Third Sunday in Advent 2005
Psalm 126, Isaiah 65:17-25, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28, John 1:6-8,19-28
Living Between the Advents
Psalm 126 – the Psalm appointed for this third Sunday in Advent – is one of 15 psalms grouped together in the Psalter which all bear the designation “a psalm of ascents.” The word “ascents” is a noun form of a verb meaning “to go up,” and it alludes to the idea of “going up to Jerusalem,” since you approached Jerusalem from lower countryside. You never went DOWN to Jerusalem, you always went UP to Jerusalem. And, according the Law of Moses, all the men of Israel were to go up to Jerusalem three times a year to celebrate the feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.
There was a hymnody for these festal seasons, just as we have hymns for Christmas. And, they were the “going up psalms,” the psalms you sang when you were in caravans, traveling across Israel or Judea toward Jerusalem.
So, Psalm 126 is one of those going-up psalms, and it clearly dates from after the time when Israel went into the Babylonian Captivity. In fact, it is looks back in time to that event.
I want to examine Psalm 126 more closely today, because it provides for us a template, a pattern, if you will, for thinking about Advent this year and every season of Advent. Psalm 126 mentions, if you will, two advents and it also contains advice for how to live between these two advents.
The first advent mentioned in Psalm 126 is contained in the first three verses. It was the advent of God’s promises of redemption. Those promises were just about all the people had left of their religious heritage as they were held in slavery in Babylon. Their was no temple worship. There was, most likely, next to no worship at all. During those 70 years, those who remembered Jerusalem told their children about a land the children had never seen. Jerusalem was no more real to the children of the exile than a fable, or a story of the past. The only thing left to them was God’s promise to redeem his people out of slavery and to restore them to their home and to restore them to His worship.
That event is what opens the words of Psalm 126. “1 When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream.” If you asked someone what is the most remarkable feature of dreams I think almost everyone would point to their surreal quality, the way in which dreams combine actions, people, and situations that are weirder than anything you could create from scratch if you tried.
But, there is another quality of dreams which I think is even more important: the intense sensation of reality that accompanies dreams. It’s this quality of dreams that makes people fear dreams when they are bad dreams. And, it is this quality of dreams that make people reluctant to come fully awake if they are enjoying a pleasant dream. In either case, it’s not just the pleasantness of the dream, or the scariness of a dream that either entices or repels us – it’s the fact that the dream always feels more real than real.
And, that is how the exiles felt when the Gentile King who held them captive decreed that they could return to Israel and to Jerusalem. Yes, it was real, but it was so good, so real, that it made you feel that this was a dream – it was too real, and too good, to be factually true. And, yet, it was. And so their mouths were filled with laughter and singing. The reality of it all was verified by other Gentile nations,
“Then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’ “ And, so, finally the reality of the Lord’s blessing on them ceases to feel like a dream, and instead becomes a dream come true, so that they confess “ 3 The LORD indeed has done great things for us, and we are glad.”
Now as this Psalm sits in the Psalter, it has the same quality as so many of our Christmas carols: it looks back at a previous, glorious advent of God’s blessing. And, it also looks forward to a fuller, more complete and decisive advent of God’s redemption. That looking forward to a second advent is contained in verse 4:
“ 4 Bring back our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the South.”
What’s this all about? After recounting their joy when God brought back the captivity of Zion, why are they asking God to do the same thing again?
Well, it’s no great secret. God’s redemption isn’t like a light-switch – either on, or off – it’s a process. It has a beginning, and it has an ending. And it is possible to acknowledge one that has happened in the past while we are still looking forward to the other one in the future. That, in fact, is what Psalm 126 does. The singers of the Psalm, as they would go up to Jerusalem for the feasts, would look backward at the time when God began his promised redemption; and at the same time they looked forward the time when that redemption would be complete.
Indeed, the metaphor used in this Psalm indicates that they had some sort of idea what the second advent would look like when it arrived. The “streams of the south” are desert wadis. I grew up among these features of the desert. They are the cuts in the earth which are formed by sudden rains which pour into the deserts and run along the lowest areas. Except for their being topographical features of the desert, they look no different that the rest of the desert on higher ground. It’s all dirt, rocks, and scattered scrubby cactus and thorn bushes.
That is, until the rain comes. And, suddenly the desert blooms. What was formerly arid and uniformly tan and grey in color is now wet and filled with blossoms everywhere. Green shoots are pushing themselves out of the ground at every place. That is the KIND of thing that the singers of this psalm are looking forward to – a completion of God’s redemption in the future which results in something lush, riotously luxuriant, and fabulously rich with color and life.
