Advent Series: Hope

OT Lesson: Genesis 3:22-24 (NIV)

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

NT Lesson: 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NLT)

The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. Today is the beginning of Advent, which is the four weeks before Christmas. Advent is the beginning of the new church calendar. So today is the first day of a new year. So let me greet you: ‘Happy New Year!’

English word Advent is from Latin, Adventus, which means arriving or coming. So it is the season when we commemorate the birth and the first coming of our Saviour, and also it is the time when we wait for the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Technically Advent is not Christmas. It is the season of Advent. And the season of Christmas begins from Christmas day and lasts until Epiphany on January 6th. During the season of Christmas, of course we say ‘Merry Christmas.’ But how do we greet each other during the season of Advent? What do we say? I have no problem with Merry Christmas during Advent, but some people are really cranky about it. So what is the general rule here in this church? Whatever the rule is, I will say ‘Merry Christmas.’ If you are not happy about it, you can say something else like ‘Happy Holiday,’ or ‘Happy Advent.’ So let me greet you again: ‘Merry Christmas!’

Have you noticed the church bell before the prelude? We don’t always sound the church bell, but for some important days like Advent Sundays, Christmas and so on, we can toll the church bell. We will end the worship service with the church bell again. During the Advent and Christmas Sundays, the worship service begins and ends with the church bell. And have you noticed how many times Josh rang the bell earlier today? That was fourteen times. As we finished the genealogy sermon series last Sunday, I explained that number fourteen is the numeric value of David’s name in Hebrew. Just as Matthew did to emphasise the fact that Jesus is the Son of David, and thus the everlasting King, we did and will ring the bell fourteen times during the Advent Sundays. Ernest Hemingway asked us ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ I answer you today that the church bell tolls for Jesus Christ, the coming baby Saviour.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. Many of you must have eaten a lot with family or friends. Eating is great, not only because it gives us energy and nutritions, but because it connects people. The Korean word for family (식구 – shik-gu) literally means the mouths eating together. The English word, companion, is simply eating bread together in Latin. The saints at the first churches in the Bible ate together whenever they gathered. That was how they had the fellowship, which now we call the communion of Saints. Eating together is the best way for the fellowship. And from next year January, we will have the communal lunch together once a month after Sunday worship service. I am not going to cook bacon turkey again because I don’t want to cause you a heart disease. Once a year is enough for heavy meal. The regular monthly meal will be quite simple. But the important thing is eating together and having fellowship.

Advent Sermon Series

As you may have noticed, we have a new sermon series for Advent. It is quite easy to predict the sermon topics for the next four Sundays: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. These are the themes of the Advent Sundays in order. From next year, we will follow the Revised Common Lectionary all the way through the Pentecostal Sunday. Again, if you look up the lectionary which is available online, you can tell what to expect. The new sermon series will begin after the Pentecostal Sunday.

San Francisco Statue

Have you been to San Francisco? They have a wonderful bridge—the Golden Gate Bridge. It is a very nice town with big Chinese population while Los Angeles has the biggest Korean population outside of Korea. Here is a pop quiz. How many sister cities does San Francisco have? The answer is eighteen cities. Some of you may have said nineteen. If you did, you are very knowledgeable. San Francisco actually used to have nineteen sister cities but in 2018, Osaka Japan revoked their sisterhood with San Francisco. It is because the city of San Francisco enraged Japanese people by declaring that the sex slavery during the WW2 and at any time is bad, and they also erected a statue called ‘Women’s Column of Strength’ to remind people of that. So what is so wrong with the statue that Osaka had to burn the bridges and revoke the sisterhood with San Francisco?

In the statue, three young girls holding their hands together, making a circle and an older woman is looking them in a distance. Those young girls look like Korean and Chinese. During the WW2, Japan had many bands or groups of women to sleep with the soldiers, which was the free systematic prostitution. Japanese recruited teenage girls in Korea and China sometimes by lying that they would work at a factory, other times just by kidnapping. Many of those teenage girls were brutally killed later because Japan wanted to hide it from the world. But some of them survived.

So the statue in San Francisco is to say that sex slavery is wrong and should not happen again. It is to declare that women’s human right is important. And if Japan is angry about it, I am thankful that the city of Osaka revoked the sisterhood because we don’t want to be sisters with those kind of people. But I also have to say that erecting a statue is good but not enough. The sex slavery is not only by the Japanese in WW2. According to the United States Department of State, tens of thousands of women and girls become the victims of human trafficking in the United States. Each year, tens of thousands of women and girls become hopeless in their life. We need to defend those women and girls who cannot defend themselves. We shall work together to restore their hope in life. And we shall work together to prevent those people from losing their hope in life, and that they can find new hope in Jesus Christ.

Hopelessness begins

Hopelessness. The hopelessness began in today’s OT lesson. The humanity used to live in a paradise called the garden of Eden. But they were kicked out, and that was the beginning of the hopelessness of humankind. You all must know this story very well. In the garden of Eden, there were two trees in the middle—the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God allowed the human beings to eat from the tree of life which would give us eternal life, but forbade the fruits from the other tree. But our ancestors did not choose life but they picked the fruits from the tree of knowledge of good and evil by the temptation of a snake. And as a result, we humans are forever banished from the tree of life, and doomed to die as a punishment. And in this story, I can identify two deadly sins.

