Hoes
THE FOURTH CHURCH PULPIT

Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming
December 5, 1999

John M. Buchanan

We light this candle as a sign of the coming light of Christ. Advent means coming.
We are preparing ourselves for the days when “The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.” {Isaiah 11:6)

God of our salvation, you straighten the winding ways of our hearts and smooth the
paths made rough by sin. Keep our conduct blameless, keep our hearts watchful in
holiness, and bring to perfection the good you have begun in us. We ask this
through him whose coming is certain, whose day draws near; your Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,
forever and ever.

The Book of Common Worship
The Second Sunday of Advent

FOURTH
PRESBY
TERIAN
CHURCH

A LIGHT IN THE CITY

Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago
126 East Chestnut Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2094
(312) 787-4570

LO, HOW A ROSE E’ER BLOOMING

JOHN M. BUCHANAN, PASTOR
FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
December 5, 1999

“... the desert shall rejoice and blossom. . .” (Isaiah 35:1)

Mark 8: 1-8
Isaiah 40: 1-5, 28-31

Dear God, as we journey through these days of Advent, help us to be alert to signs of
your coming into the world. Keep us from that seasonal frenzy that so often turns sour,
and turns this season of blessing into a burden. Help us to know something of your
advent—in the laughter of children, the singing of choirs, the impulse to love and give.
Startle us, O God, again this year, with your truth and your love and your promise of
hope, in Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

When I was a college freshman, Dante’s The Divine Comedy was on the required reading
list. In that great work, there is a classic description of hell with its descending rings and
vivid torments—ice and fire. Over the gates of hell there was a sign with these words:
“Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.” I remember that not because I was such a good
literary scholar, but because most of the freshman class was plowing through Dante at the
same time, and it was a memorable evening when over the double doors to the freshman
cafeteria, a place of no small suffering, there appeared a wonderfully ornate
sign—‘“Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here!”

Quite seriously, hopelessness is a particular kind of hell. Hope, as a matter of fact, is at
the heart of what it means to live a human life and be a human being. Without hope we
are not alive—sometimes quite literally.

Viktor Frankl was one of the saints of the 20" century. A Jewish psychiatrist in Vienna in
the 1930’s, he was arrested and sent to a concentration camp after the Nazi takeover.
Because he was a physician he was kept alive. Frankl did what he could to help his
fellow inmates and all the while reflected on and recorded what he saw and experienced
and later, after the war, wrote about it in one of the important books of the century, Man’s
Search for Meaning. Conditions in the camp were appalling: regular torture, starvation
and execution. There was no hope of escape or rescue. Around the camp was a highly
charged electrical fence. A prisoner who decided to end it all simply needed to throw
himself into the fence, which many did. Viktor Frank! noticed in that hellish setting that
prisoners who were devout Christians or pious Jews seemed more likely to survive—
because they never gave in to hopelessness. He also noted that prisoners who lost hope
died shortly thereafter. (See Stephen Ferris, “Preaching Advent Hope at the Beginning of
the Millenium, Journal for Preachers, Advent, 1999, p.3)

Urban sociologists know that when there is no hope, people become violent, uncaring.
Life becomes cheap because it is meaningless. The normal civilities which are the

adhesive of life in community—politeness, compassion, consideration—seem to disappear
when there is no hope.

Physicians and ministers are familiar with the life giving power of hope, the amazing
resiliency of the human spirit when it is empowered by a sense of the future.

Hope and Christmas are almost synonymous, Many of the cards you and I will receive in
the next three weeks will invoke hope as the essence of the season. And yet, hope is so
easily trivialized and domesticated and transformed into a kind of pollyannaish optimism.

In fact, hope is a powerful theological motif. Theologian Jiirgen Moltmann wrote, “From
first to last, Christianity is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also
revolutionary and transforming the present.”

