In 1881 the doors of the well-known William and Mary College in Virginia were shuttered. For seven years they were closed.
In the aftermath of the Civil War during the economic and social rebuilding of the South there were no students and no money for a college to flourish.
In spite of the fact that the college was closed for seven years the president, President Ewell, who had had the habit of ringing the school bell every morning on his way to work, continued to ring the bell of William and Mary College every morning. Sun, rain, snow … whatever the weather. There were no books; there were no classes, no classrooms, the rain poured through the damaged roofs; the war had ravaged the campus as well as the area around it. But still the bell was rung. One day a friend asked him, “Why do you ring that bell? People think you’re crazy.” He said, “Hope, my friend, hope in the Lord that he will one day provide the means to reopen our beloved college.”1
Hope gives grounding to the spirit which leads us to the future even when time and circumstances seem bleak and the future uncertain. Hope nourishes the seeds of spirit and courage to reach out to live in a new day. It is the theme of Advent leading to the birth of our savior which grounds our lives in a bedrock of hope.
I find two issues in our scripture for this Sunday. The first is AN AFFIRMATION; the second is AN ATTITUDE.
The affirmation is that GOD’S GIFT IN JESUS—MORE THAN A BABY—IS THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WHOLE WORLD. God’s concern is the redemption of all the world.
Sometimes we put a governor on our expectations. We try to curb our imagination and appetite. We say to our children, “Don’t ask too much. Don’t take the whole list to Santa Claus.” We try to reduce the expectations which we have of what life can deliver for us and what God can do in our world.
The Scriptures for Advent help us remember that sometimes our expectation of God is too small. Sometimes our hope is dampened by cynicism which believes things are going to turn out the same anyway, no matter what I believe or pray for; life is going to be pretty much the same. Maybe in our faith we think too small and we expect too little.
In one of the devotional booklets, which is in the doorway as you leave this morning, Henri Nouwen, captures this insight in a beautiful prayer; “Dear Lord, forgive me for projecting my present condition onto the future. If I feel dark, the future looks dark; if I feel bright, the future looks bright. But who am I to know what life will be like for me tomorrow, next week, next year or ten years from now…? Lord, I will not bind you with my limited ideas and feelings. You can do many things with me, things that might seem impossible to me. I want to remain open to the free movement of your spirit in my life. Help me to be free, to let you enter my heart, however you desire.”2
The prophet Jeremiah reached out to his people obsessed with despair, with no hope for the future. Their hope had been taken from them because they felt removed from God. Jeremiah wrote to these people and said, God is stronger than your expectation, mightier than what your prayers have asked, for God will bring justice to the world and righteousness to every heart of the universe. God’s reign is certain. You can trust the promise of God. God will overcome the powers of evil, destructiveness and death.
Several years ago I was at a retreat center preparing a talk which I would give later that day. In the room where I was working a book on the bureau was titled, “Come Change the World.” That invitation caught my heart. It was an invitation to anyone who would take it up, to respond to God’s call to change the world - and here I was worried about a talk I was going to give that afternoon. What a vision for our lives!
We see in this title, first that God is concerned with the whole world, all of it, with Africa, South America, Mexico, as much as with California or New York. God is concerned about the whole world and we can be a part of that movement to change the world.
God’s power is enough to free the person who’s caught in the bondage of alcohol or drug abuse.
God’s grace can forgive the most heinous sin.
God’s love is able to recreate life for each of us and all of us and transform all the world.
We get caught up with small things in our lives. The toy store runs out of the toy which our child or grandchild wants and we fret over that. We lose something and worry about not finding it. We get bogged down and we need this message of Advent that God’s concern is to change the whole world. It helps us grasp a new vision of what our life can focus on.
A sermon title some years ago, “Expect Great Things From God, Attempt Great Things For God” got it right.
Our expectations need raising. We need to trade—up in our faith because we believe too little and anticipate too little. We can expect great things from God. We must also attempt great things for God.
