Hope is born when we learn to open our eyes to see the new possibilities God Has for us.

One of my favorite movies is the 1981 movie On Golden Pond starring Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn and Jane Fonda. It is the story of a husband and wife who wrestle with the frustrations of aging and discover through the unexpected arrival of a child that old hurts from the past can be transformed into new hope for the future.

Every time I see this film I think of Zechariah and Elizabeth imagining that they might have been a lot like Norman and Ethel. Luke tells us the "both were getting on in years," a polite way of saying they were as old as dirt. Unlike Ethel and Norman, Luke says Zechariah and Elizabeth "had no children, because Elizabeth was barren."

The word barren is as hard and cold as the ice rink in New York's Rockefeller Center. Some of us sitting here today know how hard and cold that word can be. One of the great injustices of life ( about which I intend to ask God some very direct questions when I get to heaven) is why so many people who would make marvelous parents have such a difficult time conceiving, while so many who are obviously lousy at the job conceive like rabbits. All I can do is share the long hours of waiting, watching, hoping and praying that link these would be parents with Zechariah and Elizabeth.

But in the bible barrenness is more than the biological inability to conceive children. It is also a metaphor for spiritual barrenness. It's the coldness of people who are unable to conceive of life ad God envisions it.

It's the emptiness of people who are unable to imagine the possibility of new life as a miraculous gift from God.
It's the sterility of people who confine all reality within the narrow limitations of our human intellect, resources and powers.
It's the infertility of people who have no conception of the possibility that they could give hope to someone else.
It's the frigidity of people who settle for this world the way it is because they cannot believe that by God's power it can be different.

Barrenness is the condition of lives and our world when we live as if there is no listening God to hear our prayer, now life-giving God bringing new possibilities to birth, no redemptive God who might actually be at work in human history to transform the kingdoms of this earth into the kingdom of our God and to shape our lives into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Barrenness is the biblical description of a life without hope.

My guess is that there were days when Zechariah and Elizabeth's prayers felt just about as barren as Elizabeth's womb. There must have been long dark nights when they feared that the God to whom they prayed was incapable of intersecting human experience and changing the barrenness of their lives; dismal days when the wondered if all the promises of the coming Messiah were more than they could ever expect to see fulfilled.

As we begin this Advent season, a journey of preparation, some of us might confess that one of our deepest fears or frustrations in our faith life is that we sometimes feel as if all our praying, hoping and working for a better life and a more peaceful world are nothing more than "visions of sugar plums" dancing in our heads. We make our stumbling attempts at spiritual discipline, but sometimes we're not at all sure that it makes a tangible difference. Sometimes it feels as if God has taken an extended vacation and isn't expected to return to work any time soon.

Some of us know how the poet felt when he described God as "the great absence and the empty silence." R.S. Thomas said that God "keeps the interstices/ I our knowledge, the darkness/ between the stars." We feel abandoned lost and afraid. The darkness seems to cover us like a blanket and wonder if God really is concerned about us and about our world. We come to believe that there will never be a day when we will "beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. And nation will not rise up against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." We have lost the sense of hope that God will come and that the world will rejoice in love, peace and justice.

The season of Advent is the season of waiting for God to come. As the winter days grow shorter and the nights grow longer. Zechariah and Elizabeth's story invites us to acknowledge our experience of the absence of God.

But then, the unexpected happened. Zechariah, who was a priest, was taking his turn serving in the temple. He placed the incense on the altar, its pungent aroma burned into his asthmatic old lungs. (The text doesn't say that directly, but it is implied. And being old he surely had breathing problems as most of us do in our old age.) Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared and scared the living daylights out of him. Luke could hardly have used stronger language. "He was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him"

Don't skip over Zechariah's fear. We can set aside the Christmas cards with chubby little cherubs playing on fluffy clouds or satin gowned angels that look like Miss America with wings fluttering down from the sky. In his book "The Idea of the Holy" Rudolf Otto used the word "mysterium tremendum" to describe the awe-filled dread that human beings experience in the presence of God. Every time angels show up in the Gospels, the tremendous mystery of God's presence breaking through the narrow limitations of human existence scares the daylights out of anyone that experiences it. That's why they all have the same opening line: "Do Not Fear!" Gabriel announced the most unexpected news Zechariah had ever heard; "Your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John… He will make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

This unexpected fulfillment of long-held hope was such a shock to Zechariah's system that it literally left him speechless. Luke doesn't tell us how Elizabeth felt about that; but if Zechariah was anything like Norman Thayer, it probably worked out pretty well for her. Nine months went by. The baby was born. When it came time to name the child, Zechariah got his voice back bursting into song, concluding with this powerful image..."By the tender mercy of our God, The dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to t hose who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

In these words Zechariah speaks of the vision that God has for the world. He puts into powerful words the image of one who will come and show the way in the darkness. Zechariah could see the mercy of God coming like the dawn on high.

Its visual image of the gift of hope that goes deeper, reaches farther, and lasts longer than any of the temporary trinkets we can purchase at the mall. Hope will do something in the future that fulfills God's promise in the past.

Hope that we will be saved from all the forces that contradict the saving purpose of God in our lives.
Hope that will energize us to serve God without fear.
Hope for the gift of salvation and the forgiveness of our sins.
Hope for the light of eternal life to break the dark shadow of death.
Hope for the coming one who will guide this violence -addicted war-torn world into the way of peace.

Hope is a gift. We can't create it on our own any more than Zechariah could have created the child in Elizabeth's womb. We can't make it happen anymore than we can make the sunrise. But we can be prepared for it, prepared to receive it. Our task during Advent is to train ourselves to be awake when the sun rises.

Zechariah models the way we can prepare to receive the gift of hope. It's obvious from the content Zechariah's song that his life was soaked in scripture. The gift of hope came out of his lifelong discipline of listening for God to speak through the written word.

Zechariah's hope grew out of his life long discipline of waiting in worship. I can't promise you an angel every time we gather to worship; I can promise you that if you aren't in worship, you won't experience the angel when he comes.

The hope that came to Zechariah was shaped in silence. He was speechless for nine months. That's really hard for us! Our lives are cluttered with noise from the wraparound sound in our cars to the iPods in our ears. But biblical hope is shaped within us when we take time to practice the spiritual discipline of listening for God in prayer.

Across the coming weeks of Advent we will discover that Rejoicing IN Hope means that when we receive the gift, we are called to become that gift to others. Ordinary folks like everyone of us are called, gifted, and empowered by the Spirit to become men and women who irrigate the world with hope. Hope is born when we learn to open our eyes to see the new possibilities God has for us. Amen.

Rev. Bill Westmoreland
December 2, 2007

The material for this sermon came from Rejoicing in Hope an Advent Study for Adults by Rev. James Harnish Abingdon Press 2007.