An Unexpected Journey of Hope

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up; and he shall execute justice and righteousness. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. 

                                                                                                               Jeremiah 33:14-16

“Even now we simply do not expect

           to find a deity in a stable.

Somehow the setting is all wrong:

           the swaddling clothes too plain,

           the manger too common for the likes of a Savior,

           the straw inelegant,

           the animals, reeking and noisy,

           the whole scene too ordinary for our taste.

And the cast of characters is no better.

With the possible exception of the kings,

          who among them is fit for this night?

          The shepherds? Certainly to crude,

          the carpenter too rough,

          the girl too young.

And the baby!

Whoever expected a baby?

Whoever expected the advent of God in a helpless child?

Had the Messiah arrived in the blazing light of the glory

          of a legion of angels wielding golden swords,

          the whole world could have been conquered for Christ

                    right then and there

          and we in the church—to say nothing of the world!—

                    wouldn't have so much trouble today.

Even now we simply do not expect

          to face the world armed with love.”

                                     Unexpected by Ann Weems

I imagine when the people read Jeremiah's prophetic words from the Lord, “In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land” they were not thinking about a baby in a manger. I imagine they were thinking of a great and glorious king on a gallant white steed, riding in from the east with the sun gleaming off his long blonde locks, waving a sword and an army of thousands behind him. At least when I hear of a Branch springing up and saving Judah and Jerusalem living in safety, that is what I imagine. Of course I grew up on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, so that may have a small influence. Still, I seriously doubt the Israelites expected the coming Branch, the expectant Messiah to show up in a manger, as a baby.

The majesty of this coming Branch, the coming of the Lord, the coming of the Messiah, is that our wait takes us on an unexpected journey to the manger. The hope that Jeremiah declares from the Lord is a hope that we find in the midst of animals and hay. The hope is not some great warrior king but a little baby, asleep on the hay; that is the majestic magic of the Advent and Christmas story. We witness the breaking in of the kingdom of heaven, the springing of the Branch that Jeremiah promised, taking place in the most unexpected place. How beautiful is that? How majestic is that?

Hope comes in all forms. The problem is we often look for it in the greatest of forms. We look for it in people with money, power, prestige, or influence. We look for hope in expected ways. Often we miss the hope that is right before eyes in the simplest forms because we think, “God's great hope cannot be in such a thing.” But there it is, with every flower that blooms in the spring, with every child's laugh, with every wedding, funeral, or birthday, with every song that is sung, the branch of hope springs forth and shines its light upon our faces.

The kingdom of heaven gives us hope because we witness the majesty of God's kingdom in the tiniest of places, in a manger. Our search for hope takes us on adventure that leads us to an unexpected place and that hope is something that transforms our lives. When we encounter this hope, we do not return home the same. The beauty of the Advent story is this expectation of the coming Messiah. We wait with hope that he will arrive, bringing with him the kingdom of heaven. We wait expectantly and we are being taught to wait with patience. The Advent story gives way to the Christmas story and our waiting is over. There in the strangest of places, we encounter God's greatest gift, God's greatest hope, lying in a manger. Once we encounter that hope, once we see the baby, our lives are changed forever. The Branch that springs up is not a Branch of the status quo. It is a Branch that is changes the world, it brings righteousness, saving Judah and Jerusalem will live in safety. A Branch that carries the Lord's righteousness is a Branch that will change any who encounter it. Even the shepherds were changed by the encounter with the baby Christ. How beautiful is their singing? How majestic is their encounter?

Everything about the Advent and Christmas story is unexpected. How it all comes about, how it all plays out is unexpected. The kings who arrive a few years later are about the only part of the story we would expect. You would expect other kings to arrive and pay homage to another king. Everything else from the shepherds to the manger to even the slaughtering of the little ones a few years later is unexpected. We may be expecting this Branch to spring up but we are not expecting it to spring up in a manger.

I imagine the Branch breaking through the paved roads of Jerusalem and as people come into the great city they are taken back at this Branch, this tree, growing in the midst of the rubble and stone. The hope of this Branch feels magical to me. It makes Advent feel magical because we are waiting for this branch to spring up in the most unexpected way. I think, for many of us, we have lost the magic of this season. We get caught up in buying presents, decorating trees, arguing with stores who tell us to have a “Happy Holiday” instead of a “Merry Christmas.” We get up in the busyness of the season we come to church and we're not expecting much. Sure we look forward to our traditions and such but do they still feel as magical as they once did? Do the stories of Advent and Christmas still bring about the feeling of hope as they did when we were young? Do we still sit in front of our lit trees and feel the sense of awe and wonder we did decades before? Do we expect to find the hope of the Christ child in the unexpected manger?

Perhaps that is the real beauty of this Advent season in the church. It is the deliberate purpose of slowing down on a holy day to be mesmerized by a very holy moment. The beauty is found in the newness of the waiting and the expecting and the overwhelming beauty of God's love found in a manger surrounded by animals and shepherds. I hope we will slow down in the midst of this stressful month and fix our eyes on the unexpected hope found in a manger.