Advent Hope

This coming Sunday, November 28, is (incredibly) the first Sunday of Advent.  Each year at this time, my thinking naturally turns to the theme of hope.  (One of the many things I appreciate about the church calendar is that it brings the church, again and again, to themes of the sacred journey that are absolutely crucial.  Here, in the weeks leading to the celebration of the birth of Jesus, we naturally turn to the theme of hope.)

In a delightful book called A Door Set Open, Grounding Change in Mission and Hope, author Peter Steinke contends that we today must be prepared to do battle against three great temptations: denial, despair and magic.  Denial is the lure to close our eyes to the realities of living in a fallen world, to pretend that all is well when we know full well that it is not.  Denial fails to see the need for change (whether personal or corporate), even when the need is compelling.  Despair is, in some ways, the opposite of denial.  It sees the overwhelming realities of living in a fallen world and is suffocated by them.  Despair is the loss of courage in the face of challenge.  Magic is the belief that there are remedies and secret formulas that offer a quick fix for what ails us.  "Sorcerers," Steinke writes, "have a habit of showing up in down times (pg 40)."

Steinke contends (and I agree) that denial, despair and magical thinking are working overtime these days.  What is desperately needed is a renewed grounding of our lives in hope.  While magic looks for a quick fix to our personal trials and to the enormous challenges of our world, hope is rooted in the slow, patient power of God.  Hope remembers that God is the one who makes something out of nothing.  Hope remembers the God who brings the gift of life to the womb of the barren Sarai, the gift of freedom to the enslaved children of Israel, the gift of return to the exiled Jews, the gift of new life to disciples who are bereft of their crucified Lord.  Advent hope invites us to organize our thinking and our worship around the promise that the one who comes to us on Christmas morning will indeed finish the good work which he started.