"a Righteous Branch"

“A Righteous Branch”

Jeremiah 33:14-16

This is the first Sunday of Advent.

And Advent isn’t just about the Church getting ready for Christmas.

It is about much more than that.

It goes much deeper, all the way to our human condition, our present place in this universe and where the Kingdom of God now stands and where it is headed.

The Bible tells us that we are in the “last days.”

And “the last days” began with Christ’s birth 2,000 years ago.

The “last days” are the in-between time.

They are Advent Time.

They are Our Time.

They can seem like uncertain times, dangerous times—they are adventurous times for those of us who follow Christ as we remain in this fallen world.

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, but sometimes we get off track, sometimes we make golden calves for ourselves in the form of materialism, prosperity, power, money, fame.

We are saved, justified but we are not yet fully sanctified.

We are saints and sinners, saved by grace.

We are in the world but not of the world.

And we wait for Christ’s return in glory to finalize God’s New Creation, His Eternal Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

In the meantime, we are in a similar situation to Israel at the end of the Old Testament: in exile, waiting and hoping in prayerful expectation for the coming of the Messiah.

Israel looked back to God’s past workings on their behalf in leading them out of Egypt in the Exodus, and then on the basis of these actions, they called for God, once again, to act for them.

In the same way, we—the Church—look back upon Jesus Christ’s coming into this world and at the same time look forward--in eager anticipation-- to the coming of Christ’s Kingdom when He returns for us.

When we think of it this way, the Advent hymn which we sang at the beginning of this service—“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”---perfectly represents our cry during this season:

“O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

This was the cry of the people Jeremiah was speaking to between 626 and 586 B.C. or at least it was the cry of Jeremiah to the people, on behalf of the people who had been taken captive, dragged from their land, and kept from their Temple.

They had been beaten, imprisoned and many faced death.

Jeremiah was in prison when he wrote the Words in our Old Testament Lesson for today.

In their exile, the people were far from their country, without hope that they would return.

They thought God had turned God’s back on them and on His Covenant with them…

…the covenant with David that promises an eternal kingship and God’s perpetual love.

But God never turns God’s back on us.

God never forgets us, and God always keeps His Word.

But we have to be reminded of this, do we not?

Have you ever been in an awful situation and questioned whether God had turned His back on you or had abandoned you?

I think most of us have in one way or another.

Oftentimes, when we humans are faced with despair we cannot imagine God’s promised alternative future.

The mother in the midst of a nasty divorce may have a hard time seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

A child who is bullied day after day after day in school may not be able to believe that this is a temporary situation—that things will get better.

A person fighting addiction may not be able to imagine a day when he or she will walk free of this demonic force.

A person who works two minimum wage jobs but still must come to the Red Bank Community Food Pantry in order to feed her children may not be able to imagine a day when she can experience the dignity of choosing her own groceries.

And the Israelites living in exile in Babylon had a hard time imagining a time when they would return to their homeland and God’s Messiah would come to usher in a new era.

It was as if the Davidic Empire had been a great big tree, like one of the Red Woods…

…but it had been chopped down…

…and all that was left was a dead stump and distant memories.

But then, in our Old Testament Lesson for this morning God speaks: “The days are coming’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah.

In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land.