“Simple Gifts: Hope”

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus ²it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. …They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.”

Today’s text has some beautiful poetry from the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah, who shared these precious words of hope with his people as they faced exile in Babylon almost 700 years before the birth of Jesus.  And upheld within it is the second of this Advent’s “simple gifts,” myrrh, a symbol of hope and healing, which was brought to us today by the second of the three wise kings that we read about in Matthew’s nativity story. 

Now hope has the flavor, I think, of a very pretty Christmas present – like the scented lotions and oils my daughter likes to get for me every year from The Body Shop at the Mall.  And I have to confess I never really appreciated those kinds of gifts until I moved to Connecticut – when you have good case of painfully chapped winter skin, that’s when you can best appreciate a good moisturizer.  Can I hear an “amen,” ladies?  It’s the same with hope.  We can’t fully appreciate the soothing touch of hope until we’ve spent some time in the waterless desert of hopelessness.  The simple gift of hope is far more than a pretty Christmas card word to those who have no hope – the sick, the poor, the lonely.  It can bring new life, the will to go on, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

As many of you know, because you’ve heard my stories, my mother was a true steel magnolia.  On one hand, she was just the sweetest person – kind of shy. But you didn’t want to get in her way when she set her mind to something – like being a nice and friendly person – she was passionate about that.  She’d say, “I’d rather be shot at dawn” than do what I’m doing now – she hated public speaking.  But out in the world, she’d talk to anybody.  Used to drive me crazy.  As a teenager, especially, I was never so embarrassed than when she’d start talking to some stranger in an elevator, or in the grocery store line. 

Well, now it’s official.  Now I’ve officially become my mother.  I was at Danbury Hospital just before Thankgiving, paying a visit to our dear friend Harry Gerowe during his brief stay on the cancer floor, and I was riding up in the elevator with this young mother who looked pretty depressed, and her son.  He was carrying this scraggly, sad Christmas cactus that still had the UPC code price sticker on the crumpled foil around the pot.  “Pretty plant,” I said.  Pretty plant!  The kid was probably a 6^th grader.  He was old enough to know I was crazy to say that, and he looked at me kind of like I might pull a knife on him next – you know, “stranger danger.”  It was not a pretty plant.  It was very clearly the last plant available at the checkout line of the grocery store.  It was a “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree” kind of barely alive cactus.  It had a couple of broken down brownish green stems and just a tiny hint of pink bud peeking out in a couple places.  But I don’t know what came over me – I was my mother’s daughter – I just couldn’t let it drop.

I scared the boy!  “Well, by Christmas it’ll be pretty,” I said.  “Who’s it for?”  The boy just stared at me like I had 3 heads.  “It’s for my mother,” his mom said.  “She has cancer.”  “I’m sorry,” I said.  “It’s a terrible time of the year to be sick.  But I want you to know that my son got my mother a tiny Christmas cactus just like that for my mother almost 10 years ago, when she was sick, and now it’s a great, huge monster of a plant that’s covered in bright pink blossoms every winter.  It’s a perfect gift.  She’ll love it.”

That is what the simple gift of hope looks like, people of faith.  It looks like a barren wasteland coming back to life.  It looks like the desert just coming into bloom: “For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; ⁷the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.”

I’m sure you don’t have to go to the news to find people who are running low on hope this time of year, as the world turns cold and dark.  You don’t have to go farther than the nearest grocery store check-out line or hospital elevator to find them.  Many are on our own church prayer list – they are members of our own families, people you know right here in Brookfield.  Those of us who gather at 8:30 Thursday mornings to lift up all those names in prayer are so grateful for the hope God gives us – because without it, how could we carry the heavy burden of worry and sorrow that you share with us? 

On that list are the prayers of parents with sick and dying children, the prayers of family members grieving recent deaths, the prayers of brothers and sisters praying for friends and relatives going through cancer or divorce, those struggling with domestic abuse or depression, addictions or unemployment.  Other prayers are for frail and elderly parents, those with dementia or disability, brave soldiers we know who are off at war, loved ones who are going through daily and unimaginable pain.   And into the midst of all that darkness and suffering, we here in Christ’s church light this small candle of hope.  We dare to raise our voices and pray for healing, hoping – God help us – on our best days, actually believing with Isaiah, with Jesus, that healing is possible for this broken, messed up world.

How do we do that?  How do we find the courage and strength to help the wise men and the Christ child share the simple gift of hope with the world?  We do it the same way Jesus did it on the last night of his life, when he was soon to be betrayed and deserted.  On that night, the darkest night of his life, when all hope truly was lost, that night Jesus looked to God to give him the voice to offer one last prayer for his disciples, for the friends he loved.  Somehow he found enough hope to lift the bread and gave thanks to God.

That’s what it looks like, people of faith, when God enters the world and becomes flesh – when God comes to restore hope to the world.  God sits at the table with us, comes into the middle of our suffering, and tells us that it will all be all right.  That’s what Isaiah’s poetry describes for his people, who would have to cross the same eastern desert the wise men would later cross to find the baby Jesus in Bethehem. You know that when they were taken away in chains into exile in Babylon, in what is present-day Iraq, they had very little hope.  And yet, it was back through that same barren terrain that Isaiah predicted they would later return.  Only the next time it would not be a trail of tears – it would be God’s “highway… the Holy Way,” where they would be safe from all their former enemies, safe even from the wild beasts.  And this is the same “way in the wilderness” John the Baptist predicts with the coming of Christ, what Christians name today as the Way of Jesus.  As someone who without my trusty GPS is more than a little directionally challenged, I love what Isaiah says about God’s highway – it gives me hope:  this is the way; Isaiah says, “for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.” 

You see, when we gather together in Christ’s church we are like those exiles, the remnant of Israel.  We cling to the hope of salvation, just as our ancestors did before us.  When we are near hopeless, when our days are dark and full of pain, we still come together to share the stories of our faith in worship.  We do it the same way Jesus and his disciples did around the table of the Passover Seder.  Did you know the Passover meal that was the origin of our Christian Communion began as Jews met to worship in homes during the exile?  At Passover, even today, they continue to long to be at home again with God, inside the Holy of Holies at the Jerusalem Temple – “next year in Jerusalem” is the parting hope of the Passover meal.  And with them, as we come to worship in Advent, we Christians continue to hope for our homecoming reunion with God.  We hope for God Emmanuel, God with us at Christmas.  We hope our faith can be restored by the light of Christ.  We hope for Isaiah’s promised day of singing, when “everlasting joy shall be upon [our] heads,” and we “shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

The Good News we celebrate in Jesus Christ is that God’s love does have the power to restore hope the way desert rains restore life to the wilderness.  Don’t we all know people who look like drought-stricken plants, limp with hopelessness – like pitiful cactus?  I’m sure you know someone who could use the simple gift of hope this Advent.  So for the rest of this season, I challenge you to carry the light of Christ’s hope out into the world.  You don’t have to be a saint or Bible expert to do that.  You can just be a crazy friendly lady in an elevator like me, or my mom.  Sometimes all we have to do to share the Good News of God’s love is to reach out to someone with a simple gesture of care or concern, maybe an invitation to come to church.  This has always been our call, people of faith – to carry with the wise men, and with the Christ child, the simple gift of hope and healing to the world.  As Isaiah says, “³Strengthen the weak …. ⁴Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come and save you.’”

Thanks be to God for this Good News. 

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Isaiah 35:1-10

35The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. 3Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. 4Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

5Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; 6then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; 7the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. 8A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. 9No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. 10And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.