Beeson Podcast, Episode #578 Dr. Gignilliat Dec. 7, 2021 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am Doug Sweeney here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. We want to welcome you to this special Advent episode. Every now and then we’ll play a sermon on the podcast that was either preached in Hodges Chapel or preached by one of our own people, which we believe will edify you in your Christian faith. Today we want to play for you a sermon given by our own beloved Dr. Mark Gignilliat, during Advent last year, 2020, at his church, The Cathedral Church of the Advent in downtown Birmingham. Kristen, would you tell us a little bit about what we’ll hear today? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes, Doug, thank you. The sermon you’re about to hear is called, “God’s Advent Promise.” Dr. Gignilliat, who is an Old Testament professor here at Beeson preached this sermon from 2 Samuel 7. He begins his sermon by describing the dissonance between the wanting and the having. He actually gives an illustration about his son who wanted some shoes and then bought the shoes only to have buyer’s remorse. He makes some poignant statements during the sermon such as, “King David needs a King David.” And, “It’s only in Jesus where the wanting and the having become one.” So, as you listen to this sermon I encourage you to remember that it was preached during the first Advent after COVID-19. It was the first Advent and Christmas season many would be spending away from loved ones. And so in light of this reality I believe that Dr. Gignilliat’s words about the wanting and the waiting was felt palpably by those listening to the sermon. And we believe that his message is still relevant and needed today during this Advent season. I thought it was an excellent sermon and pray that it will encourage you. >>Doug Sweeney: Sounds great to me, Kristen. Dr. Gignilliat is one of the best bible teachers I have ever known. So, I am happy to commend this sermon to our listeners. Again, it was preached at his church, The Cathedral Church of the Advent here in Birmingham. It’s called, “God’s Advent Promise.” >>Dr. Gignilliat: And now in this season of Advent may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be pleasing in thy sight oh, Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. I imagine most of us are aware of one of life’s great mysteries. Real pleasure, it seems, in this world is often found in the wanting and not necessarily in the having. One of my son’s recently bought a pair of tennis shoes that he wanted with his own hard earned money. They were expensive. I asked him afterward how he felt. And he said, “Okay.” And I could tell that he had these mixed feelings about buying these shoes and I said to him, “Welcome, son, to the world of buyer’s remorse.” Desire resides at the core of our existence. It’s really somewhere near the center of what it means for us to be human. We have acute wanter’s buried deep within is. The promise of fulfilled expectations is a narcotic. Expectation, the buildup of the wild pastures of our imaginations can create this sense of wonder about what’s around the corner, of what could be, and admittedly this is intoxicating. I mean, it almost falls to the level of cliché, doesn’t it? To make reference to the Christmas toys, or the newfound hobby stuffed somewhere in our basements or our garages. They are fixed reminders on our families about the distinction between the wanting and the having. All of these truths, all of these facets of our existence, lean rather hard into a very important Advent truth; a season of Advent claim. And it’s this: as Christians, our ultimate hope and our expectation, our Advent dreams will one day collapse. The distinction between the wanting and the having, between the waiting and the seeing, between future hope and life lived now. And we know collectively that only Jesus can do this. I found myself, this year really, repeatedly listening to a song by Andrew Petersen. It’s a really beautiful song. A simple song. The title is, “Is Anyone Worthy?” I imagine some of you know this song. I think it’s my song of the year. It’s a really very simple melody built around the back and forth antiphony between a soloist and a chorus. I want to read a little bit of it to you. It begins this way, the soloist sings out: Do you feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deepen? We do. But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through? We do. And do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do. Is all creation groaning? It is. And is a new creation coming? It is. And is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst? It is. Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is. It’s that last line that strikes me as particularly Advent in tone. Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? Yes, it is. Advent is the season in our church where we remind ourselves of these truths. This Christian new year of ours reframes for you and for me every year what our ultimate desires and what our ultimate hopes actually are. It’s during this season that collectively as a church and individually we’re lifting our eyes to the hills and remembering where our true help comes from. We’re reminding ourselves of this together by crying out for the Lord Jesus to come. Come is the operative word for the season of Advent. