I spent most of this First Sunday of Advent traveling back home after spending about 30 hours in South Carolina to hang out with my family/watch our collective alma mater punch their ticket to the Division 1 FCS Quarterfinals for the first time in nearly two decades. The trip was more than worth it despite the travel and little sleep. Yet I felt bad that I was missing church on this first day of what is probably my favorite liturgical season. So I tried to church as best I could solo, which is most certainly not the optimal way to church. Yet sometimes one has to make do with podcasts and journaling at taco joints on the road.
As I nibbled on the complimentary, shockingly tasty friend chick peas and waited for my tacos, I scribbled a little in my journal about hope. Advent exists in this weird, timey-wimey place of anticipating the several millennia-old birth of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas and the event of Christ making everything right that is arriving and has yet to arrive. Advent is a season in limbo so the Church has traditionally decided that hope is a good place to start.
The stories that have most resonated with me over the years are one in which hope is a foregrounded theme. The shield that Superman wears on his suit is the Kryptonian symbol for hope.My favorite movie series is Star Wars, which famously began with an episode entitled A New Hope* and the series constantly highlights the value of staunch hope in the face of adversity. I’m reminded of how even in my favorite modern installments of the series—The Last Jedi and Rogue One—we witness characters wrestling with what to do when circumstances, the powerful, and their own haunted past cause them to lose hope.
*The nerd in me feels compelled to point out that the Man of Steel’s “S” originally just stood for Superman and A New Hope was simply titled Star Wars when it debuted. Hope was retroactively seeded in the beginnings of those tales to further emphasize what those stories are about.
And I wonder if the reason that those stories imprint on me so much is because the first story I likely ever learned was this story of hope that we anticipate during Advent. Granted, when I first learned the Christmas story it was the simple, childlike tale of a baby in a manger, Mary and Joseph, shepherds and angels. So when i grew up to understand that the story of Christmas is about ordinary people and brutal empires, the powerful rebellion that is fidelity and love, and the ways in which the divine enters the scene among the most unlikely people in the most unexpected ways. It is the story of God with and for us; a story of hope.
It is a story that I love and a story that I need. It’s been a rough year for our family. It may have been a difficult year for you too. Even more, the literal cities that fill the stories we tell in this Advent season are buried under violence and rubble. We need this story of hope to survive and to know that one day this will all be made right. Yet sometimes, it is even too much to look to that unknown day of right-making that Advent anticipates. That hope can seem too big for hearts that get knocked around by this world.
Somewhere along I-40 in Tennessee today, I was listening to a podcast in which Krista Tippett was interviewing the theologian Kate Bowler. If you haven’t read Bowler’s books, you should do yourself the favor of seeking them out.
Part of Bowler’s story is how she has navigated the diagnosis and treatment of Stage 4 cancer. Obviously with such a life experience, the topic of hope came up often and there was one thing she said that stuck with me. Because I was driving, this isn’t exactly what she said but the gist of it was people often think of hope as this idea that everything is going to be alright. But often hope is simply something that keeps pace with us and helps us find the edges of what we can hope for in our present circumstances.
That feels like grace. The beauty of God with us is that God meets us where we are in our humanity. Somedays we can hope and believe that everything will be alright. And other days all we can find is that frayed edge of our present circumstance to hope that today will not be as crappy as the last, that a loved one will be okay, that there will be a little less violence and heartbreak in the world. Wherever we are, Christ meets us there.
So in this Advent season, I pray that you know that God is with you wherever you are and that you might be able to reach out your hands to find those edges of what you can hope for in this season.