Advent - the Pilgrimage
Advent points us to a renewed hope of the Lord’s Return! The season, which is named ‘the coming’ causes us to celebrate that Jesus came first to be our Redeemer, and He will come again, to be our King!
Today I want to talk about the time between Expectation and Realization... the Pilgrimage of Advent.
Pilgrimage... a funny word, isn’t it?
Not one we use very often, but one that is exactly descriptive of our life with Christ. The dictionary defines ‘pilgrimage’ as
1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine.
2. A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.
Many will become pilgrims, sort of, as we travel “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house.” Bing Crosby released the hit “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” in 1943 during WW2 when millions of families were longing for a son, husband, or father to be home. It can still make us cry as it touches the longing that nearly everyone feels for connectedness, for love of family.
The lyrics say ... I'll be home for Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.
The song became so popular because it speaks of that nearly universal longing for a home, a place to belong.
And that longing goes deeper than DNA! It is an echo of our desire to know our heavenly Father. That is why Jesus came the first time – to restore the relationship which sin had destroyed.
John, in the first chapter of his gospel explains:
The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world. But although the world was made through him, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. ... But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. birth resulting from human passion or plan—this rebirth comes from God. So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.
Do YOU desire to be ‘at home’ in God’s Presence?
Perhaps the question startles you because you leap to the thought of Heaven and home, of leaving this world behind. That is not the intent of my question. Let me ask it again, this way ...
What is the center of your life? Where are you ‘at home’ in spirit and heart?
Do you love God’s Presence, feel most peace when you are aware of Him?
Advent reminds us that we are saved, but life reminds us that our salvation is still in process! We all struggle with sin and temptation! We deal with sorrows that find no explanation in this world. Evil visits its darkness in war, greed, death, and violence and we realize that though He is Savior, we are not completely at home yet.
When we come together in His sanctuary, when we find ourselves in prayer, when we worship with a full heart - we become pilgrims anew, longing for a better place. The better we know Christ, the less we ‘fit in’ where we are.
Peter captures our experience and says- "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God...” And then he reminds us that our destiny is not yet fully realized and goes on to say that we should live as “aliens and strangers in the world!” (1 Peter 2:9-11, NIV)
I love the phrasing of The Message which says,
"Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it. Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives." (1 Peter 2:11-12, The Message)
Advent sets a star to follow on the horizon of time - reminding of the Coming of Christ. Some of us may be privileged to Him return as the King of Glory and many others will meet Him when they go to Him when life is over - but we need that star of hope and promise to keep us on course in our pilgrimage.
The Wise Men saw the Star of Bethlehem and were so captivated that they left the familiar and engaged in a long, hard pilgrimage to find the baby boy who was to be the Savior and King of the World! My prayer is that you, too, will be a pilgrim, headed for home in His Kingdom - first living for Him here, then settling forever with Him in eternity!
A Pilgrim TEXT - Psalm 126
Context - This psalm is an ancient song that the Jews sang as they traveled to Jerusalem for the celebration of Passover. You will note the line at the top of the Psalm - “a song of ascents.” It was so-called because they went ‘up’ to Jerusalem. There are 15 Psalms that are songs of ascents.
" A song of ascents.
When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.
Restore our fortunes, O LORD, like streams in the Negev.
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.
He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him."
(Psalm 126, NIV)
This particular song is very fitting for us in our two-fold celebration of Advent as both a remembering of the First Coming and as an anticipation of Christ’s coming again, for the Psalm also points to the past and to the future, and to the experience of the pilgrims in between times.
It opens with by remembering the great joy of those Jews that God brought back from Babylon. 600 years before the time of Jesus, Jerusalem was destroyed by invading armies. It was terrible destruction, the best and brightest young people taken captive to become slaves, the Temple of God razed, the city walls torn down to the ground!
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many of the lesser prophets told the Jewish people that their suffering was the consequence of years of disobedience, of their ongoing the refusal of God’s will. But, amazingly, after 70 years, God kept His promise that they would not be destroyed forever, and He moved on the heart of Cyrus, the foreign king, so that he released thousands of Jews, the children and grand-children of the captives, and allowed them to return home to rebuild their city and culture. It was an unprecedented event!
The journey was one of celebration and all along the way the nations who saw it were filled with wonder saying, “The Lord has done great things for them,” bringing them, as it were, back from the dead!
I love the phrase - “we were like men who dreamed!” When I dream, I am smarter, stronger, more holy. (Not always, but those other things are nightmares!) Those who experienced God’s grace said it was like a dream, amazingly wonderful, not like the life they knew in reality, so they knew it HAD TO BE GOD!
