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Well, good morning everybody. If I haven't mentioned it yet, my name is Greg. I'm one

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of the pastors here at the house and today is in fact the first Sunday of Advent and

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we are talking about hope. And if you don't mind, I'm going to get moving. I want to jump

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straight into the scripture that we're going to read for the day. And so it's in the book

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of Isaiah, which is in the Hebrew or older Testament in the first half of the Bible that

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we have. If you see Song of Solomon and then it goes Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, that's

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the neighborhood that it is in. If you don't have a Bible, feel free to grab one on your

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way home. We have them out on the bookshelf. You can take one or download one from any

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of the digital app stores. So we're going to be in Isaiah chapter nine. We have a tradition

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of giving the scriptures our full attention while we read them. And so you can do that

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any number of ways. You can do so by standing with me or sitting with your heart turned

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towards God, however you prefer. But those who would like to stand, please stand with

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me as you are able. All right. Isaiah nine, starting in verse six says this, for to us

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a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders and

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he will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, Prince of peace. Of

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the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's

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throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness

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from that time on and forever. Let's pray. God of every tribe, every tongue, every color,

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every nation, we thank you for the scriptures that this particular book and chapter has

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existed since 600, 800 years before Jesus. We thank you that it has persisted. We still

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have it today and I pray that whatever you have for us to learn, pray that it would stick.

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It would become a part of the framework of our faith that our faith would become stronger,

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that we would become more like your son. Amen. Thanks. I can have a seat. So this is a passage

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of hope from Isaiah, but I actually want to back up for a second. We asked the question,

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do you have a good sense of time? And I actually think that right now would be a great time

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for us to actually find out. So what we're going to do is we're going to do a little

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experiment, okay? So what we're going to do is in a second I'm going to ask Liam, who's

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in the office, run in the computer. I'm going to ask him to click on a, there's a five-minute

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timer. Don't worry, it's not going to take five minutes. It's just the best option. And

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he's going to click on that five-minute timer and you're going to see the five and then

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you're going to see it start counting down. And what I want everyone to do is as soon

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as you see the first second click by, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to open

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your eyes when you think it's been one minute. So you're trying to open your eyes when it's

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hitting four, four minutes, okay? Because it starts as five minutes and once we get there,

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I'll also be like, all right, everyone open your eyes if anyone happens to still be holding

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their eyes shut. Ready Liam? All right, let's pop that up there. Ready? You may have to

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clear the graphic first. Here we go. All right, close them.

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Okay.

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All of our eyes open.

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All right, you can stop it Liam. How close were you? Easy enough, right? Okay, Greg,

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why are we doing a countdown experiment? I'll tell you, because today is the first sunny

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of Advent and the word Advent just means arrival. And if there's an arrival, then there's almost

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always anticipation and waiting and time. And I wonder if how we think about time or

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we feel time impacts our hope. In the Advent of Jesus, time and waiting and hope has two

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reasons. First, because Advent is meant to remind us of how long the Israelites waited

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for a Messiah in the first place. And then secondly, it's meant to remind us now that

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we are waiting for Jesus to arrive again in the context of Orthodox Christianity. Now

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it's safe to say that most of us probably know that it's been 2,000 years since the

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last ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. That's how long that we collectively as Christians

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have been waiting. But those years are actually layered onto the years that the Israelites

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had already been waiting. And it's probably also safe to say that most of us are unfamiliar

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with the period of waiting that happened before Jesus. So here's a brief history of the Israelites

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and their waiting. Around 1800 BCE, BCE just means before the common era, used to be just

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before Christ. And then they realized, well, not everyone believes in Jesus, and so maybe

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we should come up with something else, right? So before the common era, 1800 years before

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that, 3,800 years ago from now, is where in the Bible it begins describing Abraham, Isaac,

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and Jacob, nearly 4,000 years ago. 500 years after that, around 1300 BCE, Moses is called

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by God to go and free his people from their 400 years of enslavement in Egypt. 300 years

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after that, around 1000 BCE, the nation asks God for their first king. Those of you who

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are like Bible nerds have already thought of his name in your head, King Saul, and then

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King David, and then his son, King Solomon. So if you're keeping track, this is about

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3,000 years ago. After Solomon, things start to fall apart again. His father, King David,

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had united the southern and the northern kingdom, all 12 tribes of Israel, into one united

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kingdom. But after Solomon, the kingdoms break up again because of idolatry, because of power

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struggles, even because of a lot of the bad things that Solomon had begun in his lifetime.

