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Hope for All Who Need It: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
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preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
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learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
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For Advent 2025, we are in a series called Brought to the
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Light, Advent for all who need it.
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This series is looking at the themes of Advent and how Jesus
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comes to us all. You can find more information
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about our church at fumccollingswood.org.
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Thanks for listening. Good.
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Morning. Today's scripture is going to be
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from Luke chapter 1, verses 5 through 25, the birth of John
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the Baptist patrol. When Herod was king of Judea,
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there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah.
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He was a member of the priestly order of AB Jaya and his wife
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Elizabeth was also from the priestly line of Aaron.
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Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes, careful
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to obey the laws, the Lord's commandments and regulations.
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They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to
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conceive, and they were both very old.
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One day Zechariah was serving God in the temple, for his order
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was on duty that week. As was the custom of the priest,
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he was chosen by lot to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and
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burn incense. While the incense was beginning
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to be burned, a great crowd stood outside praying.
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While Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an Angel of the Lord
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appeared to him, standing to the right of the incense altar.
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Zechariah was shaken and overwhelmed with fear when he
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saw him, but the Angel said, don't be afraid Zechariah, God
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has heard your prayer. Your wife Elizabeth will give
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you a son and you are to name him John.
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You will have great joy and gladness and many will rejoice
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at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord.
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He must never touch wine or other alcoholic drink.
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He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before his birth and
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he will turn many Israelites to the Lord their God.
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He will be a man with spirit and power of Elijah.
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He will be prepare the people for the coming of the Lord.
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He will turn their hearts of the fathers to their children and he
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will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom
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of the gods. Zechariah said to the Angel.
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How can I be sure this will happen?
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I'm an old man now and my wife is also alone in years.
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Then the Angel said, I am Gabriel, I stand in the very
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presence of God. It was he who sent me to bring
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you this good news. But now, since you didn't
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believe what I said, you'll be silent and unable to speak until
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the child is born, for my words will clearly be fulfilled in the
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proper time. Meanwhile, the people were
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waiting for Zechariah to come out of the sanctuary, wondering
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why he was taking so long. When he finally did come out, he
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couldn't speak to them. Then they realized from his
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gestures and his silence that he must have seen a vision in the
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sanctuary. When Zechariah's week of service
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in the temple was over, he returned home.
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Soon afterward, his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and
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went into seclusion for five months.
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How kind the Lord is, she exclaimed.
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He has taken away my disgrace of having no children.
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This is the word of God for the people of God.
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Thanks be to. God, thanks be to God.
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There's a song on an album that we love to listen to in our
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house during the Advent season. The album is called Waiting
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Songs by Rain for Roots. And the song I have in mind this
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morning is called Every Valley. It even came on yesterday as I
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was finalizing some work on my sermon.
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And it talks about how hard it is to wait, how hard it is to
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wait. So listen, Listen to these
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lyrics from the verses it says when you write a letter to a
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friend and you don't know when you'll hear back again, it's
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hard to wait. It's hard to wait so hard to
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wait when the one you love leaves on a plane and you know
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that she'll come back someday. It's hard to wait.
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So hard to wait when you plant a seed in the garden bed but you
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don't see green growing up just yet.
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It's hard to wait, so hard to wait.
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I think those lyrics get it right, right?
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While those examples may not be the hardest situations in life
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to wait through, they capture the idea well.
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We don't like waiting and these days we've been conditioned not
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to wait, right? We we press a button on the
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Keurig and 60 seconds later we have a cup of coffee.
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We order something on Amazon and it's on our doorstep. 2 days
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later we send a text message, right?
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And we get a little notification that's been delivered then that
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it's been read and then those little dots are blinking and and
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we know the other person is writing back.
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We aren't used to waiting, and when we aren't comfortable in
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the waiting, it can be difficult to cultivate something like
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hope, or waiting and hope that they go hand in hand.
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Because who has ever hoped for something that arrived
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instantaneously, right? We don't hope for things we
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already have, we hope for those things which are not.
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Yet without the time between what is and what could be,
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there's no building of anticipation and and therefore
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no reason to exercise hope. Now it may seem funny to phrase
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it that way because we often think of hope as a feeling, but
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I don't think that hope is primarily something we feel.
