‘Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow’ – Thomas Obadiah Chisholm – hymn writer 1866–1960
I’ve been writing this blog for over eight years now, and when re-reading the Christmas posts I discovered that I’ve repeatedly returned to the theme of hope. As I pondered what to write in this Advent piece, I can’t help feeling that it’s still what most of us are looking for.
There’s a joke in our household that when the request for Christmas lists goes out, my husband always opts for ‘world peace’. It’s a Dad joke which, although it has some genuine merit in terms of authentic desires, is difficult to come by and almost impossible to wrap.
Perhaps that’s why God sent Jesus. Hope personified.
But hope for what? That He would fix everything; wave some divine equivalent of a magic wand and suddenly wars would be over; everyone fed; children cherished; women emancipated; cruelty banished; hatred and violence eradicated; abuse cast out; physical and mental illness ejected? Maybe then relationships could be restored; respect and responsibility reinstituted; kindness and gentleness venerated; care for the poor prioritised.
You can probably add to the wish lists. They are things that have been spoken about for generations while hope for change has been consistently and badly misplaced in politicians. Most change actually happens, not en masse, but by the efforts of individuals doing what they can, how they can, where they are. All too often charities and organisations that started with altruistic motives grow and morph into unwieldy institutions where the initial compassionate goals stagnate and calcify, and where compromise and corruption find a foothold. We hear about them with gut-wrenching regularity in our news bulletins.
The hope embodied in the Bethlehem baby is not a plan or a programme, but an invitation and call to a radical change of heart that will see us re-booted and re-made from the inside out, according to the Maker’s instructions. It depends not on our good deeds or outward efforts but purely on the desire of that Maker to be in relationship with us, and on the enduring truth that the debt we owe Him for having waved our proverbial fist in His face is covered by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
At this time of year we’d rather focus on glitter and tinsel than nails and blood, but ancient wisdom tells us of ‘God our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth’. Had Jesus remained a baby or not completed His mission we’d remain both hopeless and helpless.
Amongst the wrapping paper and feasting, it’s worth rediscovering that truth. We’ll still be prey to anxious thoughts and the batterings of life. None of us are immune from ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’; but our hope for this life and beyond will lie in something – Someone – utterly trustworthy, eternally loving and absolutely invested in us and in our flourishing, even in dark times and places. That’s well worth celebrating this December 25th.
Happy Christmas!
[Images provided by Pixabay]
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