The Hope That Transforms: A Sermon For The First Sunday In Advent

The Hope that Transforms: A Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent

1 John 3:1-3

It’s Advent time again. The American celebration of Thanksgiving is past. Now all eyes turn upon celebrating Christmas. In fact, this is what many Christians make of Advent, if they have even heard of it. The reality is that Advent is only distantly related to Christmas. It was celebrated long before Christmas in the church. Instead of centering on the birth of Christ and making sure the church is decorated properly and the proper dishes prepared, Advent centers upon the second coming of Christ. Advent has been called a “mini-lent” by some as it centers of making sure we are ready for the day of His appearing.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent which serves as New Year’s Day in the Church calendar. The last week of the Christian year is now celebrated as the Feast of Christ the King who is the final word. We celebrate that the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords shall reign for ever and ever. Amen. Advent is the first word, a season in which we prepare ourselves for the day of His coming.

Advent is centered around four Christian themes in many of the Christian Churches around the world. These themes are “hope”, “peace”, “joy”, and “love.” In these churches these themes are symbolized by four candles in a wreath, three purple, and one pink. The large white candle in the middle is the Christ candle which is lit on Christmas Eve. Readings are made, called “litanies” in which Scripture is read which illustrates the theme of the week. On the first Sunday, others have a hanging of the green ceremony in which serves as a sort of pictorial and symbolic sermon.

Today’s theme is that of Christian hope. Hope has its birth in two realities. the first is that what one is going through in the present is less than optimal. the second is that even though the times are tough, things will improve in the future. We hope for better times. We are not sure that they will be better. They could be worse. Yet we must keep some sort of hope in the future to be psychologically healthy. so we hope or even hope that we can hope.

We as Christians share in the desire to be hopeful. What is different is what our hope is grounded in. It is not based on the next election or some government intervention. These may or may not improve things. We might hope for a better job, or at least the prices go down at the store. We are bound to be ultimately disappointed if we place our hope in anything other than the Lord Jesus Christ and His promises to us.

What we learn from the Apostle John this morning is that hope is transformational. We know all too well that we are not yet what we should be. We also despair that we are in ourselves powerless to change the situation. We seem to cry out with the Apostle Paul “O Wretched man that I am. Who shall save me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) But as soon as we say this, we realize their is an answer. “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 7:25) There is hope.

But hope is not passive. We don’t just continue to look at our wretchedness and wallow in it. Hope is active. We are aware that we shall be changed at some point into a new and glorious body. But this isn’t just something for the sweet by and by. We don’t know exactly how we shall appear in that day, but we trust that by the Lord’s grace we will get there. We are promised that we will be like Him and that we shall see Him as He is. Have we not wondered what it would have been like to have walked in Galilee with Jesus. What an awesome privilege the Apostles had. they beheld him. They saw His works. They heard His teachings. They handled the Word of Life as John mentions at the beginning of the epistle. We cannot but read the testimony of the Apostles who knew Him from the beginning of His earthly ministry. Even though we have not seen, we are beckoned to believe on Him. But we also have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which confirms the message of the prophets and apostles of old.

John then tells us: “He that has this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure. Hope motivates us to grasp the future reality now. This process is called “sanctification.” We have been transformed already in part when we receive Jesus as our Savior. Now we are called to be more of what we already are until we come to perfection. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. We are beckoned to be more like Jesus, even in the here and now. Paul in the 3rd Chapter of Colossians has a similar teaching. We died when we put on Christ. That life is hidden and remains hidden in Christ. We are beckoned to look upward to where christ is seated at the right hand of God as well as to yearn for His return. This is hope in action.