Advent is a time for an attitude check. The scriptures of Advent help us do that. The attitude called for is to live each day with expectation grounded in the hope that God is strong and competent. It is an attitude that leads us to be ready for God whenever and wherever God comes.
Someone once asked Frank Loesser, the songwriter, how he kept thinking up all those tunes. He said, “Well, all day long the tunes keep popping into my head. But of course your head has to be arranged to receive them.”3
That’s the catch, isn’t it? All day long God’s grace keeps popping into our hearts and suffusing our spirits, but we have to be prepared to receive it, to see it, to hear it, to believe it, to trust it, to follow it. We have to be prepared.
Amos Wilder, as he thought about living each day with expectation wrote,
"He came when he wasn’t expected
as he always does.
Though a few shepherds on night-
time duty had the news early.He came where he wasn’t expected
as he always does,
though a few eastern sages were
given a Sign.He comes now when and where we
least expect Him, in hearts open to receive Him
as they must always be."
What are you expecting for your life? What are you expecting for today?
The great God Almighty who loves all the world and wants to create a New World will intersect your life. We need to be ready for the surprises.
One family was selling their dog. I don’t know why, maybe it chewed up one shoe too many or dug one hole too many in the flower garden, but they were selling the dog. The son was given the responsibility for advertising this dog. As his father went to work one morning he noticed a sign in the front yard, “Dog for sale $8,000.” He chuckled to himself but when he got home that night he saw that the sign was down. He asked his son, “Did you sell your dog?” The boy said, “Yes.” He said, “What did you get for him?” He said, “Two four thousand dollar cats.”
We must be ready for the unexpected, for surprise.
The time when grace brushes over your heart may not be December 25th. It may be on November 30th when a child crawls into your lap and falls asleep. The time when the divine intersects your life may be on December 10’h when you make a decision to do something significant about people who are hungry in our world.
You cannot set the clock for God. God is free to move anytime and anyplace. We must watch at all times and wait expectantly, reaching out to others in love, imaginatively, and above all by being with those people who live each day hoping in the God who comes.
Amen.
1. Jim McPhail
2. Henri Nouwen, “Be With Me, Lord.”
3. Thanks to Don Shelby
GraciousGod,whose mysteries call us into the light, away from the darkness of our doubts and fears, we come to you this Advent morning, not ready yet to find the surprises of your love. We bring with us the cares of the world; concerns for loved ones, schedules that are filled with busy, unfinished deeds, empty spaces in our lives we don’t know how to fill. We need to make decisions, shop, call, write, do. Yet we are here, Lord, hoping that in the midst of our ordinary lives the promise ofAdvent will not pass us by. We are here, hoping again, as children, that your good news will appear even in the fabric of our human tasks and relationships. Come Holy Spirit, help us to prepare for your good news.
Help us to pray, Lord. Lift before our minds what is known in our hearts. Grant us the faith to place our concerns before you and receive your peace, which empowers us to be channels of your graceful love. We offer our prayers of loving concern for the families of DU, MS, and MG. We give thanks for the faith of these who have gone before us into your presence. Help us to have faith to encourage those who still run the race, especially those who may not see the goal so clearly. We offer our prayers for those who are sick, for MB and CB. We pray also for those whose names have not been shared among us but who remain dear in our hearts. Help us to be strong and loving in our deeds, Lord, that your strength and your love might be made known in this community of faith. Help us to receive those in need and in times of weakness so that none might be left alone in darkness.
As we celebrate the dawning of another Advent season, Lord, help us to pray for daring visions of the world as you would have it be. Help us to see the possibilities for this church to do your will. Raise our sights beyond what we see as practical to become agents of your possibilities. Keep us from dashing the hopes of your people because we are too timid to live by daring faith. Give us the trust to proclaim the message of promise, of peace on earth and goodwill toward all, of a message proclaimed to the captives and the unseeing, of hope for the oppressed and the poor, and light for those who cannot find their way. Make us bold enough to live as followers of Jesus, and to live daily by the prayer he taught, saying. Lord’s prayer.