Romans 15:4-13 - Where Is the Hope in This Holiday? - December 4, 2022

If you were forced to choose a single word to describe your mood in these days before Christmas, what word would you choose? Frantic? Underprepared? Overwhelmed? Frustrated? Impatient? Going broke? What about hopeful? Advent is a season of hope. The question is: what are we hoping for? Sure, most children – and even many adults – may be waiting to receive gifts, but even the unbelieving world recognizes that gifts aren’t the ultimate holiday hope – just consider any of the silly Christmas movies that will be playing nonstop until December 25th. The greatest hope (and perhaps the greatest fear) most people have this time of year has to do with relationships. This time of year we spend more time with others than any other – work parties and family gatherings, checkout lines and soup suppers. And, I would expect that we all hope to engage in these interactions as loving, accepting and understanding people. How’s that going for you? Certainly, we won’t ignore error, false teaching or immoral living as we gather with coworkers, family, friends, and fellow members – right? – but who doesn’t hope that this year there won’t be any bitter arguments or slammed doors or nasty social media posts? We hope for unity and love and friendship. The question is: where is the hope for that in this holiday, where is the hope in Christmas?

Before we can find the hope, we need to recognize the source of the hopelessness that seems omnipresent in these days before Christmas. The world might blame its hopelessness on inflation or the war in Ukraine or on supply chain issues that make it difficult or impossible to find the gifts you want to give to the people you love. But the reality is that the source of hopelessness is not out there – it’s in here. And we Lutherans are good – I might even say the best – at articulating the real source of hopelessness – at least if you remember Luther’s explanations of the first, second and third articles of the Apostles’ Creed from confirmation class. In the first article we confess that everything we are and have is a pure gift of God’s grace and not because [we] have earned or deserved it. In the second we confess that we are lost and condemned creature[s]. In the third we confess that there is nothing we can do to change this situation. These are the hopeless realities that are true of every human being from conception – but which only a precious few acknowledge and confess. But it’s there. Every year at this time you see stories about the “Christmas blues” – how more people are sad, lonely, depressed, and even suicidal during the holidays – because they have no hope.

And when people feel hopeless, they tend to give up – even when rescue is near. In 1945, when the USS Indianapolis, the ship that carried crucial parts for the atomic bomb that was eventually dropped on Japan which ended WWII, was ripped in half by Japanese torpedoes, about 900 of the almost 1200 sailors aboard were left stranded in the ocean. Only about 300 survived. The shocking thing is that after waiting days and nights in the open ocean many of them gave up and drowned themselves even as the rescue planes were circling. They gave up hope even when rescue was in sight. That’s what happened to Judas – even as Jesus was willingly sacrificing himself for his sins, he gave up hope and ended his life at the end of a rope (Matthew 27:5). That’s a very real temptation for very many people – even us or the people we know and love – this time of year. That’s because if we hope that we or the people around us will suddenly change because the calendar says December 25th, we are bound to be disappointed. That’s a holiday myth that’s preached by Hallmark movies and advertising professionals – but it isn’t reality. And so, as shocking as this may sound, I’m telling you to let go of that hope for this holiday.

But that doesn’t mean that you should give up all hope. Paul writes that whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through patient endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we would have hope. In other words, Paul is encouraging us to recall the hopeless situations in Scripture into which God injected a powerful dose of hope. ESPN used to air a segment called “You Had One Job.” That’s how I think of Genesis 3 and Adam and Eve – they had one job: don’t eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17). But they ate and the moment they ate they realized the hopelessness of their situation. They futilely tried to hide from God and cover their shame with leaves. But God hadn’t lost hope. God came to them and promised that one of Eve’s descendants would crush the serpent’s head once and for all (Genesis 3:14-15).

And there are more examples in Scripture. When Abraham and his wife Sarah were old – and, in regard to fertility – their bodies were as good as dead (Romans 4:19), God promised to give them a son – and through faith in this promise, Paul writes in Romans 4 that Abraham [hoped] beyond what he could expect, he believed that he would become the father of many nations (Romans 4:18). King David’s sins were, according to his own description in Psalm 32, killing him physically, psychologically, emotionally and spiritually – and yet, when he confessed those sins, do you remember what his pastor, Nathan, said? The LORD himself has put away your sin. You will not die (2 Samuel 12:13). Israel seemed like a hopeless wreck of a nation in Ezekiel’s day, and yet the LORD showed him how he would raise that wreck to life again by the power of the Spirit (Ezekiel 37:1-14). Peter denied Jesus three times in the temple courtyard (John 18:15-18) – and yet weeks later Jesus came to him to restore him to his place as his apostle, encouraging him to feed my sheep (John 21:17). In other words, with God it’s never hopeless.

