Our Advent theme this year is “The Weary World Rejoices,” a line from my favorite Christmas hymn, O Holy Night, but this wasn’t my idea. Our theme comes to us from the wonderful mind of Kate Bowler, who invites us to embrace the Advent season as it is – imperfect, beautiful, and real.[1] After surviving a Stage IV cancer diagnosis at 35, Kate Bowler had to rethink a lot of what she knew. Since then, she has written books like “Everything Happens For a Reason and Other Lies I’ve Loved,” and “No Cure for Being Human and Other Truths I Need to Hear.” She has a great podcast called “Everything Happens” where she talks about how it’s hard to be human, how life is absurd, and most importantly, how much we are loved.

Normally in Advent the candles we light represent Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. But in this series, each candle will represent one of God’s promises: truth, compassion, restoration, and justice. Each week we’ll focus on the ancient promises of God, which were enfleshed in Christ. Like so many people before us, we are doing this during the winter. The nights are longer, the air is colder, but we celebrate it with warm drinks and special songs. We welcome the season by decorating our homes, and eating delicious food, and giving each other gifts. Darkness becomes a welcome guest for sitting by the fire, and building pillow forts, and seeing Christmas lights. We rest in the beauty of it, and we wait, trusting that the day is coming when the light will return.

If you look at the lectionary’s suggested readings for the first Sunday in Advent, you will notice that they are always prophetic. We start by either reading the prophets, or the prophetic words of Jesus. The prophets even show up in our Advent hymns, talking about stumps growing new branches. Jeremiah lived about 600 years before Jesus did. His words and his stories were kept by his disciples, people who lived through what he had predicted, that the Babylonian army would capture Jerusalem and exile them. During his life, Israel was divided, and one half was already ruled by the Assyrian empire. The Babylonians were coming next for the tribe of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah saw what was coming for them.

The stories from his life show him speaking to kings, officials, priests, and to the people at large. He held the leaders accountable. He told them to change. To see what the consequences of their choices would be. In Chapter 7, God says this, “Mend your ways and your actions and I will let you dwell in this place… if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place; if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt—then only will I let you dwell in this place…” Jeremiah believed that God was passing judgement on them through Babylon. He says that they had forsaken the fount of living water and turned to broken and empty cisterns. They trusted that gods of wood and stone would save them, and where they put their faith, changed their actions.

In the first 30 chapters, Jeremiah tells us how bad things have become. He says that they have turned the land into a Den of Thieves, and that God is present in their mouths but far from their thoughts. They say that “all is well” when nothing is well. They have done abhorrent things—yet they feel no shame. The wicked are prospering, and the treacherous are at ease, and the lifeblood of the innocent poor is on their garments. “Like a partridge hatching what she did not lay, so is one who amasses wealth by unjust means;” he says in chapter 17, “in the middle of his life, it will leave him, and in the end, he will be proved a fool.” He says to one king, “Your father ate and drank and dispensed justice and equity…He upheld the rights of the poor and needy—Then all was well. That is truly heeding me.—Declares the Lord. But your eyes and your mind are only on ill-gotten gains, on shedding the blood of the innocent, on committing fraud and violence.” (Ch. 22) You cannot separate Jeremiah from his criticism of wealth and power, and their impact on how people are living.  Jeremiah laments and rages, as a faithful response to what the unjust rulers are doing. Even though they would not turn from their course.

 Jeremiah doesn’t only write about their doom, though. He also writes about redemption. In Chapter 31, he says, “The lord revealed himself to me of old. Eternal love I conceived for you then; therefore, I continue my grace to you. I will build you firmly again… Thus said the lord who established the sun for light by day, the laws of moon and stars for light by night.” God has plans, according to Jeremiah. Plans for restoration. Days are coming when the old promises will be fulfilled, and they will be delivered again. These promises can’t be broken any more than you can break the natural law of day and night. God is as reliable as the seasons.

Life is not perfect. It is hard, and absurd, and weirdly beautiful. We don’t have to pretend that all is well, to know what Samwise Gamgee said, “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”[2] Jeremiah doesn’t look at all the injustice around him and go, “Well, there’s not much I can do about that. I’m not the one in charge.” No, Jeremiah does what God calls him to do in that moment. Jeremiah speaks the truths that need to be heard, because the tyrants are real and fighting them is worthwhile. Jeremiah lives in expectation that the day of justice is coming. A righteous new branch will spring up. Empires never last forever, but God does. God is the one who always is.

God remains invested in our endings and our beginnings. We might try to ignore what’s coming for us, but God is busy making preparations. Our choices will always have their consequences, but God will never leave us. God does not give up on us. God keeps breaking through. At Christmas, God’s breakthrough is a baby. A child born to an unnoteworthy couple living in an oppressed nation becomes a source of light and life for the world. An infant sparks the fire of God’s Kingdom, bringing a vision of peace and a covenant with God that is for everyone.

Have faith in the truth that the light returns. Even when things are at their worst, God’s promise is hope and a future. Trust the creative work of God and know that you have a role in it. It is nobody’s job to sit on the sidelines and watch. It is everybody’s job to help bring about the new creation. We do this by living into our hope. Remember that hope is a precious thing. A powerful thing and a nightmare for oligarchs. Hope is tenacious and it is subversive. Hope is a reminder that we are not at the end of the story yet, and there is only one possible ending, the one where love wins. There will be justice and righteousness in the land. God will keep breaking through to save us again and bring us life abundant.

In this season of Advent, I hope you catch glimpses of how God is breaking into our world even now. In each of us, in every place, in all the world, God is becoming flesh. Live as if in expectation of that promise, which is reliable as day and night, summer and winter. The darkness is only temporary, and there is even some beauty in it.

You are not wrong to be weary. If you are, I hope that you aren’t afraid to lament what needs lamented, and that you get plenty of rest. I hope that if you feel like giving up, you will trust in this truth. The future is not entirely on our shoulders, because God is with us. Christ is coming, bringing with him so many reasons to hope. Because of a small child, the weary world rejoices, for the embodiment of God’s truth.  Amen.

[1] https://katebowler.com/seasonal_devotional/the-weary-world-rejoices/

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8965547-it-s-like-the-great-stories-mr-frodo-the-ones-that