Now it is a happy thing that the other readings appointed for today contain comparable views of the first and second advents of God’s redemption that are mentioned in this Psalm. The gospel for today from John shows us a scene just prior to Jesus’ appearing on the scene in Israel. John is proclaiming the first advent, the time when God acts decisively to begin his grand work of redemption in sending his eternal Son into the world as a man, to make all things news, to redeem sinners from judgment and death. For centuries, the Prophets of the Old Testament had foretold the coming of the Messiah, and here is John, announcing his arrival.
For a while, it was only a very, very few who were like those who dream. Indeed, there was a time when only one person in the whole world knew and understood that what John is proclaiming in today’s gospel lesson. The candle for the third Sunday in Advent is rose colored, to honor the Virgin Mary, and for a time, she was the only human being who knew and understood that God had become man in her womb. Over time, the ones who were like those who dream increased – Joseph, Elizabeth and Zacharias, the shepherds, the Wise Men, Anna and Simeon in the Temple when Jesus first appeared there as a baby.
And, the opening words of Psalm 126 have become for Christians one of the most fitting exclamations of their understanding of what God did in sending his Son into the world to die for sinners. And, what began solely in the song of Mary is now sung by millions upon millions of the redeemed around the world this time of year – and it joins the voices of those who sang Psalm 126 for centuries before Christ was born – when God brought back the captivity of Zion, when God entered the world to redeem it from sin and death, we were like those who dreamed. The Lord has done great things for us and we are glad!”
But, just as the singers of Psalm 126 looked forward to a second advent of God’s redemption, one that would be like a desert exploding into blossom, so too do Christians at the season of advent look forward to the second advent, when Jesus shall make all things new. That is the vision of the Prophet Isaiah in today’s Old Testament lesson.
17 “ For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; the voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, nor the voice of crying.”
This is not the only prophecy of the new heavens and earth in Scripture, of course. But, it is one of the more familiar. The mention of the lamb and wolf dwelling together, or the lion eating grass like an ox – surely this has a dream-like quality about it, wouldn’t you say? Some teachers have supposed that these images are simply metaphors for peace and tranquility. I don’t think so, any more than I think John’s visions of the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse are fanciful. Streets paved in gold? Gold transparent as glass? A city in the form of a cube 1500 miles on a side? Amazing, astounding, breath-taking images, to be sure! But, why do we suppose that the God who has made all that we see cannot do as he says? What is more real? What is more likely? What God does at the beginning? Or what he reserves for the end?
And, meanwhile, here we are, between these two advents – the one where God first came into the world as a man, and the one where that man, Jesus Christ, will return back to the earth to complete his work of redemption, to finally and completely save those who belong to him, to judge those who do not, and to inaugurate the kingdom foreseen by Isaiah and by John and by other Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Apostles. Here we are in the middle of the advents. Psalm 126 concludes with advice for those in the middle.
5 Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. 6 He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
The time between the advents, according to this Psalm, is marked by two features. One of them is sorrow, weeping, and tears. The path between the First Advent and the Second Advent is a time of sowing seed, and that process we are told is a sorrowful one. It is costly and that costliness is painful.
One of the oddest things I have ever seen in my life is the preachers of the prosperity gospel, who seem to have carefully cut out of their Bibles all the passages which speak of the testings, trials, sorrows, sufferings, labors, persecutions, and general orneriness of the ordinary Christian life. It’s all over the epistles, and it’s all over the history of the Church. Paul was absolutely correct when he wrote in 2 Timothy 3:12 these words “12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”
But all these sorrowful things are like seed sown in the ground. Those who sow such things shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Jesus showed us how redemptive, and how productive to spiritual life, suffering is. Enduring the opposition, persecution, and finally crucifixion by sinners was no picnic, but it for the joy that was set before him that Jesus endured the cross, despised its shame, and on the other side of all that has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
We see both notes in today’s epistle – the laborious, often painful or sorrowful labors that attend the work of the gospel, and the joy of final redemption when Jesus returns. Paul wrote, “14 Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. 15 See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all.” No one who has endeavored to do these things will think they’re always fun. Most of the time, doing these things that Paul commands is not fun at all. You invest yourself, your words, your actions, your money, all sorts of things in the lives of others and it is very much like taking precious grain and burying it in the dirt.
But, Paul, like Psalm 126, sounds the other note as well. “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And, may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.”
As you complete your days of Advent, as you prepare yourself to celebrate our Lord’s first entrance into this world, go ahead and indulge yourself in the joy of one who thinks that God-with-us is so wonderful that it is like a dream come true. It is a dream come true. And, as we live between that dream come true and the dream for which we are waiting to come true, when Jesus returns and sets up his everlasting kingdom, while we live between these two dreams, let us fortify ourselves with the hope of those who sow good seed with sorrow. We know that God kept all his promises concerning the first advent. He will most certainly keep all his promises concerning the second advent.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