Deadly Sin One: Trying to Be like God

First, the serpent tempted our ancestors that they can be like God. This is actually the oldest and most common lie in human history. Look around. There are so many religions in the world. Except the three Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, almost all other religions say that you can be a god. They tell you to find your divine self hidden inside of you. They tell you that you are a god. So many people love those religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Indian meditations and other religions because they tell you the sweet words that you can be like god.

So what exactly is being like God? We can imagine many things about being like God, such as having super power, living forever, walking on the water, performing miracles and so on. But what did the serpent say? It mentioned only one thing. The very one and only thing which God forbade us from—knowing the good and evil. Knowing good and evil is in other word, defining good and evil. For example, when the Bible says something is bad, and if we say that “It is OK. It may not be that bad”, then we are defining the good and evil against the Bible. That is being like God. Defining what is good and what is evil belongs to God. It is God’s own authority, and no one can do that. God will not let anyone do that. There is a Korean saying: “If I have an affair, that is a romance. If you have an affair, that is an adultery.” This saying is to point out the hypocrisy, but it is also about defining good and evil. Defining good and evil is also about judging other people with double standards. Because of this, the Bible tells us many times not to judge other people. We must know that we are not God and we cannot be like God. We shall not play God. Even though our ancestors ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we shall not eat from that tree.

Deadly Sin Two: Irresponsibility

Second thing is irresponsibility or blaming others. God asked Adam, “Hey Adam. Why did you do that?” Adam replied, “Well, I didn’t want to in the first place. It is all my wife’s fault. Oh, by the way, who gave me this wife? That’s right. It is You!” As the head of the family, Adam was supposed to take all the responsibility that happened to his family. Harry Truman, the thirty-third President of the United States of America, said that the Buck Stops Here. Likewise, the buck was supposed to stop at Adam. But he simply passed the buck to his wife, blaming her and God who gave him a wife. And Eve did the same. Instead of stopping the buck, she also passed it to the serpent. The first Adam blamed his family. But the second Adam, which is Jesus Christ our Saviour, took all the responsibility, and died in our place for us. The first Adam dragged the whole humanity into the abyss of death and despair. The humankind lost all hope. But the second Adam who came on Christmas day restored the hope of humanity.

Restoring Hope: Responsibility

Then how Jesus restored our hope when we were all doomed in despair? Today’s NT Lesson contrasts Jesus against Adam. And just like that, Jesus did everything opposite of Adam. Adam blamed others and took no responsibility. But Jesus took the full responsibility of humankind by dying on the cross, and he did not blame anyone. Isaiah 53:7 says, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.” While we, human beings, play God, Jesus is actually God Himself. But we are still not God. When we believe and receive Jesus in our hearts, we become one body with Christ. And we become God’s children, and God becomes our Father. All our sins will be forgiven and be washed away by the blood of Jesus. But still we are not allowed to play God.

Hebrew word HOPE

Hebrew word קָוָה (qavah) means “to wait for, to look eagerly for, to hope for.” This word is derived from the proto-Canaanite and Assyrian word ķu’û, which means cord or rope. And its noun, תִּקְוָה (tiqvah) means hope and also means cord/rope. The cord also means connection. Let’s say that you are so wrongly accused and your enemy’s framing and plot is so perfect. There is no way out and there is no hope. But if you have a strong connection to the President or the king, you do have a hope because they can pardon you. So our hope is our connection to God, which is Jesus Christ.

Tamar in Genesis 38 was hopeless because her father-in-law drove her out and she had no income. Later when she disguised herself and met her father-in-law, she asked him for three things. One of them was a cord. Cord and hope are same word in Hebrew. She had no hope and no future. And thus she prayed and asked for the hope. And her hope came true when she delivered babies. The hope of humanity came true when her descendant was born as the Saviour of the world. We need to pray like her, asking God for the hope which is Jesus Christ. Jesus is our cord to God and our connection to God. 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.” Only through Jesus Christ, we can be reconciled to God, and we can go to God. Thus, Jesus is our connection to God and our only hope.

Tree of Life

Let’s go back to the garden of Eden. What is the other tree that Adam did not eat? It was the tree of life. And the fruit of the tree of life is the life-giving fruit. If you eat it, you would live forever. And God did not want the humanity eat that fruit. So God drove humanity out of the garden, and guarded it with a light sabre and Jedi. Well, actually cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth in every direction. The fruit of the tree of life, which Adam couldn’t eat because of his sin, is actually Jesus Christ. The fruit is hanging on the tree. And Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross, which is a tree. The fruit was giving eternal life, and Jesus Christ is giving eternal life. In Genesis 3, we see Jesus. Jesus said in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” The entire Bible, not only the Gospels but the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, they testify and show us Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

By our own fault, humankind lost hope and became hopeless, knocked down in despair. But Jesus Christ came to us, becoming the mediator between God and us, and the cord which is our connection to God. Jesus is our only hope. From today on in this Advent season, we wait for Jesus Christ, the hope of the world. In the OT, God commands us multiple times, “Choose Life!” So let us choose life, which is Jesus Christ. And let us help our families, friends, and neighbours to choose life with us in the hope of Jesus Christ the Messiah. Friends, Jesus says in Revelation 22:20, “I am coming soon.” Let us reply to him by saying, “Yes, Come! Lord Jesus.” Amen.