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I think hope is something we practice, it's something we
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exercise. It's an act of our will to hope
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for something, something we choose to do.
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Now, if you look up hope in a dictionary, and by that I mean
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if you Google the definition of hope, you will certainly find
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definitions that call hope a feeling, right?
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Yeah, it's a feeling that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
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But but just because a word is used in certain ways in the
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modern world and and a dictionary, right, is simply a
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reference of the ways that words are being used, not necessarily
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a reflection of how they should be used.
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So, so just because a dictionary may begin by defining hope as a
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feeling, that doesn't mean that's what hope meant in the
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minds of the authors of the Bible, right?
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So I want you to hear a bit of what the Bible has to say about
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hope. For instance, in Isaiah 4031
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says, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength
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or Psalm 25, lead me by your truth and teach me for you are
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the God who saves me all day long.
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I put my hope in you and we can choose where we place our hope
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versus like first Corinthians 1313.
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It says three things will last forever.
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Faith, hope and love. Hope is key, but again, not
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primarily a feeling. Romans 418 says even when there
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was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping, believing that he
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would become the father of many nations.
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Hope goes beyond our human perceptions or even our
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imagination sometimes. Hebrews 10/23 says let us hold
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on, Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm.
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For God can be trusted to keep his promise.
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That's adding a little more, right?
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Hope is closely connected to the idea of trust.
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We can hope in God because we trust in God.
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Romans 824 and 25 says we were given this hope when we were
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saved. If we already have something, we
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don't need to hope for it. But if we look forward to
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something we don't yet have, we must wait patiently and
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confidently, right? Here's that I that idea that we
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don't hope for something that we already have.
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We look forward in hope to what we don't yet have.
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And Paul says to the Romans with patience and confidence.
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I wish that was the way I waited more often, right, With patience
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and confidence. But that that brings us here to
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this story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, which is told in the
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passage that Rebecca read for us this morning from Luke chapter
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1. Let's let's take a look at this
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story and see how it can shape our understanding of hope.
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All right, so in verses 5 to 7, right, that introductory part,
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it serves as an introduction to the story.
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These verses are setting the stage and introducing the main
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characters, right? So we're given the time frame in
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which this happened while Herod was king of Judah.
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And we're told who this story is all about, right?
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It's about this guy named Zechariah and his wife
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Elizabeth, and it's noted that they're both from priestly
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families, priestly lineages. Luke goes out of his way here to
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tell us that both Zechariah and Elizabeth are righteous in God's
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eyes. Careful to obey all the Lord's
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commandments and regulations. That's that's not a bad way to
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be described, right, Especially in Scripture.
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Righteous in God's eyes. Imagine if when someone was
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asked about you, that was how they described you.
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Oh, Scott and Meg. Yeah, yeah.
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They're they're righteous in God's sight, all right?
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They're careful to obey all the Lord's commandments and
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regulations. You could do a lot worse for
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your tombstone, right? Besides, besides hearing that
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Zechariah is in the priestly line, the first thing we're told
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about him is that he's righteous, right?
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And I think that's important because the very next thing that
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we're told is that even though they're old, they don't have any
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kids. They haven't had any kids
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because Elizabeth is unable to conceive right now.
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This was long before the era of fertility specialist and in
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vitro fertilization and all those kind of things.
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And the problem was almost always blamed on the woman,
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right, whose main role in those days was to produce sons to
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carry for carry forward the the family line, right?
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So that description of being barren or unable to conceive
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that that would have been a badge of shame for Elizabeth, a
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source of suffering and disappointment for both of them.
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I think it's important to note that both Zechariah and
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Elizabeth, their godliness and their faithfulness to God, it
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didn't protect them from suffering from deep
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disappointment. Being righteous in God's eyes
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didn't guarantee them a life of blessing that looked like
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everything they would have wanted and hoped for.
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It's not how it works. I know when we stop and think
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about it, we know that to be true.
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But I also think a lot of time we live as if it is true, right?
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And our emotions respond as if that were true.
