Sermon for the first Sunday in Advent - Hope when lamenting the hard truths of our time
The beginning of Advent is full of hope, but also offers us permission to see the world as it really is while still hoping for a future we can only sometimes glimpse. Earlier we heard the prophet Jeremiah being hopeful, looking forward to a righteous branch from David’s line delivering what is right , what is just and safety for Judah and Jerusalem. This passage is now commonly read to be predicting the coming of Jesus, and whether Jeremiah was being hopeful for that things may be better in the future, or truly knew of Jesus, we can’t be sure, but in the context of much of his writing, for Jeremiah, this was extremely optimistic. Jeremiah was a prophet who knew the harsh realities of the human experience. He is writing from prison (Jer 32:1-2 ), and living in the aftermath of Babylon’s destruction of Jerusalem around the year 587 (1:10). Jeremiah doesn’t offer any niceties or platitudes to smooth things over, just a dose of reality a...