It’s more a matter of family tradition than of practicality: Do you leave your Christmas tree and holiday lights up until after New Year’s? Or do you strip it all down on the 26^th?

My family has never been quick to pack up the Christmas decorations. Everything is still out: the ornamented tree, the exterior garlands and lights, the red and green hand towels, the Christmas Spode dinnerware, the antique Santas lining the stairwell, the burning Christ candle, and even the faded construction-paper nativities that my brother and I made in Sunday School years ago remain in the nooks and crannies of our bedrooms and bathrooms. In the Jernberg household, the Christmas season likes to linger.

For others, Christmas is over the minute the last gift is unwrapped on the 25^th. Everything is picked up, packed up and put away in order to prepare for the New Year.

Regardless, whether you are a “lingerer” or a “prompt packer” – deep inside you know you can’t control the changing seasons. You can’t slow them down or speed them up. Each year, they repeat and inevitably flow right into each other: the lazy tryptophan turkey-haze of Thanksgiving gets cut short in the frenzy to prepare for the first Sunday in Advent (and to catch the best shopping sales of the season). While you incubate in Advent during worship at Wilshire – waiting to receive the baby Jesus – on the weekdays the malls shove the spirit of “giving” in your face ... and in your wallet. And when the big day comes, all of our built-up anticipation deflates: “It’s over already? That’s it?” Then, of course, we shop and exchange our way through the awkward gap that is this past week. And today – New Year’s Eve – the cusp of new beginnings. Tomorrow brings one last party for game-day, and then begin the diet regimes and exercise machines.

“For everything there is a season – and a time for every matter under heaven. A time for this and a time for that ... a time for that and a time for this. ...” The cadence rocks even the most analytical and linear of thinkers into a poetic trance. It’s easy listening because it strikes a resonating chord with our lives. Cycling through birth and death, laughter and tears, dancing and mourning is the rhythm of Creation.

I found myself wide-awake and all wound up last Sunday night. After surviving five Christmas Eve services, I decompressed in the best way I know how at 1 am: with food, the Internet, and TV. I fed chocolate into my already overstuffed belly while scrolling through continually updated images of soldiers in Baghdad on the New York Times website. I took pause at a shrapnel-covered soldier crawling on his belly, dragging his wounded brother into a roadside trench. And in the background, a late night re-run showed Oprah in South Africa, surrounded by malnourished orphans with distended bellies. Three countries and three vastly different visceral realities: A full, satisfied stomach; a bloodied, shredded stomach; and a starved stomach.

The nauseating irony of it all got me to wondering: should we be accepting all “seasons” in life as part of God’s intended kingdom and creation cycle? Embarrassing wealth and first-world privilege? Bloody and beleaguering war? Poverty, famine, and a deathly AIDS epidemic?

We see so much. So fast. Thanks to cameras on cell phones, online journals, and free-for-all video websites like YouTube, now, more than ever, snapshots of the world are bombarding and crowding our lives.[1] We can’t help but be hyper-aware of the many “seasons” of life that occur simultaneously – in lives that are oceans away but that magically appear on a screen two feet away from us. (How many times have you seen the video of the hanging of Saddam Hussein in the last twenty-four hours? One too many times, for me.) We get swept up in this media whirlwind that makes crime, genocide, poverty, and war appear commonplace and normal.

We have come to expect that the world will always juggle the good and the bad, the just and the unjust, the rich and the poor. I mean, when is the last time you were surprised to read a headline about an exploding car bomb? That’s old hat nowadays.

Some people in our world have known only darkness, disaster, and despair. And I think we get off too easy by saying, “Life is full of loss and love, work and play, war and peace. Circumstances come and go; it’s out of our control.” Yet the optimistic wisdom of Ecclesiastes says to make the most of every day, no matter the situation. Enjoy life. Look on the sunny side. Carpe diem.

Well, that’s fine and good. It’s not bad advice, per se – but are these true words of hope? Or are they merely words to help us cope?

Through no fault of its own, Ecclesiastes’ wisdom is rooted in this world. Ecclesiastes offers a resolution to find enjoyment during all seasons of our earthly life. Like most resolutions, it’s surface-level and deals with changing an attitude or behavior. And like most resolutions we will make tonight, Ecclesiastes is about us: How well we play the hand we’re dealt. But playing the hand we’re dealt (even if we play it well) doesn’t look at the dealer or the pack of cards, does it? We assume we’re playing a fair game with a full fifty-two-card deck. What if we’re not?

Tomorrow thousands of Americans will vow to eat better and exercise to shed some extra weight. We will yo-yo diet for a few weeks and join a gym until we tire of getting up so early. We will be frustrated. For many, weight loss will be impossible until they address the root cause of what’s packing on the pounds in the first place: loneliness, stress, grief, alcoholism, a workaholic life, laziness, a deteriorating relationship...

If we want to do more than just cope in our lives by trying to make the best of things – if we want to experience a lasting hope, then I think Revelation has a timely word for us.It gets to the very root of the matter – the very state of the world itself ... it draws into focus the dealer and the deck and everyone else around the table, not just the hand we’re dealt. In other words, if Ecclesiastes deals with the symptoms, then Revelation addresses the primary illness.