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The 10 tribes in the north, when they split up, the 10 in the north keep the name Israel,

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the 2 in the south take the name Judah. The south is where Jerusalem was. But they would

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find out that they had been better together. Because around 740 BCE, Isaiah, which we read

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from, begins prophesying that Israel would be overthrown and sent into exile because

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of how they had failed to follow the Lord, and particularly because of the way the leaders

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had failed to follow the Lord. But he also said, one day there will be this kind of Messiah

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that would reign forever on the throne of King David, the kingdom of peace. And then

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it began. In 721 BCE, the Assyrians overthrow the northern kingdom. The 10 tribes are kicked

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out of their land, they are exiled, they become known as the diaspora, the 10 lost tribes.

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And even to this day, it is believed that those 10 tribes never completely returned

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to the land. Isaiah's first prophecy of being defeated is happening. So the waiting for

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Messiah begins. Now when the Assyrians defeated the north kingdom, they attempted to defeat

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the south as well, but the southern kingdoms were able to defend Jerusalem and they maintained

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their independence until 135 years later. In 586 BCE, when the Babylonians came in and

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defeated the Assyrians in the north and the Israelites in the south, destroying Jerusalem.

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And the Babylonians, just like the Assyrians, sent the southern Israelites into exile out

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of their land. What I've been describing here, this is what an old friend of mine would call

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extreme home makeover empire edition, because it was just like one empire after another.

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And then after this, only 50 years later, what happens is Persia comes in and defeats

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Babylon. Another years after that, Greece takes over in 332. Then for the first time

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in 444 years in the year 142, 142 years before Christ, there was a Jewish revolt led by the

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Maccabees. Some of you have heard of that. The Festival of Lights has its connection and

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roots back to the Maccabee revolt. The Jews once again controlled Jerusalem. Was this

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their Messiah moment? Well, it only lasted 79 years until 63 BCE when the Romans defeated

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the Jewish armies. Then the Romans would rule the region longer than anyone. They would

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control that entire region for 539 years. The entire Roman Empire in its totality lasted

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1101 years. So when Americans get all huffy about being the best country ever, Rome has

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been beaten by like 850 years. They were the boss. Now by the time that Jesus was born

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in or around 2 BCE, his people had been under the rule of five different empires. The Assyrians,

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the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans. There won't be a test later, don't

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worry. In the words of Isaiah, the promise of a Messiah, the promise of hope had been

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hanging in the air for 720 years. 720 years, mostly under the subjugation of other nations.

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720 years of being kicked out of their own land. 720 years of waiting and testing hope.

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Let me back up again. When we did that experiment earlier, some of us, some of us we opened

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our eyes a few seconds early. Some of us opened our eyes right at one minute. Others, we opened

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our eyes a little late, very late. The truth is, there's a lot more to that experiment

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than just counting time. When I was preparing this message, I wanted to look into how our

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brains perceive time. I found something fascinating. Dr. Heather Berland wanted to know how accurate

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humans are at perceiving the passage of time. And so she did this simple timing experiment

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with people that had no known brain injuries and with people that had something called

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orbital frontal cortex lesions. The frontal orbital is this part of your brain that makes

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all these really important decisions. But also for context, if you have a brain injury

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there, it affects your emotions, it affects your behavior, and it can affect how impulsive

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you are. So the experiment was simple. She had people try and time exactly nine seconds.

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She distracted them a little so they weren't able just to count one, two, three, four,

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five. What she found was really interesting. Let me read part of this. This is what the

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report said. Participants with orbital frontal cortex damage would stop her at almost exactly

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90 seconds, indicating a more accurate perception of time. More accurate. Then she found out

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that participants without these brain injuries tended to let a few more, even 95 or 100 seconds

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pass before stopping her, indicating a slightly slower perception of time. One of the conclusions

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that can be made here is that while this particular kind of brain injury seems to make people

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perceive time more accurately, which I think is surprising to some people when you read

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that, the other side of that is that it at least implies that the uninjured brain is

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in less of a hurry. Made me wonder, beyond brain injuries, what about our hearts? What

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about our hopes? What if our brain is fine, but our hopes are damaged? What about the

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traumas we experience when our prayers seem to go unanswered? Does hope deferred year

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after year have a way of compounding impatience, making us count a little faster with God?

