Reason for HopePreached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, December 3, 2006, at the 8:40 and 9:50 am services.
The First Advent Candle: HOPE
As our nights grow longer and our days grow shorter, we look on these earthly signs—candles and green branches—and remember God’s promise to the world: Christ, our Light and our Hope will Come.
Listen to the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those who lived in a land of darkness a light has dawned. You have increased their joy and given them gladness. They rejoice in your presence as those who rejoice at harvest.”
O God, the One who has revealed yourself in Jesus the Anointed, you come and dwell within us. We are one with you. Amen.
Today we light the candle of Hope—the Hope that Jesus brings.
The first blue candle is lit .
"Hymn of Creation"
In the beginning
There was neither existence nor nonexistence,
Neither sky nor heaven beyond...
That One breathed, without breath, by its own power,
Nothing else was there...
The first born was the Creative Will,
The primordial seed of the mind.
The sages, searching for the truth within their own hearts,
Realized the eternal bond between the seen and the unseen.
This bond was an endless line stretched across the
heavens.
What was above?
What was below?
Primal seeds were sprouting, mighty forces moving,
Pulsation below, pure energy above.
John 1:1-5, 9-14
1-2In the beginning was the Logos — God’s Own Idea! This Idea — this Expression — was with God, in fact, was the full Expression of God right from the very beginning. 3By Expression all things were made. Nothing — not one single thing! — came into being except through Expression. 4In Expression was Life, the Light/Energy of humanity. 5Out of Nothingness blazed the Light/Energy, and Nothingness can never extinguish it — not now, not ever!
9The Light/Energy of all humanity came to shine brightly in our world, bringing True Enlightenment to all. 10He was right here in our existence — in the very Cosmos that existed because of him — yet the world didn’t recognize or understand him. 11He came among his own people, but they didn’t know how to welcome him. 12But those who welcomed him with open arms — those who understood who he was and placed their confidence in him — he brought forth from them their heritage as children of God, 13not because of their human ancestry or because of some human determination, but because God willed it to be so.
14God’s greatest Idea — God’s own Expression — became human and took up residence right here with us. We saw his dignity, the honor of the One and Only; like Parent, like Child, overflowing with gracious Truth.
Let’s go back in time to 400+ years before the birth of Jesus where we will encounter a man name Heraclitus. Now, that name may not mean much to you at first, but he is an important character in your understanding of the world in any case. Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher who influenced Socrates and Plato and much later Nietzsche and our modern Process Philosophy. In fact, Heraclitus was probably the most influential Greek philosopher until Socrates came along.
You see, Heraclitus postulated a model of nature and the universe that actually laid the foundation for all future thought in the realms of physics and metaphysics. He hypothesized that the universe is constantly changing AND that there is an order to or reason for all this change. The Greek word for reason that Heraclitus used was “Logos”. And his Logos hypothesis would influence science, philosophy, and religion, in Europe and European influenced cultures forever thereafter.
You’ve do no doubt heard or maybe even said, “everything happens for a reason”, or perhaps when something seemingly random occurred you asked “why???” as if you suspected there must be a way that it could all make sense. As a young student you undoubtedly heard that every action has an equal and opposite reaction or you might have heard about cause and effect — what goes up must come down. Life is fluid and one thing always influences another and so when things happen, you might say they happen for a reason. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they were preordained or predetermined, it just means that the effect we experience almost certainly had a cause.
And so, our understanding that the one constant in the universe is change and that life unfolds or evolves in some kind of reasonable way goes back to an almost forgotten philosopher named Heraclitus.
Fast forward now a few hundred years to a rural and Roman occupied location. A baby is born to an unremarkable family. They were probably poor and later legends would suggest that the baby was born in a barn, among smelly animals, to an unwed mother. Ignominious beginnings, to be sure; but things change. This baby was given the name Yeshua, though you and I use a different pronunciation — we call him Jesus.
His name means “God saves”, or “God is a savior”, or “God is a cry for help”. The name was not unique, and in some cultures remains quite popular. The name suggests that during times of difficulty, God is near as a comforting presence, as a reminder that things can change. The name reminds us that there is always reason for hope.
This Jesus would become a craftsman, a wisdom teacher, a preacher, a healer, and some would say, a messiah. He would live to somewhere between 29 and 33 years old, late middle age for his time and class. Cause of death: State execution.
But this Jesus, this person whose name means “God saves”, didn’t stay dead, at least not in the witness and experience of his followers. And his on-going presence beyond physical death gave oppressed people unimaginable hope and courage, and the movement that claimed him as their Wayshower would survive the oppression of an empire, finally convert the Empire, and ultimately outlive the Empire that executed him. Things change.
So we needn’t be too amazed when we read the opening words of the fourth Gospel, “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God …in the beginning. Through the Logos all things were made… and this Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Jesus so inspired hope, and that hope was so empowering and life-giving and healing and transformative, that even when disease and poverty and war and occupation and execution and disappointment and injustice plagued a community, that community still felt that there was an ultimate order to the universe. Things change and will change and if we hope and work, that change will one day be for the better. Jesus was so instrumental in giving people hope that some of his early admirers identified him with a 400 hundred year old philosophical concept: The universe changes. There is a Reason or Logos for the changes, and this Jesus was such a change agent he became the personification of the very Reason, or Way, or Idea, or Word of God, the dynamic truth that things change and can change for the better, so there is reason to hope. And, people who will not give up hope will not, can not be defeated.
In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, the truth that life is constant change (Thank you, Heraclitus). And that truth became enfleshed in a person who demonstrates to us that because things change, there is always reason to hope for improvement – even Golgotha need not be the end of our story. We celebrate the beginning of Advent today, the beginning of the Christian year, and for many of us, the beginning of new hope for what lies ahead. This IS the Good News. Amen.
God saves.
God helps.
God comforts.
God heals.
In Jesus, I find God’s truth.
I dare to hope right now.
And so it is!