And that’s why – while you may think I’m a kill-joy for dismissing the hope offered by the world out there – our focus this season (and every season) must be on the God of hope and what he has done to inject hope into our otherwise hopeless lives. He could have given up hope on this fallen world but instead he sent his Son to be born of a woman, to be born under the Law in order to redeem all those under the Law (Galatians 4:4-5). While Jesus never grew impatient or irritated or lashed out at either friend or foe in a sinful way – as our substitute, by the way – God handed him over to sin, death and the devil to receive the punishment that we deserve for all the sins we’ve already committed and will commit this holiday season. There was hell to pay, and there is no better description of hell than the absolute hopelessness that Jesus expressed when he cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46). When God turns his back on you – gives up hope in you – that’s true hopelessness. But Jesus paid it. As Paul puts it: Christ became a servant…to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs. Jesus submitted himself to hopelessness so that you could have hope.

The reason that there is so much hopelessness this time of year is that so much of the world’s hope is built on a foundation of sand. You hope your grandchild will like that present, right? You didn’t know that something newer came out just last week. You hope that the whole family can be together this year – after all the fuss over Covid has passed – right? Well, welcome to the so-called “tri-demic” of flu, RSV and Covid all in one convenient and annoying package. You hope that you won’t lose your temper or think or say some nasty things under your breath about your in-laws – well, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. If our hope for this Christmas is grounded in us, we should give up all hope.

Are you feeling hopeless this season? Have you lost hope that you will be able to cover all the bills this season creates? Have you lost hope that your health or the health of someone you love will recover? Have you lost hope that your children or grandchildren who have wandered from the faith will ever return? Have you lost hope that that relationship that was broken so bitterly and permanently can ever be repaired? Then you’re in the right place, because here is where hope is restored – not in ourselves or in the people around us, but in God – and his endless hope in us.

Paul refers to God as the God of hope. If you’re the God of something, that means you own it; you control it; you can’t lose it. God never loses hope with this world – or with us. And, again, I think we Lutherans articulate this hope more clearly than almost anyone in Luther’s explanation of the Apostles’ Creed. In the First Article we confess that God the Father provides clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home – so if you have those things, know that God hasn’t lost hope in you. In the Second we confess that even though we were hopelessly lost and condemned creatures, Jesus redeemed us not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood. In the Third we confess that even though we could never choose to believe in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has called, gathered, enlightened and sanctified us by the Gospel. While our hope in ourselves and others is uncertain – the hope we have in God’s loving, redeeming, protecting care is absolutely certain – it’s set in stone in the words of Scripture – and distributed regularly through the means of grace.

And this hope has practical implications for us – and our relationships – in these days before Christmas. Paul was writing to a church in Rome that was struggling with division between Jewish and Gentile Christians – and reminding them that in Christ, they are one. He writes may God, the source of patient endurance and encouragement, grant that you agree with one another in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that with one mind, in one voice, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this reason, accept one another as Christ also accepted you to the glory of God. If your greatest hope this season is for peace, joy and unity in your personal relationships - then here’s the key: start and end with Jesus, at his manger, his cross and his empty tomb. Because where Jesus and his cleansing blood are – there all of those bitter arguments, those nasty words, those years or decades old sins melt away. In Jesus, we can be united in hope – because he accepted us – sins and all – we can accept each other – sins and all – and worship God with one mind and one voice. I pray that is our greatest hope for this Christmas season.  

And so, while you watch the rest of the world scurrying around, frantically trying to drum up hope in gifts and decorations and cookies and their own efforts to be nicer and kinder – we rest in the fact that our hope is not based on us but on what God has done for us in Christ. Your hope for this Christmas and for eternity is firmly grounded – not only in the fact that our God is the God of hope; not only in the fact that Scripture proves that those who placed their faith and hope in him were never disappointed – but in the fact that God has and continues to deliver the ingredients for our hope here through Word and Sacrament. This water, this Word, this bread and wine prove that God has not given up on us (and that he hasn’t given up on your coworkers, friends or family, either). And that is one hope that will never disappoint! Amen.