Hope, Moltmann argued, is the primary characteristic of Christian faith, and furthermore,
that it is Christian hope that motivates Christians to struggle and work for a better world.
He wrote: “That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest,
not patience but impatience ... Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with
reality as it is .. .Peace with God means conflict with the world.” That dynamic,
Moltmann argues, will make the Christian Church “a constant disturbance in human
society.” (Theology of Hope, p. 21)

In the 6" century B.C., the people of God were in what could be described as a hopeless
situation. Their nation had suffered a horrendous military defeat: their beautiful city of
Jerusalem had been leveled, their beloved Temple destroyed and they, themselves, had
been driven all the way to Babylon where they lived in exile. They were weak, powerless,
with no resources to resist, no energy to go on living and believing, and certainly no
reason to hope that things were ever going to be different. And it is to them that a prophet
addressed some of the most beautiful and hopeful words ever written.

“Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem...
prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a
highway for our God.

.. those who wait for the Lord

shall renew their strength,

they shall mount up with

wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary,

they shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40)

That hopeful anticipation was the power to keep a people alive who had no earthly reason
to go on living-—an amazing dynamic that is the reason those same people have survived
down through the centuries, survived centuries of anti-Semitism, persecution, exile,
homelessness, hatred and ultimately a determined effort to eliminate them altogether. The
power of hope... it is not a pollyannaish optimism.

The late Joseph Sittler wrote a wonderful essay on hope under the title, “I Still Plant
Trees.” After he retired, Sittler could be seen on the campus of the University of Chicago
with a spade and a seedling in his arm, looking for a good place to plant. He was a great
theologian, an elegant thinker. He was not pietistic. He wrote that Christian hope is in
God, not human history. “I do not think we are in a very good situation historically,” he
wrote. “Our record indicates that we can walk with our eyes wide open straight into
sheer destruction if there is a profit on the way ...” I have no great expectations that
human cussedness will somehow be quickly modified and turned into generosity or that
humanity’s care of the earth will improve much. But I still go around campus planting
trees.” (Grace Notes and Other Fragments, p.97)

It’s not simple optimism. Biblical hope looks reality in the face and refuses to give up.
Biblical hope knows that no matter what reality looks like, God is in charge: a God of
mercy and justice and love. Biblical hope knows that even in the face of the most hopeless
reality—a concentration camp—a terminal illness—nothing can separate us from God’s
love in Jesus Christ.

That’s what Viktor Frankl discovered in the concentration camp. It’s what physicians
observe at the bedside of critically ill people. There is an almost miraculous resiliency
produced by hope. And we know it and see it and experience it in those human situations
where hope seems most remote, most unreal, situations where we experience our own
powerlessness and hopelessness.

Hopes lives in tension with reality no matter how difficult and challenging and dark the
reality may be.

If you are at a dead end, that’s exactly where hope emerges.
If you are living in some kind of darkness, expect hope to show up.

if you face what seem to be insurmountable challenges—in your work, in your
relationships, in your hopes and dreams, that’s exactly when hope goes to work.

If you are tempted simply to give in, to give up, to expect no more than what is, that’s
exactly where you can expect Advent to feel like an irritant, a prod, a push—because that
is exactly what Advent is about.

If you find you can’t believe the way you used to believe, if your spirit is lost somewhere
in a land of deep darkness—that’s exactly where hope comes.

I love Emily Dickinson’s description of hope. She was a 18" century poet, mystic, and she
created a whimsical and memorable image:

“Hope is the thing with feathers,

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without words

And never stops at all.” (Part I, “Life,” XXVII, Stanza 1)

Prophet and poet know that hope lives deep in the human spirit; that our capacity to hope
is what makes us human.

Philosopher and theologian know that hope is the source of human restlessness and
impatience, that hope transforms the present by making us dissatisfied, unwilling to make
peace with the way things are. It is precisely because we hope that we are unwilling to
give in to the dead inertia of reality.

“Hope has two daughters,” Augustine said. “Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things
are, and courage to make things other than they are.”

I’ve been debating all week whether or not to tell a story of hope this morning because it is
not an easy story to tell. It is a story of human tragedy, human sin, and human hope. I
decided to tell the story when a large bouquet of artificial bright red roses arrived in my
office. They have become my personal symbol of Christmas hope this year.

