I. HOPE AGAINST HOPE

This morning we sing hymns reflecting the story of our Lord’s life. We selected texts and tunes written and composed by those whom, since the 16th century, we have called the Reformers. We do this today, because on this Sunday closest to October 31, All Hallows Eve, we recall that Augustinian Monk, Martin Luther, nailing 95 Theses to the door of the University Church at Wittenburg, inviting debate over the conditions of God’s grace. Luther, of course, believed it unconditional.

Now, today it may seem odd to find ourselves singing robust and sturdy hymns during a time so sadly laden with threats and anxiety, terror and death. We awaken each morning, or fall asleep each night, it seems, to news of some fresh and horrible debacle in this, so far, six week war: yesterday, today, civilian deaths amid the wreckage of Red Cross medical and food centers as a consequence of the bombing; this morning, in Be-hu-wal-pur, Pakistan, an armed invasion of a church and the deaths of 16 worshipping Christians by automatic gunfire.

Indeed, to sing hymns of faith and hope when some of us here feel our faith under duress, or perhaps waning, and our hope a question mark, might be seen as foolishness, trivializing a solemn and sober time, or a sacrilege. Perhaps. But just as those 55,000 fans at the World Series in Phoenix this evening will sing “The Star Spangled Banner” before the game and lift their voices for “America the Beautiful” during the seventh inning stretch, expressing and exulting in their patriotism, so we, not primarily as patriots, though we may well be patriots, so we will sing and confess through poetry and music our confidence and trust not so much in empire or nation, not in democratic institutions and our constitution, not in our political configurations, economic alignments, military strategies, sophisticated weapons or modern antibiotics, as important or perhaps as necessary as they may be. We know these to be vulnerable over time to change, to obsolescence, to the frailty, the limits, the provisional perspectives of the human condition.

No, today we sing because our faith and our hope lies in what James Moffat continually calls the Eternal One. In this God, whom we know most fully in Jesus Christ, we witness and discover One, who, when the world seems turned upside down and things we depend upon crumble, dissolve and shift under our feet, we discover One who stands as the Psalmist sings, “like a mighty Rock.” In these circumstances we confess a God of hope who we see from our vantage point at the foot of the Cross, a God of Hope who can carry us and hang onto us even through circumstances as perverse and destructive as Calvary. We stand with the saints of the ages confessing faith, trust, ultimate confidence in One who loves us, and offers a second chance—and a third and a fourth—even in moments when doors are slammed, lights blown out, the ground seems to open under our feet, death itself confronts us. As our hymn proclaims of our lives and our church, “Christ is made the sure foundation.”

So today we sing of faith and hope. We invite the reformers into our gathering. They give us texts we can stand on, tunes stirring our hearts. And yes, we begin with one of the two or three greatest hymn writers of all time: Charles Wesley, that Anglican maverick who, with his brother John, spread the enthusiasm, the radical, world-changing, social justice oriented explosion of Methodism in l8th century Britain and America. Its style and unfailing optimism remains with us today.

Our text reflects the Advent hope of a new world order, the promise of a creation recast, redone, reconfigured, transformed. It anticipates, not simply a child in a manger, but the dimensions and quality of the new world that child ushers in, as the prophet envisions, a world where we shall beat swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks, where nation shall no longer lift up sword against nation, neither shall we learn war anymore. Indeed! Come! “Come! O long expected Jesus.”

II. THE COMING OF THE CHRIST

The hope we pray for arrives. The story tells us of One anticipated for ages. Royal blood will course through his veins. He will possess the military acumen, the political savvy, the religious charisma of the iconic King David. He will knock heads together, bringing peace and freedom to a people and a land crushed for millennia by invading empires, even now resentful of Roman colonization.

And what do we get? Virtually nothing. A baby. As the story has it: a baby born poverty-stricken, on the road, soon to be a refugee, born of a mother who sees her child, not at the top of some political and military power pyramid, but rather One who will turn that pyramid upside down, upset it, and show the conventional wisdom about the exercise of power and its consequences to be outright illusion and the purveyor not of peace, but the continuing cycle of violence. Born in a world, then, where there was no room for him, bearing in his person “the realm of heaven.” And what might that entail? Well as the great Reformer Luther himself envisions and hears it:, “Glory to God,” the angels sing, “and peace on earth,” “let heaven ring!”

In that manger lies our hope, and thus with voices raised we greet this birth, and yes, “a glad new year,” a joyous time, a healed community among us on earth.

III. A REVELATION TO THE WHOLE WORLD

Those three magi from the East? We have named them Caspar, Melchior and Balthazzar. What role do they play in our story of hope and faith? Why does Matthew include them as he tells the story of Jesus?

Well, as we emphasize on other occasions, we designate this passage to be read on the 12th day of Christmas, Epiphany. We recognize on that day the revelation of Jesus as the Christ to the whole world. Those three outsiders who see a star and follow it to far off Bethlehem represent the world beyond the borders of tiny Israel, beyond the ethnic and religious lines drawn against a hostile and perceived world of unbelievers, atheists and military and religious enemies.

