Advent 3b.05   December 11, 2005

“For I am about to create new heavens
        and a new earth;
the former things will not be remembered
        or come to mind.”

There is much talk in contemporary spirituality
        about the virtue of living in the present moment.
I’ve taught it myself. And it’s basically true.
We need to pay attention to what’s happening now,
        to experience our life as breaking news,
        or we’ll miss reality by drifting in fantasies.
That much is true.

But I have lived in a goodly number or present moments,
        and I can say from experience
        not all present moments are such great places to reside.
Some of them, I’d just as soon not even visit.

Another thing I’ve learned about present moments
        is that they don’t just flash out of nowhere.
Each moment is drenched in memories of what came before.
And each moment is shaped by some kind of anticipation
        of the future.
Anticipation of the future is, in fact, an integral part of each moment.

Some moments are delightful, to be savored at the time,
        and stored away as treasured memories.
But Isaiah isn’t talking about those moments.
He’s talking about the other ones,
        the one’s where a casual word, like a torpedo,
               hits our heart and sinks it like a ship,
        the ones where our gut tightens with worry
               for someone we love,
        the ones where our life feels like an empty room
               holding nothing to enjoy.

Isaiah gives a few examples –
        people having to work at jobs where other people
               get the benefit of their labor, but the worker
               gets only nothing good from it.
He speaks of raising children for calamity
        and laboring in vain.
And he talks about the lion and the wolf

        – the conflict and predatoriness that seems to be
               the way of the world.

We all have bad moments.
But what makes them even worse
        is the quality of anticipation
               that so often accompanies them.
Remember we said each moment is shaped
        by the kind of future it anticipates.
Our experience now is powerfully colored
        by what we expect to happen next.

The poison in the bad moments
        is the fantasy of forever.
The fantasy of forever is my expression
        for the belief that “it’s always going to be like this
                 from now on.”
The fantasy of forever says this is the way the world is.
It always has been, always will be.

During the Cold War, we assumed it would go on forever

        – that its only end would be something worse, nuclear war.
Today we have terrorism and it feels as if it will go on forever.
On the global level and the personal level,
        we are prone to despair.
And despair flavors how we experience things now,
        and determines how we respond to them.
Isaiah spoke this prophesy to people in despair.
He said, “It isn’t always going to be like this.”
None of the things that afflict us will last forever

        – not even death and taxes.
Only God is forever, and only God gets to decide
        what will last.
The very sky and earth are not forever.
“For I am about to create new heavens
        and a new earth,” the Lord says.

None of these things that make us sad and afraid
        will last.
“No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days
        or an old person that does not live out a lifetime . . .
They shall not labor in vain or raise children for calamity.”
The sorrows that drive us to despair are not forever.

The conflicts and oppression of today
         will not always be the way of things.
“The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
         the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”

This prophesy speaks to us at three levels of our lives.
First, it speaks to the situations of our individual lives.
Are we paralyzed with grief or depression?
Are we shaking with anxiety about something?
Is our job a dead-end chore – do we labor in vain?
None of this is set in concrete.

Things shift, and God is working to make them shift
          for the good.
If we look at the examples of resilient people
          who have risen from their own ashes,
          we can see this prophesy is true.

If we remember that we have been in trouble before,
          and the trouble passed with time,
                 we can see this prophesy is true.

If we see the sun setting and we are afraid of the night,
          we can remember that the sun set yesterday,
          but it came up this morning.

This prophesy also speaks to our global experience.
We live in a world where ignorance and poverty are the norm.
And we all pay a price for that kind of world.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
For substantially less money than the United States alone
          spends on cosmetics alone,
          we can provide education through the secondary level
                   to every child on earth.
We don’t have to live in the expectation,
          that ignorance and poverty will always blight the earth.

Finally, this prophesy speaks to the ultimate goal of creation.
Just as each of our moments, good and bad,
          is part of the larger story of our lives
          and their meaning and value is determined
                   by the overall course of our lives

          – just so, all of our lives take their meaning
                   in the context of a larger story,
          a story larger even than human history.
It’s the story of the whole creation.
And the question is: where is it heading?

Isaiah says that the truth we learn from observing
          our personal lives and human history
          is true all the way into the destiny of creation.
All its limitations, and all the suffering built into it,
                    will pass away.
But that isn’t the end.

The creator God will bring it all back,
          but perfected and gloriously changed.
“I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy,
          and its people as a delight . . .,” says the Lord,
“No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it,
          or the cry of distress.”

So when we live in each of the present moments of our lives,
          we can live those moments with hope
                      and not despair.
We can act on the basis of hope and not despair.

Are we in pain or sorrow now?
If so that’s real and not to be taken lightly,
          but it is not forever.
The Lord has promised the coming of a day
          when our sorrows will not even be remembered.
May it come soon. Marantha. Come Lord Jesus.

                                                              Amen.