I'm very happy to be with you this morning.  It's wonderful to see you.  As many of you know, I was in Big Bend recently on a family vacation—the first with the boy.  I'm probably more excited to see you than you are to see me, because I'm just basically lucky to be alive. 

My father-in-law and brother-in-law tried to kill me on this trip.  We were wondering what to do one morning, and the women and Mac had gone off to do something.  We decided to climb a rock.  I put on my hiking boots and we started heading toward a rock that looks like the one in the Prudential Insurance ads.  They look at me, and they say to each other, "He's got his watch on."  And I say, "What’s the problem.”  "Put it in your pocket!  You're going to ruin it if you climb that rock."  So I did.

 We got to the base of the rock and started to go up.  I thought, "No problem.  I can do this."  We get about halfway up and the incline started to get so steep that I stopped and I looked up and I looked down.  I said, "You guys are crazy!  This can't happen!"  At that point, my brother-in-law, behind me, said, "You know, Dan, Stacy and I did this when we were twelve."  Then my father-in-law scampered up to the top of this thing like a spider monkey or a sand crab.  He got to the top and yelled down, "Hey Dan!  I'm fifty-six!" 

Somehow I was supposed to take comfort in these taunts, and I did, because those taunts were my assurance.  The words my father-in-law and brother-in-law spoke, albeit jeering, were my promise.  And it was because of that promise that I was able to make it to the top of that rock.  Now, how I got down is another story for another sermon.

We hear the same kind of language today in the words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke, the language is apocalyptic, but the message is a promise.  Jesus talks about signs in the sun, moon and stars, nations in anguish, a roaring sea, men fainting out of terror, the heavenly bodies shaking; and then he says, “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”  It’s the kind of promise that when you hear it your response might be, “Thanks…I guess.”

When promises are made to us, we know what those promises will look like—what those promises will be like.  And we like it that way.  Your parents promise you the keys to the car.  You’re promised to be paid promptly at the beginning of every month.  You’re promised that the pest control guy will be at your place between 8 am and noon.  The new coach of your favorite football team promises you that the team will improve.  You are promised that your secrets are safe with a certain someone.

But those promises don’t always end up looking quite like what we had in mind, do they?  Today, let’s take comfort in this reminder: Jesus sees how you have been burned by broken promises.  And Jesus witnesses those times when we’ve perhaps broken our own promises.  We have broken hopes.  We are lacking in confidence and trust.  But despite all that, Jesus comes to us and promises us something.  When we’re on our last leg, when we’re three sheets to the wind, when we’re down and out and we’ve hit rock bottom, Jesus says, “Hey, lift up your head, because I have promised you redemption, and it’s coming to you right now.”

We look at the challenges that life brings—we look at our hopes, and we say, “Sure, I can handle that.”  But it’s when we’re halfway up that rock and we can’t turn back, and we’re petrified with fear about going any farther because the incline has become to steep; that’s when Jesus reminds us of our promise: “Your redemption is coming.”

That’s good news.  But we can’t leave it at that, can we?  Why can’t we just accept this promise that Jesus makes?  Even when Jesus promises us redemption, we try to understand what that means—we try to understand what that redemption will look like.  I couldn’t enjoy the climb up that rock until I got to the top, because the whole time I was saying to myself, “OK, genius, how are you going to get back down?”  We look at Jesus’ promise of redemption the same way.

But Jesus cuts us down to size.  Heaven and earth will pass away.  Everything you understand, the world as you see it, life as you have come to rationalize it, all of that will pass away, “However,” Jesus says, “My words will never pass away.”

If you think about it, words really don’t pass away.  Words are so important, too.  Words mold us into the people we become.  They shape our culture, our mores and our standards.  Words even determine our concepts of right and wrong.

I was reminded of how crucial words really are when I watched the MLK Memorial groundbreaking ceremony on CNN.  There was a host of famous political figures, prominent media types and celebrities present.  They were all seated on a long stage where the memorial will be built on the National Mall in DC.  Many of them offered speeches, including Jesse Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.  They all had slightly different messages, but each of them quoted the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.  I enjoy hearing great speakers, but when I turned off the TV that morning, I wasn’t thinking about their different messages.  All I could think about were the words of MLK; his words that those speakers resurrected and shared with the world.

I know you remember these words, but what do they mean for us today?  Listen: “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…I have a dream my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

I can’t help but to think that words like this stand on the promise of Jesus who says to us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

It’s funny to think that our lives are formed and molded out of the stuff that’s already been done and the words that have already been said.  No one, after all, is a self-made person.  I say “it’s funny” because despite this, we can’t really embrace a promise.  In our human understanding, a promise is a failed concept.

And this is how we start the season of Advent.  We start Advent in darkness; the darkness of the human soul that runs from the promise of a redemption it cannot understand; the darkness of a humanity that makes promises to its people based on financial security, competitive gain and territorial lordship, even if it means that the majority of the people are left poor, hungry and homeless.  And as 2006 comes to a close, Advent begins in a darkness that is condensed by a time of war, a time of cultural division, a time of veiled institutional racism, a time of elevated poverty, and a time of indifference as to how this can stop.

The word ‘Advent’ means “coming,” and in our human understanding of how promises work, we might interpret the season of Advent as being about our anticipation of good things happening; good things brought to us by the birth of the Christ child who makes all things new.

But here is another word for us to carry into the Advent season.  The word is ‘prolepsis,’ and it means “acting as if what you expect to happen has already happened.”  We need to look at this time of Advent through a lens of prolepsis, because here is the Good News friends: the redemption that we’re waiting for in the birth of the Christ child, that redemption has already happened, and we are living in that redemption right now.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.”  And this Word will never pass away.

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
2. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
3. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
4. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
5. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
6. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
7. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
8. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

All of us, if we try, can remember the words of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, or even Fred Rogers.  But what words can only you or the people in your family remember that have shaped who you are?  Try to remember those words, because in their own unique way, those words are your promises.

I often hear the value of humor as passed on from Stacy’s grandfather, because when I accidentally stand between her and the TV, she says his words, “You make a better door than a window.”  And often when we sit down for dinner, she will offer us a prayer that her grandfather would say at family gatherings, “O Lord, accept our thanks for these and all our blessings, we humbly ask in the name of Christ.”  Those words serve to center us and ground us even now.

For me, I heard a promise quite often in my childhood from my Grandpa Mack.  He’s the man whom our son, Mac, is named after.  When Grandpa Mack was alive, our family would visit him on Sunday afternoons.  He loved to cook, and let me tell you, a homemade plate of enchiladas or a bowl of menudo or even some good ol’ macaroni and cheese sure beat eating at Luby’s.

Grandpa was a smoker, and he almost always had a five o’clock shadow, so I would some times dread the obligatory hug.  But if I hadn’t received those awkward embraces, I might never have heard his words, his promise to me.  Grandpa would pick me up, put me on his knee with my back to him; and then he’d pull me close so that my temple would be touching his cheek.  And in that awkward moment, he would say these words to me: “Danielito, my little lamb.”  That’s a promise.

Sisters and brothers, today we receive a gift from God, our good Shepherd.  Our gift is this Advent season, and it starts today.  But our promise is that tomorrow we will stand in the presence of the lamb of God.  Tomorrow we will stand in the presence of the lamb who was with God in the beginning; the lamb who promised us redemption so that we would never forget that we are all God’s little lambs.  In response to the promise we receive from God, let us say together, “Amen.”