Hope

December 03, 2006

First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
The Reverend Stephen P. Bauman

The 30-year-old woman said she felt spiritually flat and anxious. She didn’t know why. We spent some time talking. I learned my new acquaintance had tracked pretty well, career-wise. She hadn’t set the world on fire, but she had achieved and maintained a position that matched her goals. She had a sense of accomplishment about that. She had grown up somewhere in the Midwest; was originally attracted to the “bright lights, big city” adventure of New York. And, for the most part, things had gone pretty well.

But a couple of months prior, she and lost the taste in her mouth. Everything had a cast of gray, like a cloudy, winter sky, as she described the feeling. She was unnerved, uncertain what to make of it.

One of the interesting and challenging things that I’m aware of on any given Sunday, today for instance, is that persons sitting in the pews, like all of you, have brought with them wide-ranging sets of personal circumstance. So, some of you would have good things to report about your lives: job promotion, news of a pregnancy, great year-end bonus, etc. For another percentage, life is pretty much status quo, nothing much new to report; and still others would have a less easy time sharing the news of their lives: a health crisis, unhappiness with work or romance, a death in the family. I suppose that some would find themselves in all three categories simultaneously.

Well, no matter the particular details of our life circumstance this morning, most of us could identify certain times in our lives that were more difficult, times we might say we fell into a depression, perhaps not really understanding why. We wake up one day and realize we’ve been in this gray, cloudy place for a while and hadn’t really acknowledged it.

This can take many forms. Some persons have an organic disposition to this emotional state, of course. But short of that, a good majority of us have experienced times of anxiety, depression, or, as my new friend said, a prolonged season with a brooding, wintry sky. Sometimes, as we live into this season, and though occasioned by a vexing issue, we discover it has less to do with any particularly disturbing event from past or present, than an acknowledgment that the current “me” is slipping away, and the new “me” has yet to fully emerge. We feel raw, exposed and unsettled.

At that point, we can choose to move into and through it, or attempt to turn our back, cover our eyes, and flail around for awhile in a state of bewilderment – even for quite a long while. (Do you know anything about that flailing around?)

That’s what I wound up talking about with my new friend. Over time, she said she came to the realization that while certain issues may have prompted her dis-ease, at root her wintry season was a life-stage transition; another opportunity for growing up, as she put it. I shared that I have had several times like that in my life up to this point, and I imagined that one, or with any luck, maybe even two or three still remained.

One time was especially hard, tinged with grave fear and trepidation about what lay ahead. That time, some twenty years ago, the sky was not simply gray, but ominous, threatening, looming. Still, what I had to offer my friend was the experience that eventually, the new day came and the sun rose once more.

I also allowed how there was a potent spiritual component to this, predicated on hope. We usually don’t think about this, but hope is what allows us to let go of the old in order to embrace the new. We generally experience this implicitly rather than explicitly, but hope is our most powerful engine for change, and hope is fundamentally a spiritual value. Hope is the harbinger of the new day, even as dark clouds hang low.

That made sense to her. She said she would pray for hope. I said that was a very good prayer, one that most everyone could benefit from. Even me, I added.

Thinking deeply about these matters, we realize that hope is an essential aspect of human existence. Not much would be accomplished without it. Little suffering could be endured, little striving over impossible-seeming obstacles. That’s true, isn’t it? Think about the details of your own struggles. Though you probably don’t consider it in the moment, wouldn’t it be true to say that, in order to make it through some dark episode in your life, hope is what allowed you imagine a different future? It may not have seemed like much at the time, but now, looking back, you can see that without just a sliver of hope, the new day would have been impossible to conceive.

When something doesn’t work out and we try, try again, all that trying has an intimate relationship with hope. In the process, we may learn a thing or two, but hope makes the learning possible.

Not many marriages would happen without hope, and far fewer would survive. In a hopeless world, hardly anyone would have a child, I imagine. Why buy stocks and bonds, or own a mortgage? Though we rarely think of it, hope animates all of our life-affirming decisions, small and large alike.

Still, for all of this hope-induced behavior, periodically we enter the season of low-hanging dark and ominous clouds, and we wonder and question. After all, we are only frail flesh with a certain number of years to our span of life. And so, we stumble in our confidence.

And then, to complicate the picture a bit, if, instead of sitting within the astonishing beauty and comfort of Park Avenue, New York City, imagine we were in downtown Baghdad or Beirut this morning. What then of hope? And we see instantly that without it, those cities, and our politics for that matter, are dead, stillborn, aren’t they? And hope seems audacious, even arrogant, considering the scale of the problems. Still, hope must live. How does hope live? Why does hope live?

In here, we have a rather odd answer, and yet it’s an answer that has completely captured the world’s attention. It’s called Christmas. I know it’s perplexing in the extreme, especially given how we’ve managed to so abuse it by our excesses. Still, that’s the answer we proclaim. We say that, at the core of all things, our God intends to bring redemption out of destruction. If not today, then tomorrow for certain. We say Jesus is our hope and reveals the hope that continues into our futures. We invite people to share that faith grounded in hope.

Jesus spoke of the future in a variety of ways. Today, we heard how he examined the dark and ominous sky and experienced the future, perhaps his own future, with a sense of foreboding. As Luke tells the story, this morning’s gospel comes just a few verses before Jesus’ arrest. Still, for all of the apocalyptic prediction, all of the roaring of the sea, distress among the nations, and shaking of the heavens, he says to “stand and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Which, paradoxically, sounds like a proclamation of hope, frightening and exhilarating both, in the midst of current distress.

No question, the Jews of 1st century Palestine lived in dangerous times. Just a few decades away, their city was sacked and their temple torn down. We know how the Romans dealt with perceived political threats in those days by what happened to Jesus.

How can one be hopeful when the sky itself seems to be falling? Because God looms larger than the sky with all of its planets and stars. And God intends for life to prevail. Even my life and your life. We go so far as to say that we shall prevail even after our very last breath has been spent. That’s the promise embedded within Advent. Easter is embedded in Advent.

We claim that whether or not anyone buys the story, this transcendent hope is woven into every single strand of creation fabric. We couldn’t escape it even if we wanted to. God will have the day. Period.

That’s the theology here: life triumphing. Even in the midst of crisis and catastrophe. Hope knows this deep truth. Robust hope is not undone by suffering or grief. In part, suffering and grief form the anvil upon which authentic hope is forged. Hope has no truck with Pollyanna philosophies. It’s no sentimental Christmas card. It is at least equal to the worst that life can dish out. In fact, more than equal. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be talking about hope today. Instead, we’d be peddling in despair.

Hope lies close to the heart of life. They go together. Hope and life; life and hope. Their dance animates our worship, inspires our musicians, fuels our passions, and prompts our desire to grow into the better version of ourselves that we suspect was intended in the first place.

Thank God for hope!

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