The Beginning Is Near
Tripp Hudgins
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto
December 1, 2013
The First Sunday of Advent
The Beginning Is Near
Lord, I believe. Help, Thou, my unbelief.
Make these words more than words,
and give us all the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.
I don’t know when it was that I learned about longing.
It’s an ambiguous kind of emotion.
Longing.
It is bittersweet, I think. Excitement and anticipation wrapped in unfulfilled desire.
It’s something like that.
One might long for a kiss from a lover.
One might long for home.
Longing.
Everyone in this room has a story about longing, that deep feeling of . . . “UGH!”
Maybe we long for something that once was.
Maybe we long for something that we know can never be.
Maybe we long for something that might some day be . . . if . . . only if.
It’s so near!
This is the thing about longing for me that always surprises me. No matter how far off in the future the object of my longing may be, the sense of it is so close.
For example, I long for the day that my dissertation is completed. It feels so close. But there are many, many days between now and then. I promise you that the day is not close, and yet I can taste it. I can sense it, feel it in some way.
It’s like a terrible case of “Senioritis” that begins Freshman year of High School.
It’s like counting down the days until your eleventh birthday beginning the day after your tenth birthday.
It’s right there and yet out of reach. There’s nothing you can do to hurry it along. You can only live in the hope of it, the promise of it, knowing then, too, that the promise itself may be . . .
. . . inexact.
The vision of what is to come is blurred in some way. It’s imagined, and though our imaginations are powerful and can help us articulate how we feel and even, once in a while, get some of the details right, our imaginations never quite get it all.
Maybe it’s a little magic we’re looking for; a scryer’s dream or a magician’s trick.
We want a little certainty. Is that too much to ask? A little certainty? A little control?
If only Dr. Who would come to me in his TARDIS and take me to that day, then my longing wouldn’t be so much trouble. Then I would know and in the knowing I would not long so very much.
I want an end to longing. I want control.
God knows this about us, too. This is what Isaiah and Jesus both knew to be true: God hears the deepest longings of our hearts. And God never fails to respond. But how does God respond? With a vision.
A vision: the closeness of knowing and the product of faith.
This, my friends, is Isaiah’s word for us this morning. He’s brought us a vision, the product of longing and imagination, the sense of what it means for God to show up in the here and now and yet to witness it still unfulfilled. Isaiah has brought us a vision of what might be if, if, if . . .
. . . if we would just reach out and embrace it.
Isaiah longs for peace. Peace. Plain and simple.
He longs for what destroys (swords) to be turned into what builds up (plows). He knows that the nations, like you and like I, will always be at war with one another, finding some way to compete, to get the best of one another, to hurt one another through all manner of violence, financial or military. He knows this. He knows we’re trapped in this thinking, in this desire for an end to longing.
And he knows the way out.
God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
For me, this is the power of Isaiah’s vision and the way he imagines a response to his longing for peace. He allows his faith to inform his longing. This is so wise. I forget to do this all the time. I forget to let my faith inform my longing. Instead, I let all kinds of other things inform my longing. Departments stores. Government officials. The GTU Dean’s office. . .
I become impatient. I insist on my own way. I insist upon control. I become the Judge of All Things. I want an end to my longing. Sometimes my broken heart informs my longing, or my bitterness, my impatience, my memory of something unrequited. So, I want an end.
They are usually what informs my longing. I forget my faith so easily. Isaiah, on the other hand, is wise and his vision is powerful. He foresees something else. The response to longing is transformation, a beginning and not an ending.
Isaiah foresees a time where God arbitrates, where God decides for us and God’s decision is generous to all. God doesn’t pick sides. God reconciles us to one another. God turns our tools for cruelty and bullying into tools that will help us to grow all that we need to sustain ourselves and to love one another.
God ends nothing. God begins everything.
This is what Isaiah longs for. This is what he sees. This is his faith.
And he knows that this far off time is available to us in the present moment.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
The response to longing is transformation, a beginning and not an ending.
God ends nothing. God begins everything.
It is a marvel to me, wonderful, really, that the earliest followers of Christ understood this to be the Character of Jesus’ ministry, as well. Jesus also had a vision. Jesus also longed for a beautiful future, a peaceful world, a Peaceable Kingdom. And they knew that Jesus brought that world into being wherever he went and to all the people who met him.
They knew Jesus to be someone who lived into what he longed for. He didn’t just sit on his hands while the world around him fell apart. No. He cast a vision and he lived into it. He met the longing of his heart with a vision of God and then lived into that vision. He walked in the light of the LORD and invited all to walk with him.
He transformed what would destroy human communities into what would build them up. He wanted humanity to thrive . . . to thrive together and not at one another’s expense. So, he preached that vision. He lived that vision. He named it for what he understood it to be from reading the Hebrew scriptures: God’s vision.
Like Isaiah, Jesus knew the way out and the earliest followers of Jesus knew this about him. Jesus knew the way out, out of the systems that destroy, the systems that fail us, that cause us to sell one another in any manner of ways. We bully one another. We do it in the name of commerce, security, expediency, and even progress, but we do it.
It is a failure of vision that plagues us. We envision endings while Christ still envisions beginnings. Christ envisions fulfillment. Longing is met with fulfillment and not some end.
God has a vision for us. God has a longing for us. God has shared this vision and longing with us through the person of Jesus the Christ.
And so this is Advent. Advent is the time for beginnings. The coming of God is never the end, my friends. It is always and forever the beginning.
The beginning is near.
Thanks be to God.
