Can We Actually Trust In God's Promise In Todays World?

 It occurred to me, as I read the reading for the first Sunday of Advent they are most appropriate readings, and quite relevant, for today's world.   

In Jeremiah we hear the prophet offering hope to those who have been living in exile for years.  

They are a "people who. have been taken captive, dragged from their land, and deprived of their Temple.  They are beaten, imprisoned, and face death as a people, and, like Jeremiah, they cry out to God  in anger and despair.” ( Kathleen O’Conner (quoted by Jennifer Ryan Ayres) page 4 in Feasting On The Word)

This was a people without hope in a foreign land. 

Jeremiah was trying to give them a light of hope into the future that God has promised.

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ (Jeremiah 33)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 

He is reminding them of the hope they had grown up knowing and believing when God would provide them with security and a peaceful existence.

He was promising them a future that seemed impossible and unrealistic to them at this time in their history.

Advent is a time of waiting and hoping for a Messiah who would bring the exact thing that Jeremiah was promising in the Old Testament.

A promise of resolution, and reconciliation, a new time where their lives will once again find joy and freedom.

Luke’s Gospel is also talking about the same kind of world Jeremiah did:

25 ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. ²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. ²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing nea29 Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.(Lk. 21)

The Advent readings give us an indirect vision of God’s positive activity in a fallen and despairing world 

A vision that seems a bit fictitious or fabricate — impossible to conceive of  — in the face of our world’s reality today.

History has an impressive way of repeating itself.  Repeating itself, not in the same-exact-way; but relative to the moment in each generation.

So we are once again faced with the promises of God; over against the reality of what we are actually seeing, feeling and experiencing right now.

So its the same dilemma people have been asked to grapple with since the beginning of time; when Adam and Eve first bit the forbidden fruit on the tree

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 

Is as true today as when Jeremiah first spoke.