Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36

My wife and I have a secret passion. No, it’s not what you’re thinking. We like to listen to Car Talk on National Public Radio. For those of you who have never heard of it, Car Talk is a program devoted to cars and car repair, hosted by a pair of brothers named Tom and Ray Magliozzi.

Normally, cars aren’t high on my list of interesting topics, but I love that show — partly because the hosts are funny and partly because they are incredibly talented at diagnosing problems in a very short amount of time.

Tom and Ray are very self-deprecating and like to portray themselves as bumbling rubes, but the truth is that both of them have degrees from M.I.T. and quite obviously know what they are talking about when it comes to mechanical things.

It amazes me how they are able to use a short series of carefully crafted questions to diagnose any automotive problem from long distance. And their success is amazingly high.

A few weeks ago, a woman called in from the Twin Cities area and described the problems she was having with her car. Their diagnosis was that she was dealing with two major and unrelated issues — one was a transmission issue that would cost something like $1,000 to fix and the other was an engine issue that would add several more thousands to the bill.

Then , after giving that diagnosis, they told her something totally unexpected. They said she was lucky! Their reasoning was that if the transmission problem had occurred on its own, she might have gone ahead and fixed it and then, if the engine problem were to arise a few weeks later, the fact that she had just spent $1,000 on the transmission might lead her to fix that problem, too. And she would still be left with an old car with lots of other things that could potentially go wrong.

But because both major repair issues cropped up at the same, it was very clear that her best option was to get rid of the car and buy another one. As counterintuitive as their assessment seemed at first, the truth is that they were right. There was a silver lining in that puddle of grease under her car.

Jesus offers a similarly counterintuitive assessment sense of hope in the midst of disaster in our gospel lesson today.

The setting was the Temple in Jerusalem. The disciples were commenting on the beauty of the building and Jesus replied by telling them that the days were coming when destruction would overtake the city and the Temple itself would be leveled to the ground.

They were shocked by his words and asked for specific details about when that would happen. Our gospel lesson comes from the end of Jesus’ answer to that question. Thanks to the hindsight of history, we know that Jesus what referring was to the first Jewish rebellion that would begin in the year 65 and would end with the Jewish people scattered across the Mediterranean world or enslaved in their own homeland.

It was a time of terror and devastation and yet Jesus says that when the disciples recognize that that time is approaching, then “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Like the Car Talk response, that seems like an oddly-misplaced sign of hope, but you read the same theme throughout the Bible.

Some 600 years before that, in Jeremiah’s time, Jerusalem had fallen to the Babylonians and the original Temple — the one built by Solomon — was destroyed. Most of the citizens of Israel were forced into Exile, facing famine and deprivation. It seemed as if the end of the world had come. The whole horrifying scenario exploded over them with all the raw power of an emotional Nagasaki.

The people’s hearts were just as shattered as the rubble that littered their former homeland. And yet, Jeremiah chose that particular time to write the Exiles God’s own promises of hope that their descendants would one day return to Israel, that singing and laughter and love would return to Jerusalem and that God would raise up a descendant from David to bring about a reign of justice and righteousness.

Around the time Luke was writing his gospel — which was some 35-40 years after the crucifixion — the Jews rose in revolt against Rome, believing that surely God wouldn’t allow them to fight on their own if they had just the courage to take matters into their own hands and kick the pagan armies of Caesar out of the Promised Land.

But the sad truth was that that crusade was their own idea — not God’s, so they had to face the mighty of the Roman army all alone and largely unprepared.

In the wake of that revolt, Jerusalem was devastated and the Temple dismantled. Jesus’ words had come true in the lifetime of some of his listeners,. As a result, Luke chose to also recall Jesus’ promise of redemption in order to give the survivors a sense of hope in spite of the desolation. And it turned out that the destruction of Jerusalem ultimately proved to be the spur that helped transform Christianity from a sect of Judaism into a worldwide religion of its own.

But isn’t that the way God usually works? Left to its own devices, the world has a way of bringing injustice and chaos and death. Yet, God somehow finds a way to transform the effects of our evil into something positive and life-affirming, even when we think that’s impossible. And, of course, the Nativity is the best example of that.

The reason we need to celebrate Advent and Christmas every year is more than just hearing the heart-warming beauty of the story once again. We need it to remind ourselves that just as Christ escaped poverty and persecution to bring the good news of God’s love, we too can overcome whatever tragedies may threaten us, because God still holds out the offer of a genuine hope in the heart of our despair.

