Advent 1c 2024; 1 Dec.
Luke 21:25-36; Jack Hardaway
TRAPPED BY HOPE
Hope has a way of hunting us down.
Luring us away.
Then suddenly like a trap we are captured.
God’s prisoner.
We begin the Christian year today with a vision of the world falling apart and being remade.
For people of faith,
for those who have been claimed by the Holy One,
for those who believe in Jesus: when things fall apart, hope explodes, like green on a tree.
We have been given a vision of the world, of what we are to be that sustains and guides us on the dark days.
That is the Advent, the Advent of the full overflowing-ness of God’s kingdom, the arrival that judges us, the arrival that liberates us, the arrival that heals us.
Hope captures us, and doesn’t let go.
We are judged.
Our lives are weighed.
How we live has eternal consequence. Our lives, our stories, our ordinary everydayness, they carry the full weight of glory.
And that judgment is our greatest hope.
That is how we begin our year, that is how we mark time, with a vision of God not as vindictive or angry, but rather as alluring, relentless, taunting us to hope beyond reason.
Because: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
It is a wild hope. It is much more than generic optimism.
It is God filled. God haunted, God alluring hope.
Baptism and Eucharist lure us in with miraculous, excessive, prodigal love then we are held captive by hope.
The trap is set and we have fallen for it.
Today we hear the words of the Advent of God’s Judgement.
Words that fill us with hope and courage, words like:
Prayer, watchfulness, liberation, wakefulness, standing up, raising our heads, looking, seeing, and being on guard.
Lives filled with paying attention and expectation, with looking forward, with anticipation.
Like children on Christmas Eve watching the sky.
Make no mistake.
We are being lured, hunted and held captive by wild, reckless, God haunting hope.
Advent.
And so we begin.