Hope: The Prophet Candle (Week 14)

Reading

  • Psalm 39

Silent Reflection

Remarks

Surely people go through life as mere ghosts.
Surely they accumulate worthless wealth
without knowing who will eventually haul it away.
But now, O Lord, upon what am I relying?
You are my only hope!

Psalm 39:6–7 (NET)

Marketing 101: The fantasy of owning something is more powerful than the reality of it. The intensity of wanting is more pleasurable than the satisfaction of having.

We see this grim phenomenon play out every year at Advent as we listen to kids go on for weeks to anyone who will listen about how much they want The New Thing for Christmas. “I hope I get The New Thing! I want it! I can’t live without it!” Finally, the day comes. Parents lovingly smile as their kids open The New Thing and explode with excitement. But it doesn’t last. Give it a week, a day, maybe even just an hour, and The New Thing becomes an old thing, discarded in a corner as yet one more thing to be picked up and put away. The excitement was a flimsy hope.

Something tells me it’s not just children who fall for it.

Hope. It’s that feeling of anticipation, of electricity in the veins, as we imagine ourselves living some kind of life different from the one we live now.

What do marketing and Christmas gifts do to our notion of hope? Have we become trained to put our hope in mere things? And we know somewhere deep down that these things do not deserve it. And they’re things that, when finally obtained, leave us wanting still. Have we come to expect disappointment, intuitively understanding that eventually it’s just going to be hauled away to who knows where? Why do we let ourselves return to those same wells again and again, caught in a cycle of shallow hope and perpetual disappointment?

The first week of Advent is the week of Hope. In some traditions, it is the week of the prophet candle. The pairing is fitting because biblical prophets almost always ended their messages with a word of hope. But we should remember that before the hope, biblical prophets also brought a message of indictment and warning. They called out the people of God for their unfaithfulness and then called them to repentance, warning them of a coming judgment if they didn’t return to the living God.

Some of us call Christmas the season of perpetual hope. What do we have in mind when we say that? Hear me: I love the warmth and jolliness of the season as much as the next person. I love the carols and the fireplaces and the fun of opening presents. But, as we will see in the next few weeks, the message of Christmas in context is a story of God descending, bringing Himself down into the lives of meager outcasts and strangers.

Hope, yes—but hope for what? And for whom? When we hope for the gifts and comforts of Christmas exclusively for ourselves and our loved ones, do we ignore the fullness of the prophetic message that exhorts us to remember the down-and-out ones? Is the way we do Christmas actually the sort of thing the prophets would warn us about? Are we too self-indulgent? Are we mostly self-indulgent, but throw in a splash of charity time to make ourselves feel better? Do we ignore the way and place Jesus was born (outcast, in an animal cave) so we can protect some sense that this holiday must be about what we can give to ourselves?

When we feel hope at Christmas, do we feel the electricity for peace and joy and love? Do we anticipate it for the sorts of characters we meet in the nativity stories—young mothers who haven’t been taken in; poor, smelly shepherds; strange pagan rulers? Again, I’m not saying we should abandon the joyful and cozy traditions we have at Christmas. I’m just wondering if there are ways we can widen them to bless the unblessed around us.

The hope of the prophets is not the sort of hope our gift-obsessed culture teaches us at Christmas. They do not hope for newer things or more favorable circumstances. The hope of the prophets, like the Psalmist above, is not just for better times, but for the arrival (the Advent!) of God Himself in these times just as they are: that God will be with us, and that when He is, it will make all the difference. The hope is for His presence. Maybe this year, as we read the nativity stories in the Gospels, we can pay attention to where He chose to bring His presence first.

Silent Reflection

Response

  • What comes to mind when you think of the story of Jesus’s birth?

  • What are you hoping for this Christmas?

  • What are some ways you can widen your Christmas traditions to bring hope to those around you?