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Made me think about how time, maybe you've all experienced this, how time just seemed

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so slow when you were a kid. Now the older I get, it's like the years are just racing

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past. And I wondered if God can heal our hope. And I remembered 2 Corinthians 5 17 where

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Paul tells us, therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone,

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the new is here. Romans 12 2, Paul says, we can be transformed by the renewing of our

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minds. And 1 Corinthians 2 16 where he says, but we have the mind of Christ. I remember

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that Isaiah 55 quotes God saying, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways

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higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. There is a promise in

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Jesus that our minds, that our thinking, that our thoughts can be healed. I thought if we

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can be made new, if we can have the mind of Christ, if we can share in the way that God

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thinks, then we can learn again to put our timing down, learn to count like God. Then

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I remembered in Psalm 90, verse 4 where Moses says, a thousand years in your sight is like

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a day that has just gone by or like a watch in the night. And in 2 Peter 3 8 when Paul

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says, beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice. With the Lord a day is like a

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thousand years. A thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his

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promise as some understand slowness. I think our way of thinking, our way of waiting, our

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way of counting and keeping track of time, our way of hoping can be healed. Maybe, maybe

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you need your hope healed today. So I was like, close this up. There's just two more

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things I want to say about time and how we perceive it. About two years ago I started

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helping out at the hospital. There was something wrong with me. It was like the height of the

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neck. And Trish Britton, Pastor Chris's wife, emailed me saying that they were looking for

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more chaplains and I thought, you know, what a better time to go work in the hospital.

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But this last week I learned something new about being a chaplain. It turns out that

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research shows when it comes to patients and caregivers like nurses and doctors and chaplains,

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they found that when patients have a caregiver that will sit down with them, everything else

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being exactly the same. But if the caregiver sits down with the patient, the patient will

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perceive that visit lasting five times longer than it did. Five times. Some of us have heard

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that phrase, the time is a construct. Like, there's something that's happening. I wonder

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if some of us just need someone to sit down with us. To slow down, to just be present

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and watch God multiply our hope in this setting. Because if you have this much left, maybe

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someone would sit with you, it would be multiplied by five. Some of us need to stop and be the

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one that sits down with someone else. And last, I want to acknowledge, I'm not saying

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that waiting is easy. I'm not saying that hope is cheap or that it's magic. I am saying

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that how we perceive time isn't as sure as we think it is. And there's plenty of proof.

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There's another experiment I want to tell you about. In this one, the doctor took two

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different groups of people, well, actually many different groups of people. There was

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no, like, mental or brain injuries involved. It was just people. And what they would do

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is they would put them in a room and they would give them basically like an assignment,

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a task to do. Something like handing them a paper and saying, I need you to underline

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every time that there's a double letter, like the two T's and the word letter or the two

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L's and all. And we're going to give you ten minutes to do it and we're going to see if

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you can underline all of them. And then the person leading the experiment would say, okay,

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click ten minutes and leave the room, making sure that they saw that the only timer left

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and that had been started. And what would happen is that then they would go back in

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after ten minutes and say, okay, it's done. It's been ten minutes. And then for other

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groups they would go in after twenty minutes and go in and say, all right, it's been ten

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minutes. Other groups they would go in after five minutes and say, okay, it's been ten

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minutes. Other groups they would go in after ten minutes and say, okay, it's been five

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minutes. Other groups they would go in after twenty minutes and say, it's been five minutes.

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And they found out something fascinating. Then when they had them fill out a survey

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about how satisfied they were with how they did, the people that were most satisfied,

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whether it had been five, ten, or twenty minutes, in reality, the most satisfied people were

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the ones that had been told it had only been five minutes. Just being told, just being

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told, lied to, just being told that it was shorter than it was made them feel better.

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It reminded me of 2 Corinthians 4 where Paul says, Therefore we do not lose heart, though

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our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day, for our

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light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is

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far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.

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For what is seen is only temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. And it made me think

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of something beautiful. I believe there is a future advent. I believe Jesus will return

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and he will make all things new. And I think that when it happens that maybe some of us

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are going to ask Jesus, what took you so long? It's been thousands of years and Jesus will

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look at us and say, My child, it has only been a few minutes. And we will feel better

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and our hope will be satisfied. Amen. Let's pray. God, I pray that you heal our hope today.

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That you take away that we keep track of time, how long hope has been deferred. And you teach

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us again how to count like you. Then in the moments where it still feels like too much,

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I pray that you convince our hearts that we will see you again one day. Because for you,

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a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day. You will tell us this long

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wait has been but a moment. We will believe you. Amen.