April 1 2012 Sermon - Great Expectations

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. (Revelation 21:1-6)

     I'm a great fan of Charles Dickens. As a lot of people probably were, I was first exposed to his work through the movie “A Christmas Carol.” That went on to reading the novel of the same name, then moved on to some of his other Christmas stories, and then to some of his novels. I'm no expert on Dickens, and I haven't read everything he wrote, but I have been fairly widely exposed to his work over the years, and so I want to begin my remarks today with an apology to Charles Dickens. Yes. I stole my sermon title from him. (Well, borrowed is probably a friendlier way of putting it. Or, I could say that I'm honouring Charles Dickens by adopting the title of his great novel “Great Expectation” as the title for my sermon today.) But it does fit, so I would hope that he would – if he were with us – find it in his heart to forgive me. “Great Expectations” - the novel by Charles Dickens – revolved around the character of Pip, an English orphan who, in a whirlwind of a life, rises to wealth, and then ultimately is humbled by his own arrogance. Pip is a complex character in the novel. He's really hard to sympathize with most of the time. He's an arrogant snob who often behaves badly and isn't very nice even to those who have been nice to him.  The title refers to Pip’s own "great expectations" which are constantly changing depending on his circumstances at any given point in his life. Primarily, his great expectations are met first by the arrival of his fortune which gives him the hope that he might achieve another great expectation of becoming a gentleman. His expectations also revolve around his longing for Estella, the adopted daughter of the colourful Miss Havisham. As Pip deals with the various great expectations he has for his life, the reader watches him change in the face of his changing expectations.

     Great expectations. Those words are at the crux of the matter any time we remember the events of what we now call Palm Sunday. Great expectations. The Palm Sunday story, as you know, follows Jesus as He arrives at and enters Jerusalem for the last time, just a few days before He would be crucified – executed as a common criminal. He enters the city, and the people wave palm branches at him and spread them on the ground before him in the typical greeting that in that era was reserved for a king. Those people had great expectations of this man Jesus – a humble soul, perhaps, but one who had touched their hearts and stirred their imaginations; one who had lifted them beyond the rather grimy reality that they were confronted with all around them, and who had given them something to believe in, something to hope for, a reason to believe that things could get better – that not everything has to be the way it was; that the future was a place of promise and not a place of foreboding. The people had great expectations of this man Jesus. But, very much like Pip's great expectations, those of the people of Jerusalem were fluid and changing. They tended to be very much “today” oriented, with no consistent thought to where everything was leading. So you had the disciples of Jesus, who believed he was the Messiah and had committed their lives to Him, you had the cheering crowds, who believed he had come to lead them in a rebellion against Rome, you had the religious leaders of the people who saw him as a threat to their status and position because of his popularity and his new and different teachings about God, and you had the Romans, whose basic desire was to keep order by whatever means necessary – and who saw the maelstrom of activity around this somewhat obscure travelling preacher as a threat to that order. Jesus Himself had great expectations. His words had made clear that He knew what would happen. He would be arrested, tried and crucified and then he would rise from the dead. But few really believed him. They saw what they wanted to see; they saw what they chose to see. The crowds were, indeed, very much like Pip – always with some dream or expectation, but not really too sure what end result they were hoping for. Those crowds are not unlike us. We have great expectations of Jesus – and each of us in some ways have different expectations of Jesus and of what He can do in and for our lives. Charles Dickens seems to have understood ambiguity. The novel “Great Expectations” actually has two endings – in the original ending, Pip returns to London and spies his beloved Estella, who has lived a hard life with an abusive husband and has descended into poverty. In the rewritten ending, which most people are familiar with, Pip meets a still beautiful and unmarried Estella who regrets their separation, and the suggestion is a fairy tale like ending – they will live happily ever after!

     There are also in a way two endings to the story of Palm Sunday: one is a nasty bit of business, the other is a hopeful and hope filled vision.

     The nasty bit of business is something we're quite familiar with. It revolves around all those different and competing groups I spoke of in the city, each with their own goals, which often intersect and which often contradict, and which ultimately work together, finally leading to a  couple of pieces of wood, made into the shape of a cross. It was an instrument of gruesome execution used by the Romans for the lowest of the low, the most despised criminals of all, the greatest threats to the Empire, to make of them an example for everyone else. And when the nasty bit of business was done, when the deed was accomplished, when the execution was over, things could return to normal – well, for a few days anyway. But what would ultimately happen was the development of a new normal – a sudden realization that maybe there was more to this story than met the eye; a sudden realization that this story couldn't be understood just by the obvious things. Maybe this had to do with more than just this itinerant preacher who had gotten himself in such trouble. Maybe – just maybe – these events had something to do with God, and with God's people, and with how God had chosen to reach out and offer a new way of life, a new hope, a new blessing.

     As oppressed people anywhere must surely be tempted to feel, the people of Jerusalem – occupied by the mighty Roman Empire – must have felt forgotten by God, and after that brief flurry of excitement upon Jesus' arrival, their disappointment about Him is perhaps understandable. “He didn't do for us what we wanted Him to do for us.” That was the lament, I'm quite certain. But a realization suddenly dawned. How did it happen? I'm not sure, except to say that somehow the Holy Spirit touched the minds and hearts and souls of the people and made them understand – this wasn't about freedom from Roman oppression, this was about God's presence in the midst of Roman oppression. And this wasn't just about the here and now – while it was a promise of God being with the people now, it was also the great expectation that the people would be with God in the future.

     That's why I shared the passage from Revelation today. It's not a Palm Sunday reading – but in a way it is, because Palm Sunday was the beginning of the strange series of events that eventually convinced everyone that in Jesus God had come, and God's presence is the centrepiece of what would be the culmination of that strange, mysterious, frightening and hopeful vision John would later have, which we call the Revelation, and in that passage what we see is the breaking down of the divine-human barrier. Palm Sunday leads us to the mystery that is the eternal presence of God; the great expectation that finally, one day, there will be no separation between us and God – that we will be at one with our God. In celebrating Holy Communion today, we celebrate the New Covenant which is represented by the Cup – true Communion with God and with each other.

     Great expectations can lead to shattered dreams or they can lead to indescribable joy – just as there are two endings to Dickens' story. Sometimes, shattered dreams can even become indescribable joy. For the crowds of Jerusalem, their great expectations began with shattered dreams, but for those with the vision to watch and wait, shattered dreams became indescribable joy in a matter of days. All of us deal with shattered dreams sometimes – with lives that perhaps don't always turn out as we want them, with hardships we never expected to face or with grief that seems to overwhelm us. Palm Sunday reminds us to watch and wait – because while our expectations may sometimes be disappointed, Jesus Himself will never disappoint us. God is with us, and we will be with God – and all shall be well!