It’s a story of one of our youngsters, let’s call him Melvin, who lives with his mother and
grandmother and younger brother in Cabrini Green. Melvin was in the tutoring program
as a young child, his younger brother is in our tutoring program now, he knew his
brother’s tutor, had visited in his home, even swam in his pool. Melvin was targeted by a
gang and did what he thought he had to do to protect himself—got a gun—a very simple
thing to do. He had no police record. When gang members came after him, Melvin pulled
out his gun, shot it, hit and killed a young girl who was standing nearby, a life long friend
of his, with whom he had gone to kindergarten, 15 years old. He was arrested, tried,
convicted of 1" degree murder, sentenced to life in prison. Melvin was 16 at the time. He
is 17 now. His situation is about as hopeless as it gets. His mother and grandmother,
however, are people of faith who don’t easily accommodate to the reality of hopelessness.
After his conviction, they were devastated, helpless, reached out to the only person they
could think of—the tutor, a member of this church. It seems there is reason for a
reconsideration of the conviction and sentence. An appeal costs several thousand dollars.

/ His mother and grandmother scraped together all they had and borrowed against a small
life insurance policy and fell several thousand dollars short.

Could we help? Should we help? A terrible thing has happened, a young woman is dead,
and now a young man’s life is over as well. We could and we did. You could and you did.
In the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of the hope that is within us, we did.

And so the bouquet arrived with two notes, one from Melvin’s mother, one from his
grandmother. His grandmother wrote:

“As I sit here and write this letter, words cannot express the way I feel about the
generous contribution your church made for Melvin’s appeal. I come from a poor
family. Me and my daughter did not know how we were going to get the money.
When I came from court I sat down and asked God to show me the way and Sandy
(the tutor} came to mind. I remembered how nice he was to Melvin.

Pastor Buchanan, Melvin is not a bad kid. He just got caught up like so many black
boys... He never complained about anything, always held his head up so me and
his mother would not have to worry about him. I want to thank you and the
church again for what you have done for my grandson. God bless you.”

“Hope has two daughters.
Anger and courage

Anger at the way things are,
Courage to make things other
than the way they are.”

The source of our hope is the event Advent waits for. The quiet coming of God into human
history; the gentle appearance of light in the darkness, the birth of a child in the night,
weak, helpless, vulnerable—the very incarnation of God, the irresistible power of love, the
promise of hope.

When the notes and the bouquet of artificial roses arrived this week, I had already chosen
the hymn to follow this sermon on hope. The bulletin was at the printers. I’ve been
pondered the coincidence all week.

“Lo, how a rose e’er blooming
Amid the cold of winter
when half spent was the night.

Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
John Wilkinson December 5, 1999

Let us pray. Gracious God, you have come to us as wisdom, pervading and permeating all of
creation. You have come to us as power, appearing as a burning bush, rising as a sign for all
of the people. You have come to us as compassion, as warm light and lightly falling rain.
You have come to us as hope, as possibility, as an open door, as a new way, as a journey
which destination is love and justice and reconciliation. And so this day we shall endeavor
to greet your hope with our hope, to respond to your graciousness with our gratitude, to live
in love's promise because you are ever faithful to your promise to redeem, to save, to make
whole and new and alive.

And so when hope's promise seems tattered or shadowed by the sins of the world, make it
strong in us. When disease ravages our friends and loved ones, give them a full measure of
your presence, and give them Christ's presence in our hearts and hands and voices. When
hopelessness faces people in our communities -- because of addiction or loneliness or
poverty or job loss or a broken relationship -- give them a full measure of your loving
kindness.

When politics and economics and emotions lead to human conflict -- in places like
Cabrini-Green or Louisville or Seattle or Chechnya -- deliver a full measure of your justice
and righteousness. When we view glimpses of your radiant dawn, as we have seen this
week in Northern Ireland, give us a full measure of the capacity to celebrate, because by so
doing we proclaim to the world that hope is alive.

And so in this season of anticipation and expectation, gracious God, as we wait for a new
heaven and a new earth, may we greet your promise with joy, and to be ready in that half-
spent night, to sing the song, to tend to the flower, to show your love aright.

O come, Lord God, and order all things with strength and gentleness. Come quickly to teach
and to deliver, to shine and to form, to set free and to save. In the name of the one who is
God with us, even Christ Jesus. Amen.