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But our faithfulness to God doesn't spare us from sorrow or
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disappointment or suffering or waiting.
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Now, I don't know if Elizabeth or Zechariah were still hoping
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at that point in life that God would give them a child, or if
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they'd somehow come to some level of either acceptance or
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resignation that it just wasn't going to happen.
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But either way, they were living in the midst of these unmet
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longings, right? Even as they continue to live
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out their day-to-day lives. And so in verses 8 to 10, we're
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told how one day as Zechariah was serving his time in the
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temple, as Zechariah would have done as part of a rotation of
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priests and Levites. Well, on this certain day, it
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was Zechariah who drew the long straw, right?
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Which meant it was his turn to go into the sanctuary and burn
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the altar or burn the incense on the altar, just like it had been
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someone else's turn the day before, and the day before that,
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and the day before that. And while the priest was inside
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burning the incense, a crowd stood outside the sanctuary.
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They were offering their prayers up to God.
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That incense was a a sign and a symbol of their prayers rising
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up to God like a sweet sacrifice.
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But that's where things took a turn away from the normal right
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and, and, and made that day different from all the days that
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had come before. Because that day, while
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Zechariah was in the sanctuary, an Angel of the Lord appeared to
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him. And that Angel proceeds to tell
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Zechariah that his wife, Elizabeth is going to conceive a
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son who is to be named John. Now John is going to be special,
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The Angel tells him. He's going to be set apart for a
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special role in the grand story of salvation that God was
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writing. And because of that special
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role, he had to be set apart in other ways too.
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The Angel tells Zechariah that John is going to be like Elijah,
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the great prophet of Israel. And through him, many in Israel
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would turn their hearts to the Lord again.
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And poor terrified Zechariah, right?
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He, he just can't quite believe it.
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He's, he's trying to wrap his mind around at this longing that
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had been unmet for so many years, this news that he had
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yearned to hear for decades, this hope that he had all but
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given up after a lifetime of disappointment.
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This becomes the very place that God encounters Zechariah.
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This is where God meets him, right?
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Because there's something about longing and hope that creates
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space for God to meet us personally, right where we can
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encounter not just the meeting of our hopes and dreams or the
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satisfaction of our longings, but the very One who is hope
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himself. In our months and years and
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decades of waiting, our vision, our vision can be refocused from
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the gift that we're seeking, the thing that we're longing for, to
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the very giver of every good gift.
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It's in our hoping and it's in our waiting that God is working
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to transform us, to refine us and purify us and reshape us.
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And Zechariah and his disbelief at what he's being told, he
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says, are Are you sure? Are you sure?
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I'm I'm really quite an old man now.
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And my wife, she's she's not quite a spring chicken either.
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How can we be sure? How can we be sure?
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And Gabriel, that's that's the name of this particular Angel,
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by the way, Gabriel says, fine, you want to sign?
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You don't believe my words, You're not going to be able to
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speak either until after this baby is born.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or at least outside the sanctuary,
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the people are beginning to realize that Zechariah has been
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in there for quite a long time. The prayer meeting had gone into
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overtime and, and honestly, they were probably beginning to
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wonder if the old man had died. Zechariah wasn't dead.
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And when he comes out of the sanctuary unable to talk,
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remember, or he eventually gets them to understand that he's had
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a vision, an encounter with God, and.
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And at the end of the week, after fulfilling his
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responsibilities of service at the temple, Zechariah heads home
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to Elizabeth, still unable to talk and communicate, even with
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his wife, what he'd experienced there in the temple.
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But he was he was filled with a New Hope and, and I'm sure eager
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to play his part in the story. Elizabeth probably thought he
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had lost his mind. But soon afterward, she becomes
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pregnant, and she's overwhelmed by the kindness of God in
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removing this disgrace from her. Even though it didn't look like
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the way she had envisioned it on her wedding night or in the many
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years since that day, God was answering their prayers and
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fulfilling their longings in ways they never would have
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imagined or expected. And if you know anything about
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the story of John the Baptist, that's who their son John would
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become. You can check out my Advent
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sermon series from a couple years ago to to hear more about
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him. But but I'm sure his life didn't
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fit the expectations they had for their son either, any more
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than his conception and birth did.