John of Patmos (not to be confused with our Advent protagonist, John the Baptist) prophetically paints a vision of how God desires the world to be – how God will come to restore creation to our Creator. It’s not a “quick fix.” It’s a lasting eternal reality that looks...different.

A new heaven and earth will descend from God. The image of a city adorned like a bride makes me think of fantasy novels – of imagining something that is so out of the ordinary, something so unlike our reality. Like flying around Harry Potter’s Hogwarts school or searching for Aslan in Narnia – that magically wintry land accessible only through the wardrobe.

Yet Revelation shows us something different. God will make all things new. We don’t have to go to some far-off fantasyland. God comes to us. God will dwell in and among us – wiping our tears, healing our war-torn lands, and drawing every one of his children into the comforting peace of his arms. It will be one never-ending, rejuvenating season of life – a divine embrace that never lets us go. The wisdom of Ecclesiastes will be made irrelevant because “enjoying life” will be a given.

True Hope is born inside us when we realize that God’s nearness to us is the state God desires for the world, even right now – in 2007. God is always and forever drawing near to us – pulling us close and calling us by name to his kingdom. Jesus has come to us in the flesh – as a baby – seeing the possibilities in the world like a wide-eyed child with an endless imagination. Jesus walks around and sees through the war and pain to the coming Kingdom of God. He does not accept poverty, war, crime, and genocide as normal and just part of life. He imagines the playing field as equally peaceful and fair for all. So when we choose to follow Jesus, we choose to become imaginative Kingdom-builders too – with no limits on love or peace.

It’s tempting to read Revelation as our excuse not to have to change that much – because All in Good Time, in the end, Christ will come again, and all will be made new. We don’t know when it will happen or how it will happen. But it’s going to happen. If we’re honest, though, this really bothers us – the not knowing. Don’t you hate that? Do you ever wonder – what’s the point? Does anything we ever do mean anything? Are we getting anywhere?

We don’t like to admit these doubts, so we shove them back and live our lives with the hope that we’ve been taught: God will make everything good – all in good time.

Sadly, we get caught using this “not knowing” and uncertainty about the timing of God’s plan to feed ourselves excuses of why it’s okay to live the way we do. We let ourselves off the hook on a daily basis: “there’s always tomorrow ... to say thank you, to apologize, to visit the hospital, to break the addiction. ...”

But what if Revelation is not just passively describing a hope that is to come, but instead is inviting us to play an active part in this coming Kingdom? To bear witness to the fact that God has already come down to dwell with us?

In a few minutes we’ll voice the petition “thy kingdom come” in the Lord’s Prayer. If we are really serious about wanting God’s Kingdom to come, then let’s get serious about being key players in bringing about that Time of All Good – of peace, love, and justice that we are all longing for.

You know, we think of revelations as having to be fanciful, cryptic, and apocalyptic...but you know what? A professor of mine put it this way once: A revelation? It’s just a divine secret. Something that God has made known to us. Something that illumines God’s nature and God’s plan in a new way.

And everyone knows the point of secrets is to tell them, right?

John’s Revelation invites us to leak the Good News … today ... and not keep pining away for the future with a “grin and bear it” attitude. I’m sure God will do things in the future that we cannot even fathom now ... but it’s not like he’s left us to twiddle our thumbs today. We have plenty to do. We have plenty to hope for – and to hope in already.

Wilshire, I think we should make a New Year’s resolution together: Why don’t we commit to showing each other (not just saying) that we know that the Hope we have in Christ is a Hope that is available and attainable for the whole world? In good times and bad, let’s challenge ourselves to bear witness to the Kingdom of God that will be (and wants to be now) all Good, all the time. Let’s pledge to keep one another accountable when we want to make excuses or put on blinders to what’s happening in the world around us.

I’m going to scroll through some images, some scenarios of how I think we can bear witness to the coming Kingdom of God. As I do so, imagine yourselves in these situations. Think not only of the impact on those around you, but also of the internal transformation in you that would take place:

Consistently showing up to worship and Sunday School each week bears witness to a God worthy of worship and a community worthy of investment.

Looking people in the eye and personally greeting new visitors bears witness to the image of the divine in every person.

Giving money above and beyond your comfort zone bears witness not only to the trust you have in God and in this church, but also in the work of God’s kingdom from North Dallas to the Mississippi Delta to Busia, Kenya. 

Teaching our children bears witness to the joy that comes in sacrificing your time for the sake of another.

Serving without being called upon to do so bears witness to your conviction of Christ’s call on your life.

Taking your family to visit the homeless, homebound, and hospitalized bears witness to the love of Jesus for the “least of these.”

Radically reversing your consumer-driven lifestyle bears witness to the provision of God that fulfills any and all needs, so that we do not keep relying on “things.”

Lobbying our government and other wealthy countries to forgive third-world debt, negotiate peace, and redistribute food and water resources bears witness to the life’s work of Jesus Christ for justice and peace for all.

And learning to love yourself bears witness to the forgiving and grace-filled love that you know pours forth abundantly from God.

This is how we make Hope happen. Hope is here. We already have it – but we have to act like we have it. Let’s resolve to make Good and be Good in our corner of the world. Wilshire, we are kingdom-builders. And as such, we get to bear witness to the Good News of Hope and transformation that the world so desperately needs. I’m ready to toast to that. Are you?