What a picture for us! We, because of the disobedience of Adam and because of our own sins, were also captives, slaves of sin and Satan. But, God stepped in and - through Jesus, the Savior - overcame our captor, and set us free. He gave us back our heritage as His children. Now we, too, are on our way - to a new Jerusalem - described in Hebrews as “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
We dream of what is to come, catching glimpses of that moment when Christ is revealed as the King of Glory.
Isaiah dreamt, too! It is an inspired dream, a vision of a wonderful world yet to come. (Isaiah 65:17-25, NLT)
"“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth—so wonderful that no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard no more. ...
For they are people blessed by the Lord, and their children, too, will be blessed. I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking to me about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers! The wolf and lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. Poisonous snakes will strike no more. In those days, no one will be hurt or destroyed on my holy mountain. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
In the Psalm that is our text, the inspired writer describes the pilgrimage of our lives as we live with this great vision, the promise of a Coming King and a new Kingdom, drawing us along between the Advents!
Three things characterize the pilgrimage’s life.
First, there is prayerful hope! V.4
As with any good poet, the writer creates a metaphor, a word picture, alluding to a wonder that those who lived in that dry land would understand- ‘streams in the Negev,’ or as we would know it, ‘streams in the desert.’ For most of the year, the Negev was a desert, brown, parched. But when the rains came, the gullies and ravines were suddenly became rivers that swept the dust away and the seeds that had been dormant in the dry time now burst to life and the barren desert was marked by lines of green where vegetation flourished by the streams in the Negev.
Pilgrims pray for the renewing rains of the Spirit, the torrents that flood our dry souls. Yes, pilgrims do not always enjoy smooth trips. There are all kinds of bumps along the way- fears, doubts, confusion are a part of the journey. But, a pilgrim keeps faith and prays for the refreshing rains.
Second, there are times of sorrow. V. 5
The illustration chosen by the Psalmist is a curious one to us!
He notes the sorrow of the sower. You see, the world of that time was not marked by the seemingly endless supply of food that rich Americans take for granted. You did not just run down the supermarket to buy your food. Famine was always just one harvest away!
When it was time to plant, the farmer went into his granary and took grain that could be food for his family out to the field where he put it into the dirt! It was an act of faith, necessary but frightening. In one sense, he was throwing away his children’s dinner! In another, he was buying them dinner for the whole next year. But many things could go wrong. Rains did not always arrive at the right time and the seed did not grow. Or locusts might show up as the shoots were just beginning to sprout, and eat the plants.
So the sower went out, and sometimes he wept over the cost of investing for the future!
What an apt picture of our lives as Christians who are pilgrims. Defying common sense, we invest our lives and our resources in the unseen things of God, things sometimes just a promise. Many mock us for our foolishness. Sometimes what God ask us to do is hard, and tears flow down our cheeks, even as we bury our lives in the field, hoping in His promise of a harvest.
I am touched by the example of Jerry and Karen Jacob who are with us this weekend. Many years ago, they took the seed of their lives and planted it on the other side of the world in response to the calling of God. What a cost. They left family behind. They raised their family in different cultures. They slept often in beds not their own and they, to this day, spend a great deal of time away from the familiarity of home. But, they are pilgrims!
There is a cost to all those who are pilgrims! I have no time for those preachers who set aside the call to sacrifice and tears. The Bible calls us to pilgrimage, to follow the Call, guided by the Promise. Jesus said that we must be prepared to take up a Cross, that we must deny ourselves, that we must lay our treasures in Heaven. Such teaching does not build a big crowd, but it draws those who want the truth!
The theme word of the Christian pilgrim’s life is endurance, not triumph! Triumph and crowns will come, but meanwhile, we endure opposition from the world, the flesh, and the Devil! By faith, we keep planting the seed, weeping as we do.
Third, pilgrim’s live with certain promise that brings them joy in journey!
Christians need not be mournful, miserable people just because they are pilgrims between two Advents!
That would miss the whole message of God’s Word. Those without the hope of eternal life, those who do not know the Savior are dead while they live. Their destiny is more death, alienated from the One who is Life.
My destiny, and yours, too - if you know Him - is life and more life. No matter the trials on the way, pilgrims hang onto hope and gain greater joy, more strength, and a reason to live in generous love. A pilgrim has one foot in the present and another in the promise! And, the promise that is made by God is always, “Yes and amen,” assured by the One who cannot lie!
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This advent I want every Christmas light remind you of the Light of Heaven, Jesus.
I want you to let every gift, remind you of the gift of eternal life.
I want the songs about going home and family events to remind you that you’re not home - yet!
And remember this, we are pilgrims between Advents -
remembering the first that brought us our freedom, and
anticipating the second that will bring us home - to the Presence of God forever.
Amen.
