Dear Christian friends:

Discouragements abound in our world today. Hopelessness seems to be grabbing hold of many people, and for good reasons. By some estimates the AIDS epidemic may become the worst plague in history, possibly claiming more lives than the Black Death, which killed twenty-five million in the fourteenth century. Last Thursday Frontline on PBS again ran its expose on how Japan has been and is still winning the economic war with the USA. It stated that we are seeing the greatest transfer of wealth from one nation to another that the world has ever seen.

This will cause our children and grand children to have less prosperous lives than we have had. These are only some of the discouraging problems that confront us. In the midst of these dire and gloomy circumstances, people still hope and work for break through solutions to combat the ever present evils of life with varying success and failure.

We Christians also know and experience these evils. We have even a keener Scripturally informed sense of the universality of sin and of sin's grim consequences. We are aware of the terrible destruction which will take place on the Day of Judgment of which the non-Christian is not aware. We Christians would be in a more hopeless situation than the non-Christians if it were not for the hope which Jesus Christ brings through the proclamation of the Gospel. While secular man lives with the delusion that his hope is real, the Christian alone has the real and true hope.

The season of Advent stresses this real and true hope of the Christian, as does our text, which is the Epistle Lesson for today from Romans 4, which has been read to you.


In our text St. Paul shows that true hope is confirmed in Scripture and focused in the person and work of Jesus Christ. (verse 4) In our text St. Paul says, "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

What St. Paul is referring to here is the Old Testament Scriptures wherein God promised the Messiah, the Christ, who would come in the fullness of time to redeem not only Israel but also all nations, usually referred to as the Gentiles.

While the Messiah would be born of God's chosen nation, Israel, as concerns blood and flesh, he would nevertheless be a universal Savior, not just the Savior of Israel. This Paul clearly points out in verses eight to twelve. (read if time allows.)

This is just a small sampling of Old Testament texts which clearly state that the Messiah will come and will redeem and rule over both Jews and Gentiles, all nations. So we would do well to read and study the Old Testament Scriptures and not neglect them as many church people do. They can and do confirm our faith and hope.

All the Old Testament Scriptures were in time fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, as the New Testament clearly reveals. Therefore this true hope is focused in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God, who in the fullness of time became the Son of Man, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. The Christmas Gospels in Matthew, chapters 1 and 2 and Luke, chapters 1 and 2 clearly show this glorious truth! (Matthew 1:23, Luke 1:34:37)

This God-Man, Jesus Christ, preached the Gospel during his three years of ministry, and then he suffered and died on the cross, bearing the sins of all mankind, that all might have forgiveness of sins and the hope of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting in glory. (Luke 24:44-47)

So we see that the Christian Hope, The True Hope, is confirmed in the Old Testament Scriptures and focused in the person and work of Jesus Christ as the New Testament clearly reveals. All other hopes of men are delusions and really offer no lasting solution to the evils of this world. At best, the hopes of the secular man are only temporarily fulfilled.

The Advent Season gives us a positive message of hope as we prepare again to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, also because this true hope binds those who believe in Christ in a fraternal unity of peace.

In our text St. Paul says, "May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you many glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." (verses 5-6) The implication is that we may be a salt and light to the secular world.

I don't really think that I need to say much to you about the disunity among non-Christians who base their hopes on men and the transient things of this world. Look at what's happening in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovaki, in Somalia, Iraq etc. Look at what is happening in our own country between blacks and whites, one minority group against another minority group and gang against gang.

Even among Christians who should do better, we often find disunity and conflict. A pastor told about his visit to the Holy Land and especially his visit at the Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem, He writes: "We stumbled into the Church, the traditional site of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and they gave us a little candle. I looked around through the candlelight and noticed that there were plenty of light fixtures but none had been turned on. "Why," I asked, "do we have to stumble around with candles?" The Muslim policeman patiently explained to me that the Christian groups who use the Church fight among themselves about who should pay the light bills. Consequently, the Muslims had to shut the power off in order to stop the fighting. This is the Middle East where there are mostly non-Christians. Where in the world is there a more urgent need for a witness of unity and brotherhood? Here were Christians, in this great Christian Church, witnessing to disunity.

Does this remind you of anything that has ever happened here at First Lutheran? I hope not, but on the other hand I wouldn't be too surprised if it did. I am sorry to report that I have seen it happen again and again during my ministry.

We really do need to give attention to what St. Paul is saying here, how our hope in Jesus Christ is a unifying power in the lives of his followers.

It is so because God has had mercy upon us and has forgiven all our huge debt at a tremendous cost, the incarnation, the humiliation, the innocent suffering and death of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Of this St. Peter reminds us when he writes: "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver and gold that you were redeemed _ _ _, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." (1 Peter 1:18-19)

Because of God's mercy in Jesus Christ we have hope of eternal riches and glory in heaven. So we surely ought not crave the perishable riches of this world or fight over them. In view of our eternal hope we can afford to be meek and generous with these transient earthly things. Furthermore, we can and should be gracious and merciful to those who may sin against us, since God has been and still is so gracious and merciful to us.

We can be generous, merciful, forgiving, patient and kind, peacemakers and peace keepers. The Gospel Word and Sacraments enable us to be such unifying agents in our world of contention and disunity.

As I have already mentioned even we Christians are highly competitive and contentious, demanding our rights and possessions etc. So we need daily and continually to repent. This is what Advent is all about, repentance and remission of sins in the name of Jesus, as the Gospel Lesson reminds us.

Receiving forgiveness and giving forgiveness is what really creates and maintains unity. And all this flows out of our Hope in Jesus Christ.

The true hope is rooted and grounded in the Holy Scriptures and focuses on Jesus Christ. Those who have this hope will never be disappointed, not in this life nor in the life to come.

Amen.