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John was kind of weird. Right.
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He he lived in the desert. He wore this scratchy camel hair
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cloak. He ate a diet of locust and
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honey. Maybe that's the next church
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fast. We should do locust and honey.
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John didn't serve in the temple like his dear old dad Zechariah
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did. Instead, he was out in the
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wilderness preaching repentance. He was baptizing people in the
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Jordan River. Not exactly the most upwardly
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mobile life choices you could have made in his day.
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And ultimately, John would be be headed for speaking truth to
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power, for calling out sin and seeking to hold the King
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accountable. Not, I'm sure, what Zechariah
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and Elizabeth envisioned when they were falling asleep,
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marveling at God's goodness to them and the growing baby in
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Elizabeth's womb. Even as God fulfilled their
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hopes, there were costs and challenges that they could have
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never foreseen. And the same can be true for us.
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And I don't know what your relationship is with hope these
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days. I'm sure there is some who are
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here today who have all but given up on hopes that you
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carried for years and maybe even decades, longings that remain
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unmet despite your prayers and tears and pleadings.
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I'm sure there are others who are here today who are clinging
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to hope, holding tightly to that hope because you feel like
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there's nothing else left to hold on to.
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There's still others of you here who are young enough that while
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you may have had to face disappointments, the majority of
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your life lays before you full of hopes and possibilities.
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And I believe that there are yet others of you here for whom hope
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might even seem like a dirty word, something not to be spoken
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of, something that died a long time ago.
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Allow me to remind each and everyone of you that hope is not
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simply a feeling of potential and possibility.
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Hope is not something unfounded, nor is it just wishful thinking.
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Hope is a person, but not just a person.
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Hope is the God who came to us, the God who came for us, the God
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who became one of us. Hope is Jesus.
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And while it's true that our godliness and our faithfulness
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don't protect us from disappointment or suffering, nor
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do they guarantee that we will get everything we want or hope
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for, it's also true that it's in those very unmet longings, in
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those places of of desire and hope that God can meet us.
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Those places can become places where we can encounter God.
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And even in God's fulfillment of those longings and prayers, even
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if it looks different than we were imagining, we have to
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remember that God's answers to our hopes are not just about our
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personal dreams or our personal ambitions.
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God's answers to our hopes are woven into that grand narrative
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of redemption, the larger story that God is writing on the pages
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of history. But we can have hope that even
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if our hopes and longings go unmet in this life on this
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earth, there is coming a day when Jesus will come again.
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And when he comes, he will bring with him a new heaven and a new
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earth. He will bring about the
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restoration and renewal of all things, the restoration of all
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things. Listen to the way the chorus to
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every valley puts it, the the song I mentioned at the
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beginning of the sermon. Listen to how they say it.
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They say there is going to be a day every low valley he will
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raise. There is going to be a day the
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hills and mountains going to be made plain.
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There's going to be a day winding, roads going to be made
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straight. Comfort, comfort, comfort.
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It's hard to wait, so hard to wait.
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But even in the midst of our waiting, our God is the God of
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all hope, and our deepest hope and longings can only ever be
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met in Him. But if we'll let him, those
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longings and hopes can become a place of encounter and
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transformation in Him. Let's pray together.
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God, we are so grateful that you are the God of all hope, that
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you are working in every situation, even when we don't
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see it or understand it. You are working, You are moving,
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You are bringing things to your ultimate purposes.
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You are moving things toward the culmination of history, when
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your Son Jesus will come again in glory and he will bring the
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new heavens and the new earth. He will restore and renew all
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that was broken and marred by sin.
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God, we long for that day. We look forward and hope for
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that day and we ask God, would you meet us here even in the
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midst of our waiting, even in the midst of our our unmet hopes
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and longings? Would you speak hope into our
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lives again in those places where we feel like we've given
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up hope? Would you remind us that with
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you God, all things are possible.
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So we look to you not just for our hope, but as our hope, the
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source of all hope. We pray you would make that a
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reality in our lives today. We love you and we pray all this
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Jesus, in your name, Amen.