing aside the Lord to cozy up to Egypt. “Thanks for the advice, Lord, but Egypt has offered to help us take on the Babylonians. Our hope is over here with our neighbors.”
But there is no real hope other than that which is found in Jesus Christ—in his life, his death, and his resurrection; in the forgiveness of sins that is ours by his blood. On this first Sunday of Advent, we are reminded that Christian hope lives in the tension between what is and what will be…between Jesus’ first coming, which was heralded as good news of great joy for all people, and his second coming wherein he will establish justice and righteousness for all eternity. While it’s Christmas that the song says is the most wonderful time of the year, Advent is extraordinary time, a time in which God’s promise of salvation is proclaimed to everyone in exile.