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, and let the light of your presence eliminate the cancer of sin and the shadow of death that haunts every one of us. We’re in need of something impossible. As W. H. Auden reminds us in his famous Advent poem, “We who must die demand a miracle. How could the eternal do a temporal act? The infinite become a finite fact? Nothing can save us that is possible. We who must die demand a miracle.” We’re in need of a miracle. And this is why the stakes are so high, so much higher in this season than a bag of unused golf clubs sitting in our sheds. we are threatened by death and we know we’re in need of a miracle. And is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is. In our scripture reading that we heard read so beautifully this morning. I think Cathy is going to become a good reader some day. King David needs some reminding, too. David had a deep desire. He wished to build a house for God and everyone thought the idea was great. Even Nathan the prophet thought it was a great idea. Do all that is in your heart, David. The Lord is with you – he even says. Now, get ready, because this scene is about to pivot very quickly before us. But before the pivot, I think it’s worth nothing it would have been expected in David’s time that he would build a temple for his god. Now that David’s throne is established and his authority is settled the natural next move would be for him to build a temple. So, the whole scene is completely reasonable, if not expected. But David needed something, some reminding, because bigger issues were at play. And God provides him with an Advent moment in 2 Samuel 7. And here it is, “David, you’re not going to build me a house. I’m going to build your house, David. And I’m going to establish your throne forever.” The Lord’s explanation to David in this excerpt we heard read so beautifully today it’s charged, it has a spark to it. I have to admit. I like this feature of our bible, because when the Lord tends to speak to his people he doesn’t tell the truth slant. He tells it rather straight. I mean, for example, Job, “Where were you when I made the foundations of the world?” Well, that gets at the point. “You’re right,” Jesus said to the woman at the well, “you don’t have a husband, you’ve had five.” How about Elijah the prophet, “Elijah, you’re not alone. I have lots of other prophets besides you.” It’s the character of our Lord often to tear down in order to build up. He humbles us in order to raise us. And the Lord follows suit here in his conversation with David. “David, I’ve never lived in a house of cedar. I didn’t ask Moses or the judges to build me a permanent house. In fact, David, I did away with all of your enemies and cleared your path to the throne. And guess what, I did it all without a permanent house. The day is going to come, David, when your son will build me a temple. But that’s not for you. And that’s not for now. Because, David, you need reminding and refocusing, because there are larger kingdom issues at play here, larger Advent promises needing to be made. David, I’m focused on building your house and establishing your kingdom. David, the kingdom that I’m promising you is one that will never fade away. It will last forever. David, I see my own eternal son reflected in your face and in time they will call his name, Jesus.” The covenants of the Old Testament, as you move through Genesis all the way to the end, have this remarkable narrowing down effect in their focus. Think about the first covenant that was made with Noah back in Genesis. All of creation is involved. We see it with the rainbow whenever it appears. “I’ll never destroy the earth again.” And then after that comes the covenant with Abraham. “From your offspring, Abraham, I will bless all the humanity of the earth.” And then to Moses and the covenant at Sinai that now narrows down to the focal point of the nation of Israel. And now in this final distillation with David. One Israelite and one family on the throne forever. Can you see the narrowing? Creation, all humanity, Israel, King David. But here’s the Advent news for you and for me. Here’s what David and us, I believe, need reminding of – the narrowing down of all of these covenants are in service of God’s eternal and global plan to redeem the whole world, a world that’s lost to sin and to death, in the words of the Jesus Storybook Bible, “This is God’s great rescue plan.” And let’s not pretend that there aren’t complications involved with all of this, but the promises that God makes to David, his own life becomes marked by discord and strife. And much of it is self imposed. I mean, 2 Samuel has a Shakespearian feel to it from beginning to end. So, as an abstract figure, King David is a really impressive human being. But there’s a reason why Michelangelo chose David to represent humanity at its finest. I can remember, my wife and I, years ago standing before the David together. There he is in all of his glory. This icon of humanity. I remember thinking, “All right, enough of this. Let’s move on.” Right? I almost howled out loud recently when I read Fleming Rutledge’s description of David in one of her Advent sermons, beautiful sermons that Fleming has left us. This is what she says in one of her sermons. She describes David as the most attractive man in the bible, and then she goes on to proceed him as follows, her words, “handsome, glamorous, magnificent in statescraft, a lion on the battlefield, a brilliantly gifted musician and