Every year I write an Advent devotional for each of the four weeks of Advent. I usually employ some sort of traditional pattern along with a theme to walk us toward Christmas. This year I will continue the theme of Embracing with the pattern of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.
photo credit – Josh Pinkston
When we look at the nativity story of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, we see that Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel’s hope for a messiah. This messiah would be a king from the family of David who would establish justice and righteousness for Israel and all those who align themselves with this king. Jesus accomplished this, just not in the way they had expected. The Jews were looking for messiah to bring a national deliverance from the oppressive Roman regime. Instead, Jesus brought deliverance to individuals who collectively and over many years changed the world.
The church today continues to carry this hope into the world. It is a hope for resurrection that all things would be made new. It is a hope for justice that all things would be made right. It is a hope for deliverance that all would be made free, not just free from something, but free for something. Lastly it is a hope for love that through love all things would be restored and made whole again.
Recently at the conclusion of one of our community classes, a conversation begun with the students, the instructor, and others in the room. It was a vulnerable conversation about sad and painful things happening in their lives and in the lives of others they love. It became a moment in which the only appropriate thing to do was listen, acknowledge, and feel. Those that were there knew that the best way to share hope was to simply share their presence.
Hope is not just a dreamy-eyed notion that somehow, someday, everything will be alright. Hope is a substantive belief that we engage through faith. It is the knowing that in Christ resurrection, justice, freedom, and love are all a reality. We know this because we have seen it in Jesus, have experienced it through God’s presence in our lives, and through the love of God’s people.
“Hope is really hope when all seems hopeless.” John Caputo*
This is not to say that since I have Jesus in my life that everything is just peachy all the time. I am currently walking through a season in which I feel that I have lost hope for a number of things and in a number of circumstances. Some days all I can do is receive love from those who love me, trust that God is there, with and within me, and lay my hope down in hope that through all these things it will become hope again.
It is in these times when my hope is challenged that I realize that hope is not something I can muster or conjure up. It comes to me through the love and presence of God and people. Hope is a gift we hold up and hold out.
As we reconnect with the story of hope this Christmas, I pray that we become agents of hope for those around us, believing for them the realization of resurrection, justice, freedom, and love.
Grace and peace,
Brook
* From a Homebrewed Christianity interview with John Caputo. Minute 32:00-35:00
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I am always amazed how God can speak through simple and familiar stories. I was reading in Mark’s gospel how at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus cast a demon out of a man in the synagogue. (Mark 1:21-28) It says the Jesus spoke harshly to the demon. I can’t help but believe that it was deep compassion for the man that Jesus chose to silence the unclean spirit. Love makes us do bold things.