Hope

12-1-21 Glenda Simpkins Hoffman

Some years ago, a friend loaned me the book One Word that Will Change Your Life. The title says it all. It’s about how to simplify your life by focusing for an entire year on just one word which serves as a catalyst for change. I have done this for several years now. 

In February of 2020, I chose the word celebration for 2021 because there were to be many significant milestones in our family’s life. But life doesn’t always go as planned. So much changed due to the pandemic, family health concerns, and other challenges. So a year ago I chose a new word—hope. I didn’t know then that our new lead pastor’s name would be Hope, which made me smile. That is how God works sometimes. I thank God that 2021 has been filled with much hope. 

Hope is not based on what we think, feel, or even desire. Hope is an expression of faith. Faith is the larger category. Hope is faith that is future oriented. And there is a moral certainty that the good we expect and desire will be done. 

In the Old Testament hope was based on God’s righteous character (who he was) and his faithfulness (to do what he promised). This hope expressed itself as a conviction that all of history was in God’s hands and that God would fulfill his promise to establish David’s throne forever.  

As Pastor Hope shared on Sunday, Israel waited for 400 years from the last prophecy in Malachi to the good news of Jesus’ birth. That is why we often begin our Advent season thinking about hope, because we remember God’s people throughout the centuries—waiting for God’s Messiah, the true King to come.  

We sing those great Advent hymns: “O Come, O Come Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel. Who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.”  And “Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel’s strength and consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart.” The long waiting and the hope for the Messiah are so beautifully expressed in these hymns.  

At this time of year, we celebrate Jesus’ first coming in his incarnation. I don’t just mean his birth. In his life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. Therefore, we are no longer people lighting candles in the dark or waiting during the night for the new day to begin. The dawn has already come, the Son has risen, and we are simply waiting for the brilliance of noon day.  

While Jesus’ first coming has already happened, there are two others to consider. Peter Blois, a famous preacher of the twelfth century, wrote, “There are three comings of our Lord: the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, and the third at the judgment…. The first coming was humble and hidden, the second is mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic and terrible…. In his first, a Lamb; in his last a Lion; in the one in between the two, the tenderest of friends.”  

We live in the time after Jesus’ incarnation, but we are still waiting for the time he will return in glory and ultimately make all things right. Advent is a season for us to recognize the hope we have that that day is coming. As those who live in this in-between time of Jesus’ first and final comings, we wait with hope for the fulfilment of his promise.  

But even as we wait for that day, we can experience the real presence of Christ right here and now in each present moment through the person of the Holy Spirit who dwells, fills, and empowers us. Through the power of the Spirit, we experiencing Jesus coming to us as a true friend in all the ordinary moments of our days.  

Every year I read through Ann Weem’s Kneeling in Bethlehem. I think my favorite poem is “The Coming of God,” which expresses the many ways God comes to us even now. 

Our God is One who comes to us 

in a burning bush,

in an angel song,

in a new born child. 

Our God is the One who cannot be found 

locked in the church, 

not even in the sanctuary. 

Our God will be where God will be 

with no constraints, 

no predictability. 

Our God lives where our God lives, 

and destruction has no power 

  and even death cannot stop 

  the living. 

Our God will be born where God will be born, 

but there is no place to look for the One who comes to us. 

When God is ready 

God will come 

Even to a godforsaken place 

like a stable in Bethlehem. 

Watch… 

For you know not when God comes. 

Watch that you might be found 

whenever 

wherever 

God comes.

 I like this poem for so many reasons, but one of them is because it gives direction about how to live in this season of Advent. We are to wait and to watch. 

Waiting seems like a passive thing, but it’s not. To hope is to wait. We learn to wait in this present moment, which is the only place God can be found. Waiting is where we learn to let go of our need to be in control and let God do what only he can do. As we wait with God, our hope grows as we come to trust that God is good no matter what is going on in or around us.  

But waiting is not the same as doing nothing. It’s an attentive looking forward. We watch. A watchman eagerly waits for dawn to come and the night to end, but he is also attentive and alert to what is really happening and ready to respond appropriately. And he’s also doing the work he’s been given: to stand guard, to keep watch. In other words, our hope for the future informs our actions in the present.  

It’s easy to be distracted by the busyness of this season and to fall into the trap of cultural expectations of what it should look like. Sadly, that pressure of living into what we “should” do can squeeze the hope, peace, joy, and love right out of us. Perhaps God is inviting us to prayerfully discern for ourselves and discuss with family or friends what God is calling us to this season. How do we fill our days with worship, joy, laughter, and the making of memories with those we love, while not driving ourselves and those around us crazy?  

Jesus is the Hope of the World. He is the reason for the season. We can enjoy his coming to us in so many wonderful and surprising ways this Advent season. How is God inviting us to arrange our lives this Advent and Christmas seasons? How will we glorify and enjoy God? How will we love God and our neighbor?   

Here is a prayer I will be praying this Advent season: O God, grant that we may desire you, and desiring you, seek you, and seeking you, find you, and finding you, be satisfied in you forever. — Francis Xavier