Week One of Advent 2024
I used to think that hope meant wishing for a desired outcome, and being certain of what that outcome would be. I thought hope was being confident that my wishes would be satisfied. It was the fulfillment of my expectations. And this was easy during Advent, because it was an exercise in being all too familiar with the story. I knew the outcome: God entering our world as a baby. And so putting hope in that foregone conclusion was easy. But it didn’t translate easily to the rest of life.
At least for me, life tends to be much more ambiguous. I don’t have the end of each story laid out in full-color detail before me. I don’t have the answers to the questions. And so, I’m wondering if expectation and hope are two very different things.
Expectation wanted the Messiah to come as a powerful king. The reality of God-among-us was very different. Expectation wants life to go predictably. Expectation wants others to behave in the way I think they should. Expectation wants heaven to happen according to my dreams. But when I’m full of expectations and those expectations are not fulfilled, life is full of frustration. Can I let these go, accepting life as it comes, living wholly into each moment, and being okay with not knowing the future? The calculating and counting and controlling and conjecturing need to go. This false hope is not the hope of Advent.
The hope of Advent is not dependent on predictable outcomes. It is okay with ambivalence, like the ambivalence of God as a baby. This hope of Advent embraces the possibilities of today without needing to know the details of tomorrow, like the magi following a star without knowing where it would lead. Hope is okay with not knowing because it does know the goodness of God. This true hope of Advent may not know the details of eternity but it trusts in the Eternal One who entrusts us with life today. Hope trusts in God’s Spirit at work here and now, even when that Spirit is not acknowledged. As Carl Jung had carved above his doorway, “Called or not called, God is present.” That’s hope. Hope in the presence of God that gives me no assurances about the future, but is fully with me in each clear and present moment.
I can still dream. But I will keep in mind that God’s ways may look very different from mine. Blurriness is okay. Unknowing is okay. Waiting is okay. And I won’t despair in the waiting, because I know my hope comes in aligning myself with the God of hope.
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