Week 1 | Hope
Hope seems to me perhaps the most difficult of the Advent themes to muster this year. To bootstrap myself into belief that, despite all the evidence that mounts in my Twitter feed and the AP news wire, there is a better that is assured and I have the privilege of looking forward to.
I think that is the traditional stance on a Christmas hope. That the Israelites waited for generations for their coming king. That the Christians of the past two millennia have waited in expectation for His return.
Perhaps my hope this year needs to be a bit closer. I have trouble waiting for the kettle to heat up for my coffee, for the dog to do his business on a rainy walk, for Wednesday nights to see our church family, for pleasant weather to come again, for the widespread distribution of a vaccine to mark the end of the pandemic. Must I also wait for hope?
Perhaps this year, the hope is anchored in the promise that God is with me. Here. Now. That the gift of the incarnation means that I don’t have to go it alone.
— Kala
Historical Reading
“You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honored, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Savior of all the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.”
— Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation (4th Century)
Prayer
Lord, I would be the most miserable person in the world if my hopes were only in this life. Why? Because I am hopeless without Christ’s righteousness. My life could never be comfortable, and there would be no hope at all of eternal life.
If you denied me that hope, I would be the most miserable one of all. I may be happy without worldly enjoyments, but all things in the world cannot make me happy without this.
So however you treat me in this world, whatever you deny me, Lord, deny me not this. I can be happy without riches and abundance, like Job and Lazarus were. I can be happy even if I am reviled and reproached, as was Christ and his disciples. I can be happy and comfortable in prison, as were Paul and Silas.
But I cannot be happy without the righteousness of Christ.
All the riches, places, or honors on earth will leave me miserable if I am without this. Even if I were rich and needed nothing, without this I would still be wretched and miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
If I had all things that that a person could desire on earth, what good would it do me without Christ’s righteousness?
What would riches do for me, if they came with the wrath of God? What comfort would honor bring me, if I remained a son of perdition or a child of wrath?
What sweetness would there be in pleasure, if I were on the path to everlasting torments?
What miserable comforts and enjoyments are these, without Christ’s righteousness!
Lord, however you deal with me in outward things, whatever you take from me, whatever you deny me—do not deny me Christ! Do not deny me a share in his righteousness! Amen.
— David Clarkson (17th Century)