KEEP HOPE ALIVE!

(This is an adapted version of the sermon preahced at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 11/27/11)

"For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given. (Isaiah 9:6)


Keep hope alive! This statement was once a popular mantra of hope and possibility for many. In the context of the Advent season, in the context of our Christ faith, the statement takes on bold new meaning. It is the message of Advent, the message of promise – the message that help is on the way.

In this season, we remember the hope of the prophet Isaiah who proclaimed:
“For unto us a child is born,
unto us a son is given:
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor,
the mighty God, the everlasting father,
the prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Here, Isaiah begins to speak hope and possibility and promise into the apparently hopeless predicament of the people of Israel. Here they were mired in a condition of centuries of complacency before God, centuries of wandering and disobedience. Now lost, and wondering about their future. The Israelites had nowhere to turn, and nobody to depend upon – they were seemingly hopeless in their despair.

And in many ways, our days seem to be filled with similar doom and gloom. Just open the newspaper - political unrest, social dysfunction, economic uncertainty, natural disasters, and community violence, not to mention spiritual demise, abounds.

Philosopher Cornel West calls the conditions in which we live the “Nihilism” of our communities - where a certain nothingness, meaninglessness, lovelessness, and hopelessness seems to have pervaded and permeated our reality.

In the midst of these recent realities, disasters, unrest, and uncertainty about the days ahead, the Advent season reminds us that we have to KEEP HOPE ALIVE. Why? Because help is on the way.

Isaiah spoke possibility and promise into the community of faith by declaring to them that “unto us a child is born.”

Now notice here that it would take over 700 years for this prophetic promise to come to fruition (“for unto us a child IS born”), but still Isaiah spoke promise into their present reality. Note here that Isaiah did not say that a child would be born, but that “Unto is a child IS born.”

In other words, the Israelites needed to see the promise of the Messiah – the promise of salvation, the promise of wholeness, and the promise of healing as a part of their present reality.

“For unto us a child is born.” It’s interesting, as we look with hope and expectancy at the coming of the Lord, that at the birth of Jesus, God used everything that was wrong with this world to make us right. Jesus was born in a manger, not in a hospital – he was born to an unwed, teenaged mother – he was born without a biological father – he was raised by homeless parents – he was not of an elite class, but born into poverty and struggle. In Jesus, God used everything that is wrong with our world to make us right.

Keep hope alive! What are we really talking about when we talk about hope? Hope is not something that is static, and may not be even be material, but hope is living and helps us to see how God will be at work in our lives in the future.

• Hope helps us to experience disappointment, and see victory.
• Hope helps us to look at need, and see provision.
• Hope helps us to experience death, and know that life is still possible.
• Hope helps us to look at the darkness, and know that daybreak is on the horizon.

We are encouraged today to KEEP HOPE ALIVE! For help is not only on the way, but help has already come in the person of Jesus Christ.
Keep hope alive! For, indeed God is a God who has come to help us rise in this day, to help is to hold on, to help is stay strong and keep looking up.

Hope would lead Isaiah - amidst the dismal despair – the tumultuous turmoil of his day to later write another song:
Even youths faint and grow weary,
And young men stumble and fall
But they that wait on the Lord (those who hope in the
Lord)
Will renew their strength,
They will mount up with wings as eagles,
They will run and not get weary,
They will walk and not faint.

KEEP HOPE ALIVE !