By Timothy Peoples
Today is the first Sunday of Advent, which traditionally focuses on hope. Each time we come to this Sunday, I’m reminded that I’m not the most hopeful about our world. I know, I know, that’s not the way to see the world or come into the season of Advent. Life just seems to be a constant downer with news headlines, new legislation, false and prosperity gospels — the list of reasons for my pessimism goes on and on.
But this is when I must step back, take a breath and remember the world is not in my hands. I think the creators of the Advent season knew to put hope first. (Yes, some traditions do things differently, but let me have this moment.) Maybe they knew of Novembers like the one we just had, filled with political fury, a rising number of white supremacist incidents and talks of mass deportations. Maybe they, with tears in their eyes, knew the world would be feeling a tad bit hopeless and lacking the morals and principles of Christ, and yelled out to us:
Comfort, comfort ye my people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God.
Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning neath their sorrows’ load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them …
There is hope in those words!
Our Advent theme this year, “Keep Watch,” was inspired by the book Keep Watch with Me. One of the authors, Michael McRay, writes, “Many of us yearn for a better world, and we wonder how long we can wait. Advent is all about waiting. It is about patience, expectation, and longing. We wait in hope for the arrival of something better than what we have now. … But Advent is about ache too, because longing and waiting are also painful experiences. For our exiled friends in prison longing for freedom, for our oppressed [siblings] waiting for justice, for our loved ones on the streets dreaming of a warm home, waiting is agony. Both Advent and peacemaking are experiences of hope, and hope is the stuff of survival. We hope that something more beautiful is coming because we must, because the alternative is unbearable.”
So, let us keep watch for hope — because we must!