November 29 2009    Reading:  Romans 8.18-25

First Sunday in Advent

 Theme: ‘Christian Hope.........’

Alexander Duff, became a famous missionary with the Church of Scotland in India in the 1830s. When he was a boy of thirteen, however, he attended the little school at Kirkmichael, some ten or twelve miles from his home in Moulin. In the winter of 1819, he and a friend decided to walk home over the hills through Glen Briarchan and Strathire. They set off and walked for hours over the very rough ground, covered in deep snow. It took so long, that before they knew it, the sun had set, it was dark and it had started to snow again. They knew there was a loch up ahead some where, and knew they had to keep going, but they could see no landmarks, or anything they were familiar with. Worse than that, half an hour later, by the cracking of ice under their feet they discovered that they were, in fact crossing the loch, but they couldn’t tell from which direction. Sitting down for a rest, they had no idea what direction to walk in, when suddenly, through a lull in the storm, they saw the flare of a torch some two miles away. A poacher fishing for salmon with a burning torch on the River Tummel.

They now knew their direction, and got back to their home village safely.

This is the season when we think of hope, the season of Advent, some have said that Christian hope is something like the flare of that torch long ago, Christians look into the distant future and stumble on through life, caring little for the world around.

Karl Marx dismissed Christian faith as offering hope only for another world,

not this one.

Christians are ‘Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly use......’ is the way others have put it.

So its worth while asking, in this season of hope, What is Christian hope ?

What is the shape of Christian hope ? what are its dimensions.

Here’s the first dimension of our hope,

right at the heart of the Bible...... we find that God gives all we need for today............

In the book of Exodus we have the whole story of how the Hebrew slaves, with no future whatsoever to speak of, were given faith, and hope, and a future..................

God started by calling them out of Egypt. Rescuing them, freeing them, redeeming them, and then giving them all they needed for each day.

Having crossed the Red Sea, into completely unknown territory,

the wide open desert,

on their way to the land God had promised, a new land, the Promised Land,

We find that on their way God feeds them and nourishes them on the journey. The living God, having done great things for His people, does not forget the small things, their daily needs, their daily lives. When they were desperate for water, God gave them water from the rock, when they were hungry He gave manna each morning.

Ps. 105: says ‘He opened the rock and water gushed out like a river it flowed in the desert’

Psalm 78 says ‘He rained down manna for the people to eat... the grain of heaven’

So, the men and women of Israel knew, and gave thanks for the sustaining, upholding care of the living God,

each day on their journey. And down through the centuries of Israel’s history - this was never forgotten. In fact, a gold jar containing manna, was put inside the covenant box within the holy of holies in the Tent of Meeting beside the stone tablets of the law.

God gives all we need for today............

We have been redeemed at the Cross, once and for all, through Jesus Christ. Our sin has been laid on Him and set aside. The burden of our guilt, all that weighs us down has been lifted. And we are forgiven once and for all and forever at the Cross. And as we journey on in life, God feeds us and nourishes us on the journey. The living God, having done great things for us in Jesus Christ at the Cross , does not forget the little things, our daily needs, our daily lives. In God’s care we are sustained, nourished,

with all the rich treasures of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the manna, the bread of life for each day. How could it be otherwise ? How could we continue on our journey without the bread of life that He gives ?

and God gives all we need for today............

Here’s the second dimension of hope.

God gives help in time of trouble

If you enjoy walking in the Borders, or taking a drive that way,

you’ll know that the word hope means something different in Southern Scotland........

there are hundreds of hopes in Southern Scotland, Shorthope, Langhope, Whitehope, Blackhope, Kirkhope: in the Borders a hope is a valley closed at one end, and open at the other....... as you walk into a hope, eventually you will be confronted with a dead end, high hills all around.

How like this life is. We journey forward, then life seems to come to a dead end. An opportunity slips away, we lose a job, we lose a loved one. The way forward seems closed. But then it is, and surely all of us know this in our own experience, that our Father in heaven breaks in: with the touch of His grace, and a new way opens, where there was none, with strength for today.

that’s the second dimension of hope

God gives help in time of trouble

Hope

God, gives all we need for today,

God gives help in time of trouble

and as that great old hymn says He gives ‘strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.......’.

Now, what of that bright hope for tomorrow ?

what of the future ?

Well, the Bible declares that God gives us a hope for the future that is actually present with us today.....

And He gives a hope that is not simply far away in the distant future

it is present with us today.....

Paul declares this in his letters......... again and again,

Today, he says, through the Spirit, we experience the Father’s grace and love in Jesus Christ......... that’s the present,

but this, declares Paul is only the first instalment............ of what is to come...........

The Spirit, says Paul, brings to us, all the treasures of the gospel, strength and faith and life in Jesus Christ, for today............

but, says Paul, these treasures, treasures of strength and faith and life in Jesus Christ we receive now

are a “first instalment”

This is how it works

the treasures of strength and faith in Jesus Christ we have now each day,

these experiences of God’s grace and love....... deepening life in Him

take all these together, says Paul, and they make up

the first instalment of what is to come..............

in Greek the word is arrabon........ which means a first instalment,

Professor William Barclay quotes some letters written in Greek in New Testament times:

In one letter a woman selling a cow tells a friend - I’ve sold the cow, and I’ve got the arrabon, the first instalment, and they’re sending the rest of the money on later.

In another letter, the organiser of a village festival who’s invited some dancers to come writes - I have given the dancers an arrabon, a first instalment. When they get here, when they have danced I’ll give them the rest.......

So, you see what Paul is saying ?

He is declaring this: that

the treasures of strength and faith and life in Jesus Christ that we have now, through the Spirit,

are an arrabon, a first instalment of all that is still to come........

What we have today, in the treasures of strength and faith and life in Jesus Christ

is the first instalment of all that is ahead,

the bread of life given to us today is a taster for the wonderful banquet God has in store for us...........

that is why

we can speak of bright hope for tomorrow.........

For, what we have now, will only grow and deepen, as the Spirit works within us,

or as Paul says: What we know now, is only in part, in the future we will know fully, caught up in the everlasting richness of God’s mercy and love in Jesus Christ.

The Father gives all we need for today............He gives help in time of trouble

and bright hope for tomorrow..............

surely, this is a bright and radiant hope for this, the Advent season of hope. AMEN.