Belmont University Advent GuideSample

There is a theme resonating in the readings today: a theme of hope and trust.

There is no doubt that this theme echoes from the very voices of the biblical authors to each of us reading these words today. It seems little has changed in our experience of living on this planet with our fellow humans; the news is saturated with more and more terror, fear, and loss. I am not surprised that at the end of each national newscast there is one final story that breathes of hope.

YES, they seem to say, the world is filled with tragedy and suffering, AND, there remain glimmers of hope to which we can hold. Glimmers, I believe, of a hope and trust that in the words of Julian of Norwich, not just one day far into the future, but also now, that “all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well” will be fully realized.

In today’s Psalm reading we find the evidence of this embedded hope and trust. We find it in the rhythmic language of “May he . . . ” As the Psalmist sings longingly, not fully sure, but committed to this sense that, “I hope it is true; I hope God will answer, and send, and remember, and give.” Maybe if we say this out loud to, and with, and for each other, it will come to pass for us as well.

I hear it too in the future hope of the prophet as he pines for what God is and may be doing in this catastrophic loss that Israel has experienced. This deep, longing hope and trust that whatever God is up to will serve as a shelter and shade, and a refuge and hiding place. “Please God, make something out of this,” I hear him say. And I hear myself say it too. And I have heard you say it in ways known and unknown.

What I do not hear in either of the writers is an abdication of their lives as they are. They plead for God to bring something into this time and place, rather than solely putting all their chips on some future promise that will help them escape how hard now is. No question that there is the promised hope and, alongside that, is the deep hope and trust of God’s presiding presence, the Emmanuel, right here, right now.

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Dane Anthony
Lecturer in Religion