poet, a flamboyant physical appearance, yet deeply introspective and prayerful, a man of action and contemplation,” and then she says, “just recounting these traits makes me go weak in my knees.” And all that’s fair enough, but that’s abstracted David. Idealized David. That’s not David lived out in the haunting narratives of Samuel and Kings. This is not David and Bathsheba David. Or Amnon and Tamar David. Or worse, Absolam-Absolam David. Nor is it even elderly David in 1 Kings, shivering under his covers unable to keep himself warm, virility now a memory of a time long gone. Let’s send old man David to Fleming Rutledge to see if her knees are still weak. The story of David makes one thing very clear, King David needs a King David, one greater than himself who is able to make things new, bring God’s promises of an eternal throne to fulfillment. David needs an Advent hope and God is happy to remind him of this in 2 Samuel 7. Nothing can save us that is possible because we who die demand a miracle. The promise of David’s eternal throne and the fulfillment of all of these promises in Jesus Christ is the miracle of this season that we so desperately need. It’s what we need reminding of in the winter of our darkness in our season of Advent. The Psalm, you might be interested, that is appointed in our lectionary for the reading of the day, is Psalm 89. Can I read a few verses of Psalm 89 to you? This is how it begins: I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord forever With my mouth will I make known your faithfulness to all generations. I mean, that’s robust Psalm praise language. And then the Psalmist gets really specific in Psalm 89 about what God’s steadfast love and his generational faithfulness looks like. This is what he says: I have made a covenant with my chosen one. I’ve sworn to David my servant. I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations. What I find so fascinating about Psalm 89, brilliant and beautiful psalm, is that it follows right on the heels of the darkest Psalm in all of the bible. I won’t bore you with all the details, but all of the lament psalms or complaint Psalms in the Book of Psalms end in praise, every one of them, except for one Psalm. And you can guess what it is. It’s Psalm 88. This is how Psalm 88 concludes ... it’s haunting. Last verse, last line: And the darkness is my closest friend. Period, closed curtain. There’s a disturbing finality in Psalm 88. It’s a Good Friday kind of Psalm that resides in the netherworld and opens up to the rising of the sun in Psalm 89. Because in Psalm 89 God displays his love and his faithfulness and his loyalty, “I’m to be trusted and I demonstrate my love and my faithfulness because I gave promises to David and I will see them through to the end.” And it’s good for us to remind ourselves of this. I don’t know if you’re feeling as if you’re in the darkness of the early morning and its howling winds. I don’t know if you feel trapped in Psalm 88. But the Advent promises of God to you this morning are this: he made a promise to David and he made a promise to us. We will always have a king and his kingdom will last forever. When Simeon, in Luke 2, I love this scene – when he held baby Jesus in his arms and declared, “I can now depart in peace because my eyes have seen my salvation.” We watch before us this beautiful man move from Psalm 88 and its darkness to Psalm 89 and its promises that God is faithful and he will make good on his promises. Simeon understands our Advent hopes. It’s only in Jesus where the wanting and the having become one. One of the features that I so appreciate about our common life here together at the Advent is we recognize that these truths, these Advent truths need repeating. What truths? The truths that God’s kingdom rule is in Jesus and his eventual return will come and make everything new. And we need to be reminded of this because we’re sinners and we’re trapped in our humanity. We can’t transcend it. So, what we’re talking about this morning are not things that we finally get so that we can then move on to new spiritual mountains to climb. These basic truths of God’s redemptive plan to make the world new in Jesus, they need reminding. And they need to be reminded to us regularly. Because if all of what we’re saying this morning is true, if what God said to David in 2 Samuel 7 is true then the impossible and the miraculous are more real than anything we know. And there’s great freedom in this, freedom especially from fear when these truths are embraced again and again. I think especially of those of you who haven’t hugged your grandchildren as much as you would have liked to in 2020. Or maybe you lost someone that you love this year. Or maybe you lost love this year. Or maybe you feel like you’ve lost yourself this year. King David needs King Jesus, and so do you, and so do I. Everything in the universe hinges on this truth. Because it’s in Jesus and his kingdom where the shadow and the reality become one. Where the wanting and the having become one. And where the promise and the fulfillment become one. “And I heard a loud voice from Heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men. And he will dwell among them. And they shall be his people. And God himself will be among them. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away.’” Is it good for us to remind ourselves of this? It is. Amen. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.