Jack Hardaway
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We all hope for things.
Advent is the season of hope.
Along with faith and love, hope is one of three things that abide, according to the Apostle Paul.
More specifically Advent is about what gives us hope.
What gives us hope?
We had a wedding here last night, weddings give me hope. Two people making the ties that bind.
Long rainy nights give me hope. We had one just a few nights ago, I had the window cracked open and I listened to the rain falling all night long. I love a rainy night, such a beautiful sight…
The sun rise in the morning gives me hope, especially after a good rain, everything washed clean, and the air is clear.
Sitting around a table with family and friends gives me hope. Perspective comes with being at table together.
The Soup Kitchen gives me hope, a gathering of all kinds of people, working together to make sure everyone gets to eat, making friends across all the divisions of race, politics, religion and income.
Advent gives me hope.
God brings hope to the world, hope to our lives.
We hope for things. We lose hope.
Advent is about hope returning to the world.
Breaking into our lives, finding us.
Like fruit on a long barren tree.
Hope is more than optimism.
Optimism is just despair hiding behind a cardboard smile.
Hope endures the cross of shame.
Hope abides.
Hope breaks in with the courage to love.
We hope for the arrival and return of Jesus whose judgement sets the world free and completes all things.
But more than that Jesus gives us hope, Jesus is the hope of God, breaking down the gates of death and hell, that none are forsaken or forgotten.
God gives us hope in so many ways.
Hope is always breaking in.
That is the Gospel.
The Advent of Jesus appears in our lives in all the ways that hope finds us, in the wedding, in the rain, in the sunrise, and at the table.
What gives you hope?
How does hope find you?
There. Right there.
The Advent of Jesus finds us right there.