The sun came out for awhile today. It’s a pleasant sight here in western Oregon where our northern latitude and rainy winter make for many days of gloom. And by April and May I will be aching for the sun to come out and shine as it does so brightly here in the summer months. We need that sunshine just to drive back the moss on our roofs and restore our spirits.
As we enter Advent that spirit of waiting for the sun to shine and restore us fits the texts from Psalms from which I’ve chosen to preach this year. For the first three Sundays of Advent, Psalms 80, 85 and 126 all speak of God’s restoration of His people Israel. The first one in particular, Psalm 80, repeats three times (verses 3, 7, and 19) the urgent prayer that God restore us by letting His face shine on us, intensifying it each time by adding to God’s name as He is addressed, first “God,” then “God of hosts,” and finally “Lord God of hosts.”
As the dismay in regard to the grand jury decision in Missouri continues to spark protest and violence across the country by people who feel their lives are not valued, the need for light and restoration seems great. We’ve been people who like to think that racial division, persecution and enmity is a thing of the past, overcome by events of the last two centuries. Yet here we are forced to admit that races in America still distrust each other and that there is much injustice. It seems to me to call for prayers asking God to restore our hope and courage and willingness to seek the peace and reconciliation He wants to give us in Jesus Christ.
Our Gospel lesson from Mark 13:24-37 pictures dark days in which the coming of Jesus “in power and glory” will shine with sudden brightness. As we wait for that great shining dawn in the future, we can still also look for the light of Christ to shine on us and on our present situation. Certainly the people who first wrote and sang Psalm 80 were thinking in terms of some immediate and present answer to their prayers. That’s why their pleas are framed so urgently. So we ought to ask and look for our Lord to shine on and in whatever darkness we experience.
One on-line reflection on this text suggested that Psalm 80 could be the basis of a sermon on photosynthesis. Certainly as the middle of the psalm (skipped by the lectionary) reflects on God’s people as His vineyard, we can see how God’s face shining us might be like the effect of needed sunlight on stunted and wilting plants. I think of our backyard blueberry plants which, under the big oak and fir trees around our house, don’t get near enough sun to grow well and produce many berries. Like those bushes, we and our neighbors around us desperately need more light in order to flourish.
Unlike blueberry bushes, we can ask for what we need. We are invited by this psalm to cry out and ask God for His light. When we feel in need of restoring brightness, we can seek it and look for it in the person of Jesus Christ. Let us do some of that crying and seeking this Advent.