Hope

Hope

Romans 8:18-25

            Advent is the season of hope.  Students hope school will be out for Christmas vacation soon.  Children hope they will get all the presents they’ve asked Santa for.  Workers hope Christmas Eve will come before their boss loses his temper one more time.  Parents hope this Christmas will be less hectic than the last.  Families hope they will get through Christmas dinner before the fighting breaks out—again!

            Christians play a game of hope.  We believe the Messiah came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem.  Yet as we work our way through our Advent calendars, sing the hymns and listen to the sermons based on Advent themes, and read our Advent devotionals we experience once again the hope Israel felt the hundreds of years they waited for the messiah to appear. 

            Advent is also a time to take stock of our relationship with God, for during this season the hope we feel for Jesus Christ’s return is intensified.  We want to be ready, because Jesus warned his followers that he will come “like a thief in the night,” without warning.  We cannot be caught napping.  As we prepare our homes for the Christmas celebration, and prepare our hearts to experience again the wonder of that Christmas Eve birth so long ago, we prepare our lives to welcome the conquering Jesus when he returns to bring the kingdom of God to earth.

            Paul expands this idea.  He says not only Christians, but the whole of creation hopes for Christ’s return.  To illustrate the extent of the agony that creation experiences, Paul uses the metaphor of childbirth, which involves another expression of hope.  As the expectant mother deals with wave after wave of pain, she hopes not so much for the pain to be over (although there is certainly that aspect) but for the safe appearance and the health of the longed-for child.  Although never experiencing the pains of childbirth firsthand, Paul understands the aptness of the metaphor.  Creation, like an expectant mother, waits groaningly to be “set free from its bondage to decay.”  The return of Christ will begin the perfection of God’s creation and the complete sanctification of those who have served him well.

            In the frenzy of Christmas preparations it is easy to lose sight of the cosmic aspects of Advent.  The old saying, “When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget your first objective was to drain the swamp” applies here.  Preparing the food, buying and wrapping the presents, cleaning and decorating the house, writing and mailing the Christmas greetings—all of this can overwhelm us so that we lose sight of “the reason for the season.”  Our hope is reduced to wanting to finish the mountain of work before we run out of time, energy and patience.

            I think Paul understood all that, even though he didn’t have to deal with a twenty-first century Christmas season.  Some paint a picture of Paul as an impatient man, and there is proof in Scripture to back up that image.  Perhaps he was reminding himself as well as reminding the Roman Christians to keep hope at the center of life.  Believing he would still be alive at Christ’s return he was impatient to see the Messiah appear.  We can almost hear him saying, “Patience! Patience!  It will happen. Wait!  Wait! He will come.”

            As children wait for the presents they cannot see, so Paul encourages us to wait for the events we cannot see.  As we prepare our hearts this Advent for the celebration of the Messiah’s birth, we long for what we cannot see.  Paul reminds us that we do not hope for what we can already see—what lies in front of us.  We can only hope for what we cannot see:  the fulfillment of the promise given so long ago—the completion of our salvation.