Hope

 

My kids are so done with the COVID-19 pandemic. The fun of not going to school wore off months ago. They want to just be able to see their friends, get hugs from grandmas and grandpas, run with their cousins, see the world beyond Tofte, and be free of the paralysis that COVID- 19 inflicts us all with.

This global pandemic strains our patience. The announcement over the course of the last week or so of the development of three effective vaccines, however, gives us hope. Hope that soon we’ll be done with all of this. Hope that soon our lives will return to “normal.”

George Washington Carver famously said, “Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” St. Augustine wrote, “There is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither hope nor love without faith.”

For Christians the advent season is a season of hope. In fact the Christian faith is nothing without hope. St. Peter declared, “In [God’s] great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

It’s one thing to say you have hope. It’s another to examine the content of your hope. What about God’s great mercy and the resurrection of Jesus causes us to have hope? And what are we to hope for?

For the ancient patriarchs, prophets, psalmists and kings in the Bible, hope was for temporal, down to earth things: a land of their own, relief from drought and famine, salvation from the marauding Philistines, or justice for the poor and true piety in the nation. Wandering amongst the ruins of a destroyed Jerusalem the prophet Jeremiah wrung hope out of despair; “I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love…his compassions never fail, they are new every morning.” Jeremiah’s hope was rooted in trusting Yahweh’s goodness and mercy. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

These ancient writers also looked beyond the temporal into the eternal. David hoped, for example, that he would not be abandoned in the place of the dead; Job’s hope was to see God in the resurrection. A messianic thread woven throughout these ancient writings ties these temporal and eternal hopes together. The prophet Isaiah, who wrote, “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength,” foretold the coming of the one who would be Immanuel, “God with us,” a suffering servant who would take up our pain, bear our sufferings, shoulder our grief, and carry our sorrow.

Christians understand Jesus, born in Bethlehem, to be Immanuel, God in the flesh – the very embodiment of hope. In his resurrection he conquered death so we can hope for an “eternal home in heaven, not built by human hands.” But, and this is important, we never abandon the hope for a down to earth better tomorrow, after all, eternity begins in the now.

St. Paul wrote of the “hope of glory,” repeatedly. He wrote to the Church in Ephesus, “I pray that… you may know the hope to which he has called you: the riches of his glorious inheritance… and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Notice these two aspects of Christian hope: “inheritance” and “power.” Power for what? St. Paul answers, to “follow God’s example…and walk in the way of love.” Our hope for the now is that we would more powerfully reflect Christ to the world – his conquest of death, but also how we’ve been shown to live: with an eye for justice, a love of mercy, and humility before God. We are to convey hope to the world in both the eternal and temporal sense. The two are inseparable.

How do we square this advent hope that is both for the eternal and the here and now with Covid- 19? For Christians it’s not good enough to hope for a return to normal if normal means run-away materialism, rampant injustice, treating God’s creation as if it’s a disposable commodity, and a fleeting concern for human life at all stages. Our hope ought to be for transformation – an active hope that brings justice in the here and now, mercy in the present, humility in all relationships, and a longing to know God together.

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann wrote, “Faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience…. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is.”

Advent is a time of hope. Hope in Christ. Hope for eternity. Hope for humanity. Hope that we would be more like Christ when he comes. And the God given inner strength, power as it were, to make the future bright.

Daren Blanck is the Pastor of Zoar Church in Tofte, MN, a Lutheran Congregation in Mission for Christ (LCMC). Pastor Daren has been preaching in Tofte for five years. Previously he and his wife, Michelle, lived and worked in South Korea and then the Republic of North Macedonia. He is a part time pastor, part time educator with the Lake Superior School District, and full time dad.