Advent 1: A New Hope

Advent 1: A New Hope

I love Advent. It's maybe my favorite time in the liturgical calendar. The idea of waiting really resonates with me, largely because we know the world is not as it should be. Our world can and should be better. And so we wait. But, rather than wait in apathy or despair, we are prompted by Advent to live in a new hope.

The liturgical texts for Advent this year are in Isaiah and Matthew. This past week, the Matthew passage (24.36-44) started with the reminder that no one knows the day when God's Kingdom will come, but the good news is that we are assured that it will indeed come. Knowledge is power. We know what's coming. And Isaiah's vision (2.1-5) describes the Kingdom. That vision, together with the certainty that it will become reality, fills us with hope and keeps us from giving up out of fear or despair or apathy.

But it's not enough to not give up. (Apologies for the double-negative!) Hope leads to action.

Isaiah ends with this: "Come, house of Jacob, let's walk by the LORD's light." We don't have to wait on the Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven. We can walk in the light, here and now. And the epistle reading (Romans 13.8-14) describes what it means to walk in the light: "The commandments...are all summed up in this word: Love your neighbor as yourself." Love of neighbor is the future breaking into the present.

Advent is the time where we light candles, to remind us of the LORD's light, here and now, in the midst of the darkness. Even the single candle of HOPE we lit this past week reminds us that the darkness is not complete.

So light a candle this week as a reminder that the LORD's light is already here, even as we wait for it to come fully. And let that candle remind you to walk in the light, and to be the light in the world, bringing hope to your world.