A Beautiful Hope

What do we mean when we say we “hope” for something?

Usually when we say “I hope” we mean that we want a future event which is beyond our control to go our way. We hope we get an “A” on a test. We hope we get a raise at work. We hope the  football team we are cheering for wins its game.

Often the object of our hope is not just trivial issues but the very serious problems of our times. We hope that there will be peace in the Middle East. We hope that every human life will be protected as sacred. We hope that our political leaders can work together to insure justice for all people.

When we use the word “hope” in everyday conversation we are really expressing a wish. We are “keeping our fingers crossed” or “knocking on wood” in hopes that what we long for will become a reality. Most of the time, we could take out the word “hope” and replace it with “wish”. We simply wish problems would go away or get better. We do not necessarily know that they will or even expect them to, but we wish they would.

However, when a Christian says, “I hope”, he or she means something totally different. We are not merely wishing that somehow problems will get resolved or society will somehow change. We are not merely “keeping our fingers crossed” that life will get better. Wishful thinking is based on the fanciful desire that fate will intervene or that we will get lucky. On the other hand, Scripture teaches us that Christian hope is, first of all,  based on the God who has done great wonders in the past and who promises to continue to act in our lives.  Secondly, it is firm because it is founded securely on His love for us. Thirdly, Christian hope actively works to make what we hope for a reality.

Today’s readings are full of hopeful expectation in the God who works wonders because of His great love and who calls us to translate our hope into action in the present.

The first reading from the prophet Isaiah finds the people of Israel in dire straits. They have been in exile and seen their land ravaged. Everything they worked so hard to build up has been torn down. They feel so desperate and abandoned that no amount of wishful thinking can raise their spirits.

What do they do? Through the prophet Isaiah, they turn to God for help. In their prayer, they remember the great deeds He had done for them in the past and affirm their faith that He will continue to provide for them. As Isaiah writes,  “No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him.”

Likewise, our Christian hope is based on what God has already done for us. As a people He has sent His Son not only to teach us about His love but to die on a cross for our sins. Furthermore, He raised Jesus from the dead to give us the promise of everlasting life. There is no foe whom God has not already conquered through Jesus Christ. Remembering the past, we look forward in hope to the future because the same God who defeated sin and death will strengthen us to overcome whatever obstacles may lie ahead.

As the first reading continues, after the people remember what God has done for them. They reaffirm their belief in His love. “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.” Though everything around them is crumbling, they believe in God’s enduring love for them and His promise that He would never abandon them.

Christian hope, therefore, is based on God’s faithfulness and love. He has promised to always be by our side. He has promised to provide us with everything we need to do His will. He has promised that all things will work for our good if we love Him. Our hope in the future, therefore, is based solidly on these promises made to us by our Heavenly Father who cannot lie.

Christians look forward to the future with hope because God has already acted in powerful ways both in our history as a people and in our individual lives. We look forward with hope because of God’s great love for us and His many promises. Because of this great hope, we do not sit around waiting for things to get better. Rather we work actively to make God’s dream of peace, justice and righteousness a reality in our times.

In the gospel, Jesus uses the analogy of a man on a journey who, when he comes home, expects to find his servants hard at work ready to welcome him when he returns. In the same way, Jesus expects us to be hard at work following His commandments, loving our neighbor, feeding the hungry, defending the rights of the unborn and immigrants, telling others about the truth of the gospel and always being ready to give an explanation for the hope that is within us. Filled with hope that He loves us, that He has already won the victory and that He will come again to establish His Kingdom, we labor on in the hope that our faith will move mountains.

Christian hope is not wishful thinking. Rather it is grounded solidly in God’s love for us displayed in all the mighty deeds of the past and all the promises He has made about the future. In the present, we put our hope to work bringing God’s love and justice to a world that is desperate and afraid. This Advent Season which we begin today is a time of hope. As the light from our Advent wreath grows with each passing week, may our hope in the God of love also grow until it banishes the darkness from every corner of our suffering world.