"Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:28 NRSV)

"I hope it rains tomorrow."
"I hope I don't have to work late on Friday."
"I hope I passed that test yesterday."
"I hope, I hope, I hope..."

None of that is hoping – it's wishful thinking.
What often passes as hope for us is little more than a statement of
what we want.

"I want it to be sunny tomorrow."
"I want to leave work early on Friday."
"I want to have passed that test."
"I want, I want, I want..."

Simply stating what we want, even what we need, has little to do
with REAL hope.

Neither is hope Little Orphan Annie Optimism.
"The sun will come out tomorrow,"
is not a hopeful attitude toward the future.
What it is, actually, is a blithe reliance on the past.
We are confident that the sun will rise tomorrow morning,
we are hopeful it will do so, because it rose this morning,
and yesterday,
and the day before that,
and the day before that.
Our hope for tomorrow's sunrise is based on our experience
that it has broken the horizon every day of our lives
and it just can't help but repeat itself.

And hope is not the penultimate step on the way
to a grudging acceptance of "reality."
When a husband has cheated on his wife two or three times
her "hope" that he won't go out and do it again
needs just the slightest nudge to become an admission
that if given the opportunity he will cheat on her
a fourth and fifth time.
The person who responds to a friend's situation by saying
"I hope it isn't as bad as all that,"
is buying the time needed to find a delicate way of saying
"you're in a fix."

Hope is none of these things,
at least not the hope we talk about during this season of Advent.

Biblical hope is not wishful thinking.
Christian hope is not naive optimism.
Advent hope is not the subconscious coverup
that precedes an acceptance of things "as they are."
The hope that Jesus talks about in our Gospel reading
is not a hope that we go out in search of.
It's a hope that comes in search of us.

Jesus does not talk about a hope that we look into the past to find.
He tells us instead about a hope that is coming
from the future to find us.

The news of Advent is that we are not stuck in an endless cycle
of present reaching blindly into the future
even as it falls mutely into the past.
What we proclaim during these four weeks before Christmas
is that there is an end and that end is God.
All of life's cycles, all of life's tragedies and missteps will be brought
to rest in God when and AS he comes.

I have 3 simple points today ... the second and the third are built upon the first. They are:

God comes!
God comes looking!
God comes loving!

I. GOD COMES -
If you believe this, then everything else
falls into the category of a secondary miracle,
and can be dealt with later.

If you do NOT believe that God has come to us in Jesus Christ
then everything else is chaos,
and we might as well go home now.
The miracle of miracles is that God IS,
and that God associates with creation
through all the persons of Deity -- Father, Son, AND Holy Spirit.
If you believe Genesis 1:1, and John 3:16,
then the words of our text from the lips of Jesus:
"Look up! Your redemption is near!"
can also be believed.

The miracle of miracles is that God has made us,
and has made us for himself.
We may not know where we are in either time or space,
but God comes!
God knows!
God cares!
God knows where this tiny planet earth orbits
a little star in a small galaxy among countless galaxies--
and more than that, God knows and cares
where you slept last night,
and why you came to church this morning!
Our God comes!

II. GOD COMES LOOKING -
IN THE BEGINNING
In the creation story, in the Garden of Eden,
after man and woman had lost their innocence
God came striding through the green glory of his creation calling,

"Adam! Where are you?"

God was very evidently calling in love.
The story makes it clear that Adam and Eve and God
had had some sort of fellowship;
walking in the cool of the day.
After the guilty pair had hidden in shame God came looking for them. There was an accountability, yes.
But there was concern, and love, and provision.

NOT JUST IN THE BEGINNING
That call to Adam and Eve is repeated in your life and mine
over and over again.
If we stop just for a moment, even if we are hiding somewhere
in shame, we hear that Voice calling our name!

God comes looking! God comes calling!

AT THE END OF TIME AS WE KNOW IT
Advent reminds us that there will be a Parousia--
a time of revealing, when all the world will hear the call:

"ADAM! WHERE ARE YOU?"

That is what the Luke 21 passage is saying.
These words of Jesus have been a source of controversy
across the centuries. Distress, and fear, and the shaking of
the very powers of heaven, and in the same breath redemption
and great glory.
Taken literally, they seem to say that before the people
Jesus was talking to had died the end of the world would come.

Two thousand years later, the earth is still here.
Still Jesus said: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words
will not pass away. We can get hung up in trying to find
some esoteric code, or we can plunge into the truth that
we live by trusting Jesus, and He is coming again
to meet every one of us, WHEREVER we are!

One person's hope is another person's terror.
When Jesus calls we will run with joy to meet him,
or we will go looking for fig leaves to cover our nakedness.
Jesus wants us to lift up our heads and greet Him with joy!

III. GOD COMES LOVING!
How do we go about lifting up our heads--
anticipating our meeting with God with JOY?
This whole Christmas Season is about one kind or other
of anticipation-- or,
in most cases,
some mixture of both kinds.
We teach the power of anticipation to our children
from a VERY early age.

Think with me ....

Santa has a list, and he checks it twice--
to see who is naughty and nice.
But it doesn't matter-- he is always jolly,
and doesn't really intrude into your personal life.

The climax of Advent anticipation is a little different.
The One who came as a Baby
comes this Second Time as a King.
The king is coming--
he is coming, looking for you.
He is coming in love, calling your name and mine!

"Adam! Where are you?"

One person's dread is another person's anticipation.
People who tell exactly how the Second Coming
will take place will always have a following--
and will always be wrong.
Before Paul had written 1 Thessalonians
people had already started having trouble
with the idea of Christ's Coming.
Peter also spoke exactly to this mystery:

"...scoffers will come . . .saying 'Where is the promise of his coming?
...all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation..."

But then he goes on to say,

"But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance."

How can we genuinely look forward to meeting Jesus Christ
face to face
without shame?
A key word in both Paul and Peter's handling
of the Second Coming is the word blameless.
"Add that which is lacking in your faith,"
writes Paul (I Thess 3:10),
"so that you can be blameless at Christ's coming."

Peter says exactly the same thing:(2 Peter 1:1-5)
He writes: "Add to your faith!"

Are these men saying we aren't saved
if we aren't perfect and complete?
Are they saying we need something beside faith to be saved?
No, rather they are saying a genuine faith will be a living,
growing thing. If our faith brings us into saving relationship
with God, then it will be a living, growing faith.

Peter says, "Add to your faith virtue-- and to virtue knowledge, and to
knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness-- and top it all off with love, genuine love!"

There is a great deal of difference between being blameless and faultless.
By God's Grace we can run to meet this God when he comes, calling for us.
By God's Grace, and empowered by His Hope, we can lift up our heads
and receive him anew this Season.
Lift up your heads ... for your Hope has come!

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
--Amen