Dan.7:9-10,13-14
Ps.93
Rev.l:4b-8
John 18:33-37

Pentecost LAST
Proper 29B RCL
HE 2A 10:00
& Baptism

HOW TO HOPE, or
BETWEEN "Already" and "Not Yet"

Credits: Living Church 11/20/88 p.17; Pulpit Resource; Our Church Times ll/24/91 p.l
Previous: 88,91,97,00,03,06, revisions each time.

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I begin with a little story. Two men were living on a houseboat. One night while they were sleeping, the boat broke loose from its mooring and drifted into the open ocean. One of the men got up in the morning before his mate, and going out on deck, he noticed that there was no land in sight. Excitedly he called to his mate, "Hey Joe, get up quick - we ain't here any more!"

The story is amusing, but it has a point relevant to today where so much seems to be in flux - but it also applies to the interim time in a parish between rectors: How do you keep your bearings - how do you hope - when you are cast adrift in life?

HOW TO HOPE. Changes take place for all of us, sometimes very quickly, as if overnight. How many mornings we read in our newspapers, or watch TV, and discover, "We ain't here any more." As we have slept, we have moved from the past into a new present, perhaps from a time of tranquillity into a time of crisis or a time of tragedy. What had not yet happened yesterday, has now happened today, and we have to live with it and deal with it.

So how do you cope - how do you hope - how do you keep your bearings when you are cast adrift? Or to put it in nautical terms: what is our compass that shows us where we are going, when we cannot see any horizon in life? How do you hope?

The readings for today give us some guidance on how to hope.

I. The reading from the Book of Revelation opens with a greeting from the God Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come - the Beginning and the End, the Almighty. The basic message of the Bible as a whole, is that life has two bookends of the "already" and the "not yet", the past and the future; and by holding on to what God has done in the past, and holding to God's promises for the future, we can make it through the present, through the in-between period. And on the other hand when one loses a sense of the past, and does not exercise faith and trust about the future, the in-between time cannot be handled, and it is miserable.

So we live in an in-between time, between the "already" cf the past and the "net yet" of the future. We all know that some terrible things can happen in the present, in the "in-between" times - tragedy and senseless death, being out of work, depressions, wars and so forth. (I don't need to repeat page one of the news.) But the first answer about how to hope, in the present, is to realize that we do live in an in-between time. If our belief is that all things will be subject to Christ's gracious rule at the end of time (as the Collect and the readings from Daniel and the Gospel suggest), it is equally true that we do not yet see all things subjected to His rule - not by a long shot. He has lots to do, and so do we. God has always called His people to be a community in transition, to act with faith to transfer our world, God's world, into a community of faith. This is still our job today, in these in-between times.

II. The next answer about how to hope I have already hinted at: and that is to reflect on how God has called His people in the past. Much of Old Testament history took place between major events. The wilderness wanderings of the children of Israel took place between the Exodus from Egypt and the entrance into the Promised Land. And the Exile of the Jews was a long in-between period that occupied much of the time of the later prophets. And in both cases, the Old Testament writers implored the people to recall their past - recall how God had acted in their past - as a means to get them through the "between" time, till God brought them into, or brought them back, to their home country.

II. Recalling God's guidance in the past is one way to cope with the "in-between". Another way is to look at God's promises for the future. The Hebrews had the promise of a coming Messiah who would gather the remnant of God's flock out of all the countries where they had been taken, and would bring them back to their fold in the Promised Land. That was an event that was coming, that was "not yet", but future, when Israel would dwell safely. In the meantime, the Israelites had to cope with the "in between."

You and I, as Christians, live in the "in-between" of today. We cope with it by looking to the past and what "great things God has done" (as one Baptist hymn puts it). And we cope also by looking to the future and "standing on the promises of God" (as another Baptist hymn puts it). And meeting our lives this way is what helps us to hope as well as to cope - with whatever life brings in this in-between time. Meeting our lives in this way is what gives us a compass, a sense of direction when we are adrift on the sea of life, even when that sea is stormy and we can see no horizon.

In these chilly days of late autumn, we come to the end of the farmer's year. The old has passed: the new has not yet come. With the Last Sunday after Pentecost, we come to the end of the Church year. This is an in-between time, right now. At Thanksgiving, we look back with gratitude on what has been - on "God's good gifts around us" (as one of our own hymns puts it); and we thank God fer bringing us this far, for what has been, for the great things He has done. And we look for God to be faithful and dependable in His gifts in time to come. We stand upon the promises of God, and we look for the future when we shall "inherit the promises" (as the Letter to the Hebrews puts it).

The word now has a powerful and deep meaning for us who call ourselves Christians. Now is the point at which eternity touches time, and we are called upon to let the Holy Spirit of God operate in our lives right now, on the boundary between what was and what will be, - and what will be depends precisely on how we let the Lord of all life enter into our own particular life right now!

You who bring this child for Baptism are doing just that, offering this child to let the Lord of Life enter into her life.

In this world, even in its trials and tribulations, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks to us in words of hope, that the potential for a brand new type of life is at hand right now. That is the message of the coming Advent season as well.

Yesterday is past; now is the time when God calls us to act as His people.