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Fourth Sunday of Advent

Sunday Morning, December 24, 2006

"Bethlehem-Town of Promise-Town of Hope-Anticipates!"

Micah 5:2-5a

Preached at Providence Lutheran Church in Holland, O.

By Pastor Dennis R. King

The Grace and Mercy of our Lord, Jesus Christ, be with you all. Amen.

A man stood with his pastor waiting for the train. It was a dark and dreary day and the train was to bring the body of his oldest son who had been killed in Vietnam. The mother, sister and wife of the young man sat silently in the car. The widow of the young man was three months pregnant. Her life seemed to have come to an end. This family which had such high hopes for their son was now almost without hope. Only the hope of that conception gave the widow the strength to continue. When the child was born, the rest of the family also gained renewed hope and anticipation. Once they held the child in their arms, once they looked into his face, they saw a future for him and for them. They saw a remnant. They saw hope. They began again to anticipate what the future might bring.

The children of Israel had just been ravaged by the Assyrian Army. Their homes had been burned, city walls torn down, and the temple destroyed. Their sons had been killed, leaving no one to carry on the family name and removing any hope for continuation. Yet, while sitting on the ash heaps of their smoldering homes and burned dreams, along came a man named, Micah, to share a word of hope. He said, "From Bethlehem shall come forth a King whose origin is from of old, from ancient of days." Now, Israel had seen many kings and all of them had become corrupt and failed. But Micah is saying of this one, "And He shall stand and feed His flock, in the strength of the Lord, and they shall dwell secure, for now He shall be great to ends of the earth." "The exiles, remnants of Israel, will rejoin their brethren in their own land." Micah basically says "conception" has taken place, and "it is only a matter of time." There is hope. Micah says to us. I do not care how bad your situation is or how sad it might be. I do not care what blows life might have dealt you. Although you have been brutalized and life has trampled you and you are sitting in the ashes of all your dreams and ideals, do not give up hope. Conception has taken place.

You and I read Micah as if it was a description of praise where it says, "Unto us a Child is given." We think, "Praise God, He gave us, Jesus.' But you must remember and understand that they were hearing it before the fact. It was not a description of praise to them; it was the promise of something yet to come.

A story comes to us from eighteen century Poland, when the Kaiser's forces were burning all the Jewish villages. They had burned one particular village to the ground and exploited everyone within reach of their swords. The town smelled of death and smoldering ashes. As the sun came up the next morning one old Jew went down to the marketplace and got in his stall and opened it for business. One of the young men said, "Old Jew, what are you selling? Standing in the smoldering remains of his stall, he said, "I am selling hope!" You can sell water on a dry desert, so the place to sell hope is on the ash heap of destruction. Hope - "Unto us a child is given."

Every time a rescue takes place, when someone has been out in the ocean or stranded in a cave, jungle or mountainside for a long time, when they are interviewed by the press they are asked, "Well, what was it that kept you alive?" And what do they say? "I never gave up." Recently two mountain climbers were lost in a storm. A ranger knowing that their lives were in danger search for two days without giving up. He found the climber, one alive and the other dead. The living mountain climber told how they had heard the ranger calling for them on the very first night but the dead climber had told him not to answer for it was only the wind playing tricks with them. He had given up hope that anyone was looking for them and as a result he died.

"Unto us a child is born." Conception has taken place. You can look in the face of a pregnant mother and see a glow, a beauty, and excitement that is not there normally. There is the promise of what conception can bring. There is the expectancy. There is hope. The Old Testament encouraged everyone before Jesus came to live life with hope and expectancy. The worse the situation the more you ought to expect.

A man stood on the George Washington Bridge preparing to jump off. Thousands of people gathered, including firemen and police. A priest tried to talk him down without success. Finally a fellow by the name of Homer Wright went up on the ledge with the man and said, "Listen, I know what trouble is. I have plenty of it. I have a seven-year-old boy who has a heart defect, and has never been able to walk or play like other children. I pass this bridge every day and I have thought many times of jumping off. Next year my son is supposed to have an operation. Maybe it will work. Maybe it will not. But things can get better. You have to have hope." A few minutes later they climbed down the bridge together and, as the man was taken to the hospital, they interviewed Homer and asked him what he said to the man. Homer said, "Well, I felt for the guy. He has trouble. I have trouble, too, but a man has got to stay with it." That is what hope is about.

Have you ever wondered why in Third World countries they have so many children? The average man in India figures he wants to have at least fifteen children, because he figures that, if he has fifteen, maybe seven or eight of them will survive. Of those eight, maybe four of them will be male. And of the four, maybe two of them will outlive him. And of those two, maybe one of them will be prosperous enough to take care of him in his old age. He does not have Social Security, Medicare or a pension. The only hope for a man like Abraham who is past childbearing age is for a son. You and I know how important that is. When we hope, our Heavenly Father answers our hopes. You earthly fathers, if your child hopes for an ice cream cone, you end up buying an ice cream cone. Don't you? Or if your child hopes one day to ride a bicycle, don't you try your best to get him a bicycle.

A poor man hoping to provide his family with a Christmas tree noticed that the top of some thirty-foot pines would make beautiful Christmas trees. So one day on his way to work he stopped along the road with some friends. While his friends waited below, he climbed to the top of one of the trees and proceeded to saw the top out. He got his tree. A father will do almost anything to fulfill the hopes of his children. Why should one think that our Heavenly Father would not want to fulfill all your hopes as His child? It says that they began to hope again that they would have a King and that "He shall be great to the ends of the earth."

One of the most beautiful stories in literature is the French classic, The Little Prince. There are two lines that have an Advent and Christmas message in them. The fox says to the Little Prince at one point, "If you come at four o'clock I shall begin to be happy at three o'clock." This is the story of Advent. That is also where the expression, "The Happy Hour" came from, not from sixty minutes in which to get intoxicated before dinner. It is the happy hour of waiting. "If you come at four o'clock, I shall begin to be happy at three o'clock." That is what Advent is about, when you know that Christ is coming and you can go on and start getting happy with dreams of what he can be and do and become. "And He shall stand and feed His flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. And they shall dwell secure, for now He shall be great to the ends of the earth." That is the message to everyone who is depressed, who is beaten, who is old, who is set in their ways, who has given up, who is senile. To every one of us who has failed, whose dreams have burned up that is the message. Conception has taken place. "Unto us a child is given." The Town of Bethlehem, full of promise, and hope, anticipates. And so do we, today. Fill us, O Lord, with the Promised One and give us renewed hope for the living of these days. Amen.