• "Biblical Hope... Not Wishful Religious Thinking"
• Sermon for the Second Sunday In Advent
• December 4, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

"Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope." (Romans 15:4-13, the epistle).

Hope is one of the three cardinal virtues, along with faith and love, that are listed together in 1 Corinthians 13:13 (NKJV): "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." The greatest is love and most people, by familiarity, would place faith second. Hope is, thus, the least understood of the three.

But hope is a uniquely Advent virtue. Titus 2:13 says that we "[look] for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13f. KJV). In the burial service, as we place the body in the grave, we say:

"We commit [this] body to the ground... in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." (BCP 333, cf. Rev. 20:13-15, Phil 3:20-21).

The biblical hope that Jesus will appear again and raise the dead is not wishful religious thinking. It is not, as some liberal 20th century Bible "scholars" taught, a thing invented by the apostles to cope with their grief over the death of Jesus. Hope is, rather, the certainty that God will fulfill his promises.

In the epistle today, St. Paul quotes a number of Old Testament scriptures that prophesied the conversion of the Gentiles. He was writing to a Roman community full of Gentile converts. Those Gentile converts were proof that God, who promised Gentile conversion, was true to his word.

God binds himself by his word. What God says he will do, he will do. As God says in Isaiah 55, our Morning Prayer lesson today, "My word...that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void. But it shall accomplish what I please" (28:11).

Hebrews tells us, "God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son" (Hebrews 1:1). God has spoken in Christ, telling us that a day of judgment is coming and promising salvation from judgment for those who repent and believe in Jesus. It is impossible for this not to happen, for God, who is the Almighty Lord of the universe, has said it will be so. As the gospel today says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Luke 21:23).

This biblical hope stands in stark contrast with other kinds of hope. Some will say, "I don't believe in judgment or I don't believe in the Second Coming of Jesus." Instead, they will set forth an alternative view of God, judgment and the world to come. Many people have different concepts of God and different hopes for eternal life.

But if you ask, Upon what do you base your hope? The answer is that their hope-and their refusal to accept the word of God-is based largely on personal opinion. Their hope is based on what they would like to have happen, on what they would do if they were God. A manmade or self-created hope, no matter how religious or spiritual it is and no matter how firmly one holds to it, cannot be the sure and certain Christian hope that is rooted in the testimony of God's word.

The Bible not only gives us the hope that Jesus is coming, it also prepares us to receive him. What will happen at the Last Day? What will Jesus say to us? What will he require of us or confront in us or praise in us? The answers to these questions are not entirely mysterious. For what he will say to us then is precisely what he is saying to us now if we will listen to his voice through the biblical word.

The Bible prepares us for the coming of Jesus in the Eucharist-which looks forward to the Last Day. The liturgy of the church is based on the pattern of Luke 24:13-35. The risen Christ was revealed to two men on the road to Emmaus. Jesus first explained the Bible to them. Then he entered their home, took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. Luke says that Jesus was "known to them in the breaking of the bread" (24:35). Likewise, our liturgy consists of Word and Sacrament. First, we read and explain God's word. Then we take, bless, break and give bread. And Jesus is known to us in the breaking of the bread.

A bishop I know once said, "If we do not know the Jesus of the Bible, we meet a stranger in the Eucharist." The living word of God introduces us to Jesus with whom we commune in the sacrament. The very structure of our church teaches us this. The pulpit and lectern, which represent the word of God, stand as a gateway to the altar, which is the focus of communion. Our communion with God is honest and genuine inasmuch as it is received with repentance and faith that are cultivated by the biblical word. As we receive Christ now, in word and sacrament, we receive a taste of the future promise. We are filled with hope.

We grow in the virtue of hope by the habitual reading of the Bible. As we hear God's word, as we "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest" it, we come, more and more, "to embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life," which God has given us in Christ (Advent 2 collect, BCP 92).

We need to read and meditate on God's word as a pattern of life, not only as a Sunday thing. As we institute habits of Bible reading in our lives, our thoughts and actions come to be formed by God's word rather than by the message that comes to us from the world. Where the world shows us defeat, the word of God shows us the cross that leads to resurrection. Where the world makes us tired and weary, the Word brings us refreshment and new strength. Where the world causes us to be filled with fear and despair, the biblical word fills us with peace and hope.

"Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope."