Advent: Week 1

Revised Common Lectionary: Advent Week 1
Jeremiah 33:14–16
Psalm 25:1–10
1 Thessalonians 3:9–13
Luke 21:25–36

This is the first post of four-part series.  Read the series introduction here.

What do you expect? Standing on a high place with a great view, or sitting in a low valley with only your present struggles surrounding you; what do you expect from God? Hoping for good things from Him? Hope can be a costly thing in a world wrought with pain and frustrated plans.

It’s been a long time since hope knocked on some of our doors. Like abandoned children, waiting by the door an estranged parent walked out of, some of us have distorted ideas of what hope can bring. When days stretch us thin, hope feels like a fool’s mistake. Hope is just another way to get yourself hurt and embarrassed. Some parents never walk back through the door, and some troubles are permanent houseguests. Hoping things will get “better” seems misguided when the calendar rolls on like a freight train as guilt and shame create cement shoes around a heart.

Israel wanted God to come as He did in Egypt. He saved them in a big way once, but now he stood distant and silent for hundreds of years. They looked for a promised king. Is he still the God who delivers? Then in the darkness of a Bethlehem night, a young girl begins to scream and push as she labors to deliver hope incarnate into the world. And now, like Israel and generations of believers, we too wait. Will the boy who became a man on a mission to die come back as He said He would?

God designed our faith to always be lacking. The moment our faith is made perfect is the day when Jesus returns, and then we no longer need faith. Faith is replaced by His promised presence and reign. So we wait with faith that has holes, in need of the Lord’s help to carry water. But as foolish, or childish, as it feels; our faith in His return is an expectant hope. We expect him to come through, or at least we fight to believe such things. On a high vista or in a dark valley, we expect God to show up and save us. We expect Him to heal the suffering that soaks us. We expect Him to fill the losses we mourn. We expect Him to take our burdens in exchange for His peace. We expect Him to answer our call: “come soon” with “I will.” We expect this story to have a happy ending, even when we have to fight to believe such fantastic things that presently seem to good to be true. Sorrow and suffering won’t have the last word.

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