“A Thrill of Hope”
This past Sunday, I preached at a lovely local church. I had the honor of preaching the first Sunday of Advent where we light the first candle of the Advent wreath, the candle of hope. My sermon centered around the question, “What Do We Hope For?” which I posed in my last post (I am sure it comes as no surprise that post was inspired by the sermon I had just preached). I have taken this question into my week and rolled it over in my mind time and time again, asking myself, what is it that I hope for?
I cannot help but look around me at the world we live in and feel somewhere deep within my being that I—we are missing something. I watched TV last night for the first time in a while and was bombarded with commercial after commercial of advertisements for holiday sales, toys, electronics, clothes everything and anything anyone could want. I felt exhausted by the time I turned the TV off.
What do I hope for? What do we hope for?
I am learning that hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is not me wishing for lovely Christmas gifts. Which, sure I want, and wish for but this hope we are grappling with is far more raw and human and it requires action, it is an act of faith.
What do I hope for? What do we hope for?
I hope and we as Christians hope in a God who is at work. A God who is reconciling and redeeming this wounded world. I hope, trust, and believe that God is creating and inviting each one of us to co-create a more loving, kind, compassionate, and caring world.
My lovely husband, Will, is a passionate singer. He is incredibly picky about the music and musicians he listens to—especially when it comes to Christmas hymns. His particularity has rubbed off on me and now I cannot stand to hear pop stars sing hymns. I only listen to hymns performed by choirs, I especially love the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. Tonight, I remembered a favorite author of mine, Shauna Niequist, mentioning in one of her books the hymn “O, Holy Night,” and she focused on the line “and the soul felt its worth” but tonight as I drove home in the dark, the street lamps’ cheery Christmas lights twinkling and illuminating my drive home, the line that caused my eyes to water was a “a thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices.”
Goodness gracious, I am weary, and I sense the world and her people’s souls are weary. We have been living in the midst of a pandemic for going on two years now, violence and news of violence is splashed across our TV and phone screens constantly, people get away with spewing hate over and over and seem to find a way to get more air time.
Not to mention living in a world that tells us more stuff, more noise, more work, more perfecting, more running ourselves ragged to gain success will make us happy and fulfill us. Instant gratification rules this world, and we are required to be available 24/7, to respond within seconds of receiving an email or text or call. Phew, it is no wonder we are weary. I am exhausted simply writing this out and I wonder are you weary too?
What, my friends, do we hope for?
Advent is a season for waiting, something that we humans do not know how to do in this ultra fast paced, instantly gratified world. I am guilty of this—in my own personal life I have been in a season of waiting and when things were not fitting in my nice neat timeline and plans I began to get irritated and cranky.
Advent is a challenge for us—because, it is a season that invites us to relinquish control, to slow ourselves down so we can wait for the Lord. In this waiting we trust God is at work, even when we cannot seem to see it, and we are invited to have hope in all God is doing.
The holiday season is notorious for being one of those seasons of more—more stuff, more events, more requirements, more things on the to do list. But what if instead, we let it be a season of more rest, more genuine connection, more cozy, more holy, more sacred. What would that look like? What would that feel like?
What, my friends, do we hope for?
A God at work, a God who encourages rest, a God who will be who God will be and who has proven time and time again that we can trust in the Lord. A God breaking into our world time and time again in all the ways that go against our plans, our imaginings and is, without, fail creating things far more beautiful than we could have ever dreamed up or wished for.
This is who I have hope in. I hope for God’s plans, for God’s dreams, for God’s loving presence to hold this weary world, a God who is actively loving the world and her people back to health and wholeness.
“A thrill of hope and a weary world rejoices.”
Tell me friends, what is it that you hope for?
Amen.
