Seeing Hope

The Sunday Sermon:  November 28, 2021 – First Sunday of Advent

Scripture:  Luke 2:1-7

Andrew Chapdelaine, Student Minister


Seeing Hope

Read Luke 2:1-7

I gotta say, when I was reading this passage, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. I mean, Joel gets to preach “hearing Hope” on the Annunciation and I get… “see Hope” in the census. Talk about a reach. I mean, the Christmas story that we all know is relegated to a single verse in the whole passage, almost like an afterthought. After the angel says to Mary, “Look, you’re gonna have a son, and you’re gonna call him Jesus, and he’s gonna be super cool and awesome,” then Luke takes several sentences to go on about the first census. I began to wonder if Luke was a politician, or an accountant, that he would find such topics so interesting. And oh, by the way, Jesus was born in a manger, because there was no room at the inn. All I could see was bureaucracy and poverty at work; where’s the hope? But as I sat with this text and read it and reread it and did some research, something bothered me: Where’s the rest of the story? Right? What else happened in those times?

There’s a census, yes, which is why the family went to Bethlehem, but what Luke doesn’t mention is another reason they left Nazareth: there was, and this may sound familiar to some of you, a king by the name of Herod, who, having heard of the promised glory that would be the King of Kings, the Son of God, decreed that every child in Bethlehem two years of age or younger would be killed. There was some skulduggery on the three wise men’s part, sure, but that is a different sermon. That goes in Matthew’s account of Jesus’s birth, and it’s commonly accepted that both accounts, Matthew’s and Luke’s, are true. So the family flees to Egypt, staying there for some time, until Herod dies and his sons take over, at which point they return to Nazareth. This does take place after Jesus is born, however, but Luke doesn’t mention this at all. Curious.

But as for Luke’s account, specifically: The family is in Nazareth (which is Mary’s hometown), where they live until Emperor Augustus thinks that a census sounds like a swell and good idea, at which point they go to Bethlehem (which is Joseph’s hometown). As to why they needed to physically be in Bethlehem for the census, I’m not sure. Maybe the postal service was on strike, or they couldn’t figure out how to fill the form out online. I digress. For the record, the way that the modern US census works is it tells the government who lives where in order to, for example, let them know how many resources to allocate to a particular community, city, or state. The thing about this census in Luke is that Caesar Augustus wanted the census so that the new parts of the Roman empire, which were almost entirely Jewish, could be taxed. What’s more, these citizens were to be taxed as much as they were meant to give at temple. In other words, Caesar meant for the citizens (or, perhaps more accurately, the conquered subjects) of Rome to tribute as much to him as they were already tributing to God.

There’s a lot of harm going on here, both in what the text describes and what it does not say, which is hopefully evident in the way that Herod rules, in sending his men to kill children, and indeed, in the deaths of these innocents. To say that what Herod does to those children and their families isn’t good would be a grievous understatement. And, though it isn’t quite on the same level as killing infants, what Augustus is doing with his census, and therefore his tax, is still harmful. Impoverishing the people of Israel, Judea, Galilee, and their environs would have harmed them financially, most obviously, yes, but also physically, emotionally, and even spiritually, as time went on and people would be forced to choose between basic necessities and giving to the temple, no matter which they chose — for as long as they even had a choice.

But do you know something? Despite everything that was going on, and had been going on for a few years, I’m willing to say that God was still there. This we know. God is all around us, and if, as my Quaker boss used to say, “there is that of God in everything,” then God was there in, through, and for the hardships that Mary and Joseph faced. God was there when Augustus decided to have a census, and God was there when they went to Bethlehem. God was there when they fled to Egypt, and moreover, God stayed in Bethlehem when Herod’s men were carrying out his orders. And, of course, God was there when Jesus was born, and the rest, as they say, is history. And, yes, I would go so far as to say that God was there as a part of the hate and the hurt that the people of Bethlehem faced and felt.

I do not mean to imply in saying this that God ordained this somehow, or that God caused it or even wanted it to happen. But God was there with and through the massacre in its grievous ways, and with and through the taxation with its insidious ways. God was there. Hope was still there, even in such a hopeless situation. Jesus is born, yes, so God is here, in the most literal sense of the phrase, God is here! And so, then, is hope, as with Jesus comes his teachings, his sacrifice, and his hope for all of humanity; in big ways, Jesus heralds a whole lot of hope, even though he is just a little baby now. But even removing Jesus from the equation, beyond Jesus, before and after Jesus, where is God? Is hope there?

The innkeeper was there, who said, “I don’t have any room at the inn, but there’s room out back and you’re welcome to stay there.” The star was there, showing the magi where to go to see Jesus. And unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the angels were busy sharing the good news with a certain group of shepherds (but what went on there is for another sermon. Patrick). My point is that in ways that didn’t seem apparent, in small ways, there is hope, and there is God. And, of course, lest I forget to put Jesus back, Jesus is still there, and Jesus will bring hope in greater ways than anyone, us included, could ever imagine. But right now, he is an infant, asleep in the hay, and from such humble beginnings we know the Messiah will come and grow.

I am reminded of a quote by Fred Rogers, who was recounting being a young boy and hearing of tragedy and disasters on the radio and in the newspapers. He said that he felt safe at home, though, and that his parents would let him know that they were safe when he would express fear about these events. His mother told him, “Always look for the helpers. There’s always someone who is trying to help.” And so he saw that the world was full of people — doctors, teachers, volunteers, friends and neighbors — that were willing to help when things went wrong. I would take it a step further than this, even, and say that this was hope at work. This was God at work, simply being in and around such tragedies, and that these people who were willing to help and who were doing so much to help those whom tragedy befell were — God was working through them. They were the hope that I’m sure was, at the time, so hard to see, and they worked to make things better.

Friends, I say to you now, that the world isn’t much different now than it was in those times, or two thousand years ago. There are still tragic things happening, there are still disasters, injustices, and acts of violence that occur in our own country and in our own neighborhoods but, if the world isn’t that different, then God is still there, too. God is there in the helpers. God is there in the little things, and God is there in each of us, so that if we only look, we may not just see God, see hope…but be hope for others. Be hope, especially if you cannot see it, that you may be the hope that others will see through the dark. It is my hope and my prayer that you see hope here, now, and everywhere else, this Advent season and beyond, and that you might carry this hope, the light of God, forward into the darkness, by the grace of God. Amen.

See God in yourself, in others, and in all things, and commit to being the light and the Hope that God is and gives us in the world. Go with the courage and the knowledge and the hope of God, as is in the birth of Christ.