Advent Hope

 

Breathe in God’s hope…breathe out the cheerless chill that too often hovers in the air.

Breathe in God’s hope…breathe out the worry that demands our attention and allegiance.

Breathe in God’s hope…breathe out the restlessness.

 

Today, I want to invite you to consider that hope is a muscle within your life.  It is appropriate that today is the day we honor Rosa Park whose nonviolent resistance still inspires hope.  Hope is already here, the question is, are we awake/aware/alert to its presence?  Do you and I practice and participate in hope?  Hope is not some external reality, but a prayer posture that we ~ you and me ~ are called to let loose and let shine in this world.  You and I are God’s hopeful prayer for the world.  I hear you thinking…but what about…fill in the blank with all the reasons your scoreboard says hope is losing.

 

What you just heard on the news.

What you just heard from a friend.

What you just felt in your life.

 

Those are true too.  The beauty and brokenness are both woven into life ~ God enters the world in a stable as love’s pure light shines forth from a baby’s face.  This mystery of both/and is one that will take more than month or a season to fully embrace in our lives.  But we are taught and told to dismiss or distrust or deny the mystery.  Christmas is a mystery, which is why a sanctuary filled with candlelight as we all sing, “Silent Night,” moves your soul more than any words I could write or preach.  While I wish we could reside in that holy bubble place forever.  I also know that if we are willing to awaken to God’s presence permeating our world ~ not always in the flashy or splashy or glitzy or headline capturing ways ~ we may just discover hope is not something out there or like a train/plane that has been delayed ~ God’s hope is hovering right here waiting for you and me to awaken.  May that be so for you and me as we hold hope and are held by a hope that will never let us go.  Amen.