December 5, 2025

FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT: HOPE

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Romans 12.12)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Our week of Advent hope draws to close for another year. Our hope, however, should never end. Our hope is in God. Such hope allows us to experience, as Isaiah wrote (Isaiah 40.31), “the renewal of our strength so that we will rise up as with wings of eagles.” What Isaiah had seen in his own life was the reality of such “rising up.” He had watched the eagle soar through the valleys of surrounding Jerusalem. Their mighty wings could create enough lift to carry their young from a nest to experience in that safety the feeling of free flight. They could lift themselves up from the ground bearing a heavy prey in their talons. Regardless, however, their own strength could not help them to escape the storms of life (passive and active) which surrounded them. They put their trust not in fleeing from the winds of such storms (war, competition, rejection, hunger, etc) but in the very winds themselves. Just as a buffalo runs into the storm instead of away from it, so the eagle seeks the winds to lift them even higher until they are free from the ravages of the storm. They use their strength, their wings, to harvest the strength (even the fury) of the storm to become exponentially strong. They put their hope in the storm rising up with the wings of faith and love. (BTW, a buffalo runs into the storm knowing it reduces the time it spends in the midst of it instead of running away from it and lengthening the time of being in the storm.)

Mighty ones, we are called to put our hope into the winds of God’s Holy Spirit. It will blow where it will but only at the will of God who breathes His Holy Spirit across the face of the earth and the faces of our lives. His breath, ruach, is the word of life. In that Word all that exists was made. Be honest with the creation story in Genesis. It tells us of the storm of chaos and meaninglessness. God did not run away from it. God did not hid from it. God did not avoid it. God met the chaos head on and harnessed its energy into transformative life. He brought it into the light of His love just as a mother hen gathers her brood under her wings. Sheltered from the nothingness of disparate co-existence, the chaos was settled into a place of peace where conflict became positive and not negative. It did not battle against the elements but was drawn together into a harmonious relationship. It actually found its true desire which was to live together with meaning and purpose. Instead of running from God’s “control,” we must run into it and find our true selves being lifted up. Isn’t that experience of being “lifted up” actually the message of resurrection. Isn’t it our resurrection hope? Isn’t that the most perfect hope of all which surpasses the hope of recognition by others, rewards, acclaims, possessions, prominence and even survival? Isn’t it the true “word” of God spoken into the darkness and over it so that in it and through it all the resources of life and living were ordered and multiplied? For me that is the message of our Advent Season and our Christmas celebration. We are moving forward into the storms of the darkness (Constantine was on the right track after all by designating December 25th the day of remembering “Christ was born.”). But in our movement toward it (and the storms of darkness continue to seek to prevail against us even now), we will find our freedom for it and rise above it into clear air and safe journeys and ture life and authentic living. It is the gift which not only keeps on giving but promotes eternal living. Let’s give such hope to others and face the storms together knowing what will happen when we put our hope in God alone…together.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.