And then these three arrive. To them, to us, Matthew reveals the ultimate meaning of this child’s presence among us; he illustrates the kind of life that can save the whole world. The stooping of God into the flesh of a child, the humility, the vulnerability we witness here provides not simply a clue to the hope promised to a single people, but a revelation to a quality of life and risk and openness for God’s sake that might heal the bloody fissures and festering wounds, the ignorance and misunderstanding, the fanaticism and presumption separating and dividing us. Who were those three worldly, reverent travelers? Today, might they be an Afghan, a Palestinian, an Anglo-Saxon, a Serb, a Saudi, a Somalian, an Uzbek, a Pakistani—you name it—as the key to reconciliation and a world community in harmony and mutuality, the One born under the star seen from afar opens the door on the new age, for all of us, of justice and of peace.

And thus, in hope and deep conviction, as if on the way to a new disclosure, we sing “O Morning Star, How Clear, How Bright” to a tune harmonized by the virtuoso of the German Chorale, Johann Sebastian Bach, whose own works provide an epiphany and who scribbled at the close of each, “soli deo gloria— “to God alone be the glory.”

IV. THE PASSION

Of course the Cross stands at the heart of both our faith and our hope. It hangs here at the head of our nave saliently reminding us of why we dare sing with courage and serenity, with joy and hope in these troubled times. You see, as we have said on other occasions, the Cross itself represents trouble. It shows the death of an innocent. We remember the fierceness of religious zealots and civic cowards; we encounter a bloody mess compelling us to ask questions about who really is in charge of this world. What kind of power courses through the universe? Are we finally alone, bereft, left to our own devices, victims of perverse rage, dog eat dog, a setting where might makes right? Looking at the Cross we might conclude that.

But we don’t conclude that. We don’t conclude that because right through the middle of it all, where love seems absent, hope abandoned, God seems dead—there, right there—in face of everything denying it, we have confessed Love present, Hope evinced, Providence working in our behalf. We cannot explain it. We can only confess it. But in faith, in confidence, in trust, we say with that prolific, perceptive, astounding Christian poet, the Father of English hymnody, Isaac Watts :

From sacred head, from hands and feet sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thrones compose so rich a crown. Where is God in troubled times? God is there all the time.

V. FROM DEATH TO LIFE

Everything we have said or sung so far, we do in light of the vast and explosive Easter event. The anticipation of One who will finally recast our communities, turning swords into plowshares; celebrating the birth of One ushering the new world we yearn for; the conviction finally that what lies in that manger represents how men and women of whatever creed or class, clan or nation, race or religion should serve and treat each other; the faith that the Cross does not finally illustrate the meaninglessness of life or the ultimate defeat of good or the smashing of love, but rather the ultimate triumph of love over hatred, light over darkness, healing over woundedness, justice over greed, peace over war, solidarity over brokenness, life over death—that faith comes from the decisive event in Joseph’s garden where we confess love and light and life have the last word.

We sing that faith, we celebrate that hope with our Reformed Church forebears, from a Psalter John Calvin assembled in 1545. What a consolation and hope: “O dear Redeemer, make us calm and sure, that in your strength we evermore endure.”

VI. LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

So how do these decisive Christ events of some two millennia in the past remain contemporary? How is it they are not just some small footnote on a piece of crumbling parchment? How come this criminal—executed, then stuck in a tomb outside the city wall—how come this Jesus continues to intrigue and challenge us, draw and console us, inspire and beckon us, renew and refresh us?

It is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit come to enable us; come to heal us; come to encourage us; come to hearten us; come to sustain us. It is the Holy Spirit identified with this God of Jesus Christ who, as the old hymn says, bears us in strong and gentle hands. It is the Holy Spirit who enables us to serve others without burnout, who gathers and binds us here in this room weekly, who sends us, for Christ’s sake, into God’s world to succor the wounds, to provide a vision, to assemble the foundation of the city set on a hill. Ah, Johann Sebastian, child of the spirit, we find ourselves no less embraced by the One embracing you.

VII. THE BEDROCK OF CHRIST’S CONTINUING MINISTRY AND MISSION

We close this morning with a hymn written in the middle of a religious war, as all wars, sad, tragic, filled with self deception, wild propaganda, furious accusations, ideological blindness, cruelty exercised in the defense of high principle. The text comes from Psalm 46: “The Lord is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” On that foundation alone do we find secure footing in this or any other time. It is Luther’s text. It is Luther’s tune. Someone once called it, “The Marseillaise of the Christian Faith.” Interesting. In time of trouble, dare we call it, by analogy, without undue national chauvinism, “The Star Spangled Banner of the Christian faith”?

SCRIPTURE READING
Romans 5:1-11*

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access † to this grace in which we stand; and we † boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.