Cyprian was the bishop of Carthage in northern Africa from 249-258 A.D. During that time, he wrote, “Who cannot see that the world is already in its decline and no longer has the strength and vigor of former times? There is no need to invoke scriptural authority to prove it. The world tells its own tale and in its general decadence bears adequate witness that it is approaching its end. There is less innocence in the courts, less justice in the judges, less concord between friends, less artistic sincerity, less moral strictness. Do you think that anything which is in decline can be as vigorous as it was originally? Thus, everything in these days is rushing to its doom, and affected by the general debility.”

Chris Udy says that because of his pessimistic attitude, Cyprian became certain that the end of the world was right around the corner. Therefore, he willingly turned himself in to the Roman authorities who then beheaded him “because he was a Christian at a time when the Roman Emperor thought Christians were a threat.

“Cyprian was martyred for his faith. He was utterly sincere, deeply committed — and an inspirational leader — but he was also completely wrong.

“He thought the threats he could see all around him would mean the end for Christians everywhere, and he interpreted that as a sign that the return of Christ was near. But he was wrong — and just 50 years after Cyprian was killed the Roman Emperor — Constantine — became a Christian, and Christian communities were being established all over the known world.

“What Cyprian thought of as the last days — the final season of God’s plan — was really just the beginning — the springtime of the Church — and if Cyprian had looked a little more closely at what Jesus was saying in the reading we heard today, he might have lived and died a little more hopefully.”

Then Chris Udy adds, “Every year, on the first Sunday in Advent […] we look at the Bible’s description of last days of creation. We read prophecies that seem amazingly, frighteningly accurate — about signs in the sky and distress on the earth, and warnings about the need to be ready, to be found awake and alert on the day the Lord returns in judgment and in power.

“Every year […] there’s always something looming over us — something that frightens us: floods or droughts, plague or corruption, greedy business barons and bickering politicians, families in crisis, exhausted communities, illness in our bodies and darkness in our souls — and every year we weigh threats against promises […] but what Jesus actually says is something quite different. Omens in the sky and troubles on the earth aren’t symptoms of the end — they’re signs of redemption, and when we see the powers shaken, it’s because a greater power is coming near.”

So what do you see in the world around you?

Our nation continues to pursue two separate wars that seem to drag on without end. Our politicians struggle over whether our health care system can or should be improved and whether any reforms should include a public option.

Meanwhile, our political parties pull further and further apart and seem to spend more time grandstanding than actually doing the business of the people who entrusted them with a public responsibility. Our economy continues to limp along for the vast majority of people, while the stimulus money enriches the upper echelon.

We write letters for political prisoners through Amnesty International, while our own country struggles to take responsibility for our involvement in torture. Meanwhile, joblessness skyrockets at home and as the colder weather approaches, the ranks of the homeless swell. AIDS and other diseases keep up their inexorable march across Africa and other areas of the world. And so it goes.

The truth is that if you open your heart up to the agonies and inequities of the world, it’s very hard to find even faint glimmers of hope. But that’s why Advent comes to remind us that God can still be found in the most unlikely of places — as a helpless infant in a smelly feeding trough, as a condemned criminal on an instrument of torture, and as a resurrected man in the city of the dead.

Robert Stimmel writes, “Hope is no big thing. At least hope that is to be believed. Hope starts as a small thing. A daffodil at the end of a long hard winter. A butterfly emerging from a cocoon. A new root, a live root, from the old stump of Jesse. It starts out as a little root. And hope grows before our eyes.

“I say to you what I hear Luke saying to us: do not give up hope! Because the whispers from the heart of God are just as real today as they were anytime in history. God is still in charge of everything that is. While God doesn’t shout down all the negative events of the world, God does keep whispering hope into our hearts, and into the hearts of the world.

“[…] We don’t have to wait for the Son of Man to come ‘in a cloud with power and great glory.’ The Son of Man who has been made known to us through Jesus the Christ has come and is coming again and again. Our Star of Hope rises in our midst as a child born in a manger in Bethlehem. That child is born again and again in us.

“[…] The whispers of God are not far from us. If you hope for the day of the Lord, if you believe Jesus is coming, if you passionately believe what you are doing is important, and you believe that loving, and caring, and sharing, and being compassionate somehow matter, then it doesn’t matter how dark it is in the night. The light shines in the darkness because of your actions. The Lord is coming. Your work, in God’s time, is a sign of hope!” Amen.

(Comments to Jim at jmccrea@galenalink.com.)