I'll Have a Blue Advent - Jeremiah 33: 14-16

“I’ll Have a Blue Advent”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah 33:14-16.

Two Sunday ago, after Bible class, I stepped into my office to switch my Bible for my hymnal and I noticed I had a missed call on my cell. When I checked the message, it was news that my friend, Ray, had died in his sleep earlier that morning. He and his wife were here for my installation – some of you may have talked with him. I worked for him when I graduated high school, through college, a couple summers while I was at Seminary, and even one summer after I was ordained. Over the years, especially after my dad died, our relationship changed, and he became a quasi-father figure for me. Ray had been sick for a while since the middle of summer, in and out of hospital and nursing homes for the last couple of months. He had taken a turn for the worse in October, and I knew he wasn’t well. I had called and talked with him a couple times this fall and had hoped to spend some time with him soon. His son’s phone call changed that.

His memorial service was last Saturday.  All week I was in a funk, remembering Ray’s life and contemplating his death. We had driven from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Walburg, Texas so we could attend the service. Last Saturday I was truly sad and cried more than a few tears, before and during the service, and later in the afternoon as well. I know some of you read what I wrote on my blog. I know what I was feeling is not unique to me and many of you have been there as well.

You’ve probably heard the song, “I’ll have a Blue Christmas.” I think Elvis did it originally, but others have covered it since then. It’s a simple song, just two verses plus a refrain, that laments missing a loved one. The song doesn’t say why the loved one isn’t there – it could be death, war, or a relationship being broken apart. I guess the specifics don’t matter because, regardless, the singer is sad; he or she is blue. That’s how I was feeling last Saturday. I sure didn’t feel like Christmas was around the corner. So that evening I went for drive and I stopped at the cemetery where the members of Zion, Walburg, have been laid to rest for over a century. Names of the faithful that I knew and remember are etched in stone for generations to see. And there, in the northwest corner, is the red granite stone etched with my Mom’s birthday and next to hers, my Dad’s name, birthdate and date of his death. I was in a melancholy mood for it being just a few days before Advent. The cemetery seemed a perfect place to be that evening.

But, perhaps, a cemetery is a good starting place for the season of Advent. The word “advent” means “to come towards,” and the church marks the season as a time to prepare for Jesus coming. Advent has a two-prong focus. The first one is easy: we remember Jesus coming, in time, the long-promised Messiah to come to the House of Judah through the lineage of David, born of Mary, as the Babe of Bethlehem. It’s easy to remember because all around us the world has jumped full-swing into Christmas. Christmas music is on the radio and in the stores, the trees are up in our homes and businesses, lights twinkle and stockings are already suspended, waiting to be filled. There is nothing wrong with this – don’t get me wrong. I am not being a theological grinch, nor am I trying to be a pastoral fuddy-duddy. Our tree is up, too. I play Christmas music in my study, and I am ready for Linus to give his rendition of Luke 2 to the rest of the Peanuts gang.  

But it’s the second aspect of Advent that I was considering that gloomy Saturday evening: the return of Jesus in glory. We know this, that Jesus will return one day. It’s in the Scriptures. You heard Jesus say it Himself last week: “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory,” Mark 13:26. It’s in the Creeds: “He will come to judge the living and the dead.” It’s in our prayers. When we pray our common table prayer, we are so concerned about whether it is let this food or let Thy gifts, we forget that it’s a prayer for Jesus’ to come and be among us: Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. We pray it in the Lord’s prayer – let Thy kingdom come. The Latin translation makes it even more clear: adveniat regnum tuum.  The last words written in Holy Scripture still echo through the centuries: Even so, come Lord Jesus! The Church has always held this promise of Christ.

But that’s part of the struggle, isn’t it. Christ’s return is so near, but also so far. It’s near: It’s as close as the Word - we repeat Jesus’ promise week after week and we know it, we believe it. But it’s so far: somewhere along the way, the imminence of, the nearness of, the yearning for Jesus’ return has gotten lost. It’s been “out there” so long that it has gotten pushed further and further out there, so far out on the edge of our periphery that we hardly even consider it in our daily lives.

