Sea never still

Sea never still

SEA NEVER DRY was a sign I once saw on the back of a Ghanean Kombi. I am by the sea as I write and I would also suggest ‘sea never still’ would be a good message for the road. The sea is a restless wonder, filled with hope and threat. The Book of Revelations ends with the prophecy that ‘there will be no more sea’ as though that would be a good thing but I would not be happy to see it go.

‘Sea never dry’ is a message of hope, like the Zimbabwean proverb, ‘the bush always gives something to the tired person.’ Sango rinopa aneta. The trouble is to say something about hope that carries meaning. Love we know about and faith we understand even if we have little of it. But hope? It is no use confining it to expressions of hope as in, ‘I hope the operation is successful’ or ‘we are hoping for rain.’ It is more solid than that.

The hope we celebrate in these days before Christmas, which we call Advent, is a looking forward to something that definitely WILL happen. ‘The calf and the lion cub will feed together’ (Isaiah 11;1-10). This may be metaphor and poetry but it conveys a firm truth of a cosmic peace to come. If we don’t believe that we don’t believe anything about the revelation of God brought to us in Jesus.

To only focus on Christmas in Advent is to empty the scriptures of their dynamic intent. This is a time of announcement – ‘go up on a high mountain, joyful messenger to Zion. Shout with a loud voice’ – of the victory God is bringing. It is absolutely certain that God will bring joyful fulfilment to creation and not just creation as a general concept but to each of us individually who long for, and reach out for, his coming.

This may still sound woolly and vague but we can put a little topical flesh on hope. Just this week we heard of a new book (The Great Reformer) on Pope Francis which researches his troubles with the Jesuits in the 1970s and 80s. There was much division of opinion at the time over his policies. But it is now becoming clear that the painful misunderstandings he then endured, and the patience he had in dealing with them, trained him for holding the present divisions in the worldwide church in a creative tension.

We can be certain that the church will come through its present ‘bad’ patch. That is one instance of hope. The sea is never still.

7 December 2014                    Advent Sunday 2 B

Isaiah 40:1…11                       2 Peter 3:8-14                          Mark1:1-8