There Is Always Hope
My mother grew up going to Garden City with her family for their beach vacation each summer. The week they had looked forward to all year long would finally arrive, and they would pack up the car and drive the three hours from Columbia toward the coast. I haven’t confirmed this with her, but if our childhood vacations were any reflection of the ones she took growing up, they probably stopped at the same places each year to help break up the trip, rest from the road, and get something to eat.
The drive always seemed longer than it should, but I guess that is how it is for any kid in the back seat of the car on a long road trip. As they got closer to the beach the feeling quickly shifted to a great sense of anticipation, even hope. My grandmother would look around, rouse everyone out of their boredom or mid-trip nap, and say it was time to wake up and roll the windows down. They were almost there!
The signs were everywhere. The trees looked different. The shops and billboards looked different. Most importantly, they would stick their heads out the window and try to see who could be the first to smell the salty air coming off of the ocean. That was the sign that was clearer than any other that they were about to be in a place where they could leave their troubles behind. Given the connection between our sense of smell and taste buds, they were so close they could literally almost taste it.
I think that is how I feel this time of year. The decorations go up at the church and around our house. We drive through the neighborhood and look at the lights on all of the houses. We marvel at the lengths some people will go to in filling their lawns with Santa figures, reindeer, snowmen, manger scenes, and Yoda and Darth Vader dawning Santa hats (those are my favorite). We sing along to the Christmas music on the radio, and we salivate constantly with the smell of cinnamon, sugar, and peppermint everywhere we go. The signs are all around. Christmas is finally almost here again.
Christmas day, and the entire season really, mean many things to us, but as a Christ-follower and pastor, for me it naturally all comes back to Jesus. This is without question my favorite time of year. I revert to a child-like state of awe, wonder, and excitement with all of the fun that comes with it. But this year I find myself reflecting less on the fun and more on the spiritual nature of the season. I think of the promises that come to us wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. I think of the fact that each Sunday from now until Christmas we will celebrate that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. As Eugene Peterson put it so perfectly in his modern interpretation and translation of the Bible, in Jesus, “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.” Because of that, each week we will recognize that Christ brings Hope, Peace, Joy and Love to the world.
Most of all, this year I am reminded that in Jesus Christ there is always hope. Since Jesus came, no matter what we are facing, no matter how difficult things may seem, no matter the forces we think are bearing down on us, God is with us. If God is with us, then God knows what we are going through. If God is with us, then we don’t need to ever feel alone. If God is with us, then we are never truly unloved. If God is with us, then we are never truly lost. If God is with us, then all is never lost. If God is with us, and if God is for us, then what or who can be against us? If God is with us, then we can endure whatever this world may throw at us.
This season reminds me that, just like the prophet Jeremiah said, the days are still surely coming when God will keep all of God’s promises. The anointed of God, who has come and will come again, will bring about justice for all people and righteousness for all people. So this week we say that if, in Jesus, God is with us, then there is always reason to hope that the days ahead will be better than the once behind us.
We need that reminder these days, when many people feel like hope is too hard to hold onto. But all of those signs that tell us that Christmas is almost here should also remind us that hope can always be found if we know where to look. It can be found in the beauty of the season. It can be found in the reunion of families gathered around the table. It can be found in the face of a child whose innocence and excitement, and whose imagination is unleashed with all they see, helps us remember that even in the darkest times there is still so much that God is doing to unite all people and drive us forward into a brighter future.
In the midst of continued political division and economic unrest here at home, geopolitical confusion abroad, and daily plight of our neighbors all around us, I am reminded that so often the message I have to preach this season, and every season really, is that no matter how bad it looks out there in the world, because of Jesus, God is still with us. God is still at work. There is always reason to hope, and finding hope and defiantly clinging to it when the rest of the world gives into fear and despair is what allows us to tell a different story about the arc of human history. It is what helps us see through the chaos and the decay and recognize that new life is actually springing up all the time. And if we can see it, the signs are so clear that we can almost taste it.
What do you sense this season? As I look around and see people drawn together in spite of what seeks to divide them, people moved to identify and serve those whom society ignores and keeps down, children who believe that the impossible may just be possible, I sense hope. So I’ll preach it again. In Jesus, God is with us. God is still at work making all things new. So I still have hope.