The early church, the earliest Christians, believed Jesus’ return to be any day. They longed for, they yearned for, they prayed with great earnestness for the day of Christ’s return and the resurrection of all flesh. Even in Luther’s life, he fully expected Jesus to come again before he died. But today…today, the immediacy, the expectation, the desire for the day is all but lost. We’re so busy dealing with the realities that are around us – the economy, the drumbeat of war in the Ukrane, the flood of people waiting to cross into the United States, our health, the fear of layoffs, the medical tests, the slipping transmission, the leaky roof, our kids, how to afford gifts on top of all of this…the list is endless. These are real concerns – don’t misunderstand me – but the problem is that with all of these things on our minds, Jesus’ return just doesn’t make the list, or at most, it’s way down at the bottom. After all, we think, he’s waited this long…it’s been 2000 years since His ascension. Why would he pick December 2, 2018, or December 19, or even the year 2019 to return?

I think we’re more like God’s people in the Old Testament than we realize. By the time of Jeremiah, it had been thousands of years since God promised the Messiah to Adam and repeated it to Abraham. Five hundred of years had passed since King David had been promised his son would always remain on the throne. God’s people were growing weary of waiting for Messiah and their eyes, their ears, their hearts were wandering, seeking answers to temptations surrounding them. Lest we blame them too quickly, there are many parallels between then and today: Times were hard; especially for those who struggled to remain faithful to the promises of God. Their sister nation, Israel, had fallen; Judah’s kings were far from faithful; the nations surrounding them threatened to overwhelm them. Why was Messiah taking so long in coming?

Does this sound familiar? This is why Jeremiah’s words are still so poignant almost three thousand years later. Just as he did for the people of ancient Judah, he still speaks for us today. It’s as if Jeremiah is still calling out to us: “Look! Do you see what I am seeing! Do you hear what I am saying? The days, they are adventing. The time is drawing near when God will fulfill all of the promises to His people, the Church.” Jeremiah calls us, the Church, the New Israel, to repentance, confessing our sins, acknowledging that our sins are the very reason for the Messiah to be promised in the first place. He tells us how we are letting our eyes be distracted by these things around us, our ears by the noise around us, our hearts by those things that scare us, and he lets us see these things for what they really are: temptations to stop looking to Jesus. By the power of the Holy Spirit, he continues to call us to faith, trusting that we are saved by the One whose very name means Savior. Jesus did not let His eyes be distracted from the cross; He did not let His ears be swayed from the voice of His Father; He did not let His heart be pulled away from His great love for us. Everyone wants to remember His birth but remember: His purpose was to die for you. And so you never forget, and never doubt that truth, Immanuel, God-with-us, dwells among us in Word, in water, in bread and wine, with the blessed declaration that we are recipients of His righteousness, inheriting the full and free gift of the forgiveness of all of our sins. 

Earlier I said there are two aspects to Advent: one, where we look back in time to when Jesus first came in flesh, the child of Mary. Advent leans backward, so to speak, to that night of nights when Christ was born.   Advent helps us prepare to celebrate this Nativity of Jesus. This is important. This is good.

But Jeremiah helps reminds us of the second aspect of Advent: that Jesus is returning.  He is patiently waiting, not being slow in keeping His promises, as some think. His patience is an act of grace, giving people the opportunity to hear and believe of Christ who came to seek and save the lost, that they may repent and trust His promises and also look forward to the day of His return.

Perhaps you know how I was feeling last Saturday. You, too, have experienced the death of a loved one in the past year, or suffered the destruction of a relationship, or you have a loved one who won’t be coming home this year. You’re feeling a bit blue, yourself. The season of Advent is also for you. Ironically, the color is even blue, albeit for a different reason. It’s not blue for our sadness; it’s blue for Jesus’ royalty. Remember that we are awaiting Jesus’ return in glory as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

On that great, glorious day, when the heavens are torn apart and He descends where every eye can see Him and every ear hear His voice, He will raise the dead and the faithful will be restored into perfection for eternity with Him. For those who know, believe, trust and rely on Jesus as their Savior, having been declared by their Righteous King to also be righteous, they shall be raised into eternity. And you all will see each other, you and your loved ones whom you miss now so much, you will be resurrectedly whole. But even greater than that, you will see Jesus, Immanuel, God in flesh, who came once, in time, and who returns again to deliver the salvation promised through Jeremiah.

Sing with me:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel. (LSB 357 v1)

Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.