12.00
Sermon: The Beginning Is Near
Tripp Hudgins
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto
December 1, 2013
The First Sunday of Advent
The Beginning Is Near
Lord, I believe. Help, Thou, my unbelief.
Make these words more than words,
and give us all the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.
I don’t know when it was that I learned about longing.
It’s an ambiguous kind of emotion.
Longing.
It is bittersweet, I think. Excitement and anticipation wrapped in unfulfilled desire.
It’s something like that.
One might long for a kiss from a lover.
One might long for home.
Longing.
Everyone in this room has a story about longing, that deep feeling of . . . “UGH!”
Maybe we long for something that once was.
Maybe we long for something that we know can never be.
Maybe we long for something that might some day be . . . if . . . only if.
It’s so near!
This is the thing about longing for me that always surprises me. No matter how far off in the future the object of my longing may be, the sense of it is so close.
For example, I long for the day that my dissertation is completed. It feels so close. But there are many, many days between now and then. I promise you that the day is not close, and yet I can taste it. I can sense it, feel it in some way.
It’s like a terrible case of “Senioritis” that begins Freshman year of High School.
It’s like counting down the days until your eleventh birthday beginning the day after your tenth birthday.
It’s right there and yet out of reach. There’s nothing you can do to hurry it along. You can only live in the hope of it, the promise of it, knowing then, too, that the promise itself may be . . .
. . . inexact.
The vision of what is to come is blurred in some way. It’s imagined, and though our imaginations are powerful and can help us articulate how we feel and even, once in a while, get some of the details right, our imaginations never quite get it all.
Maybe it’s a little magic we’re looking for; a scryer’s dream or a magician’s trick.
We want a little certainty. Is that too much to ask? A little certainty? A little control?
If only Dr. Who would come to me in his TARDIS and take me to that day, then my longing wouldn’t be so much trouble. Then I would know and in the knowing I would not long so very much.
I want an end to longing. I want control.
God knows this about us, too. This is what Isaiah and Jesus both knew to be true: God hears the deepest longings of our hearts. And God never fails to respond. But how does God respond? With a vision.
A vision: the closeness of knowing and the product of faith.
This, my friends, is Isaiah’s word for us this morning. He’s brought us a vision, the product of longing and imagination, the sense of what it means for God to show up in the here and now and yet to witness it still unfulfilled. Isaiah has brought us a vision of what might be if, if, if . . .
. . . if we would just reach out and embrace it.
Isaiah longs for peace. Peace. Plain and simple.
He longs for what destroys (swords) to be turned into what builds up (plows). He knows that the nations, like you and like I, will always be at war with one another, finding some way to compete, to get the best of one another, to hurt one another through all manner of violence, financial or military. He knows this. He knows we’re trapped in this thinking, in this desire for an end to longing.
And he knows the way out.
God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
For me, this is the power of Isaiah’s vision and the way he imagines a response to his longing for peace. He allows his faith to inform his longing. This is so wise. I forget to do this all the time. I forget to let my faith inform my longing. Instead, I let all kinds of other things inform my longing. Departments stores. Government officials. The GTU Dean’s office. . .
I become impatient. I insist on my own way. I insist upon control. I become the Judge of All Things. I want an end to my longing. Sometimes my broken heart informs my longing, or my bitterness, my impatience, my memory of something unrequited. So, I want an end.
They are usually what informs my longing. I forget my faith so easily. Isaiah, on the other hand, is wise and his vision is powerful. He foresees something else. The response to longing is transformation, a beginning and not an ending.
Isaiah foresees a time where God arbitrates, where God decides for us and God’s decision is generous to all. God doesn’t pick sides. God reconciles us to one another. God turns our tools for cruelty and bullying into tools that will help us to grow all that we need to sustain ourselves and to love one another.
God ends nothing. God begins everything.
This is what Isaiah longs for. This is what he sees. This is his faith.
And he knows that this far off time is available to us in the present moment.
O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
The response to longing is transformation, a beginning and not an ending.
God ends nothing. God begins everything.
It is a marvel to me, wonderful, really, that the earliest followers of Christ understood this to be the Character of Jesus’ ministry, as well. Jesus also had a vision. Jesus also longed for a beautiful future, a peaceful world, a Peaceable Kingdom. And they knew that Jesus brought that world into being wherever he went and to all the people who met him.
They knew Jesus to be someone who lived into what he longed for. He didn’t just sit on his hands while the world around him fell apart. No. He cast a vision and he lived into it. He met the longing of his heart with a vision of God and then lived into that vision. He walked in the light of the LORD and invited all to walk with him.
He transformed what would destroy human communities into what would build them up. He wanted humanity to thrive . . . to thrive together and not at one another’s expense. So, he preached that vision. He lived that vision. He named it for what he understood it to be from reading the Hebrew scriptures: God’s vision.
Like Isaiah, Jesus knew the way out and the earliest followers of Jesus knew this about him. Jesus knew the way out, out of the systems that destroy, the systems that fail us, that cause us to sell one another in any manner of ways. We bully one another. We do it in the name of commerce, security, expediency, and even progress, but we do it.
It is a failure of vision that plagues us. We envision endings while Christ still envisions beginnings. Christ envisions fulfillment. Longing is met with fulfillment and not some end.
God has a vision for us. God has a longing for us. God has shared this vision and longing with us through the person of Jesus the Christ.
And so this is Advent. Advent is the time for beginnings. The coming of God is never the end, my friends. It is always and forever the beginning.
The beginning is near.
Thanks be to God.
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