Advent 2006

Advent - a Pilgrimage

It is my prayer that the message from last Sunday encouraged you with the reminder that one purpose for this season of Advent is to help us to focus on the promise of the Lord’s Return!

He came first to be our Redeemer, and He will come again, to be our King!

Today I want to talk about the time between Promise and Fulfillment... 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.

During the Christmas season, many of us will make a pilgrimage, of sorts, “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house.” A song written during WW2 and first released by Bing Crosby in 1943 can still makes grown men 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.

If we can step over the sentimentality of the song, we can see a universal kind of longing for a home, a place to belong. And that longing is an echo of our spiritual heritage, 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.

When we come to faith in Christ, it is a great experience, a destiny defining moment... and yet, we still long for more, don’t we? We desire to be ‘at home’ in God’s Presence. No, I don’t mean that we have a death wish, but we long for Jesus, our King, to come again and to bring the fullness of His Promises to us. As we wrestle with sin, walk through the sorrow of death, experience the gradual process of aging with all it’s not so wonderful stuff- we realize more and more that we’re not home yet. The better we know Christ, the less we ‘fit in’ where we are. And, yes, we more and more realize that we are pilgrims. 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)

I invite you to turn with me to a pilgrim’s text this morning -

TEXT - Psalm 126

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.

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.

READ v. 1-3

Jerusalem was destroyed by invading armies, the best and brightest young people taken captive to become slaves in a kingdom far away, all the consequence of disobedience, the refusal of God’s will for the people. 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 sent them home to their city. 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!” I love dreams for they free me from the constraints of life and reality. When I dream, I am smarter, stronger, more holy. (Not always, but those are nightmares!) Those who experienced God’s grace said it was like a dream, amazingly wonderful.

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!

READ v. 4-6

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 dry desert, brown, parched. But when the rains came, the gullies and ravines were suddenly became little rivers through the desert. The flood waters 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.

http://www.geo-essays.com/geowallpaper/desert_blooms.html

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 we know. 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! His 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 Believers who are holding on to the Promise of the Coming Kingdom! In defiance of common sense, we invest ourselves and our resources in the things of God. 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.

Our good friends, Karen and Jerry, sit with us today, ready to go to the far side of the globe for the next four years. They leave behind elderly parents that there is a good probability they may not see alive this side of Heaven! They leave their grown children and the opportunities to gather at holidays, to be a part of their lives, other than by email or phone calls! And why? Because they are sowers of the seed - sown in tears, most certainly.

There is a cost to all those who are pilgrims! I have no time for those preachers of prosperity who set aside the call to sacrifice and tears promising ‘your best life now!’ The Bible simply does not teach that our best life is possible in this present time. Again and again, we learn from Jesus 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!

I am not suggesting that we need be mournful, miserable people just because we’re pilgrims between two Advents! That would miss the whole message of God’s Word. The reality is that God’s people need not laugh the hollow or forced laughter that one so often hears in bar rooms and on shows like Late Night with Jay Leno. Our joy goes deeper, flowing from a deep satisfaction of knowing our purpose, of being one of God’s own children, secure in hope.

I saw this in the life of our sister, Marie Aicher, this week. She has endured much sorrow, first with the declining health of Tom, then with his sudden death. She has dealt with physical issues, learning this week of a brain tumor, thought to be benign. When I asked, ‘are you afraid?’ She revealed a pilgrim’s mind set for she said with a twinkle in her eye and chuckle– “Oh, no, Pastor,” she said, “if I die, I’ll be in a better place than you!”

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!

______________________________

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.