Hope

The season of Advent began on Sunday.  This is a time in the church year when we train ourselves to look for the times that God breaks in to the world.  Of course we remember back to the first Christmas when God came as a vulnerable baby.  This is one of the tangible moments where God came to us in Christ.  Some people use Advent to focus on what is called the Second Coming.  This is the time foretold in the book of Revelation in the bible.  The idea is that one day Christ will return and God will restore heaven and earth to be perfect.

While these capture the sense of Advent as a time of preparing for God’s presence I think the most important part of Advent is training ourselves to see the small ways God breaks into the world every day.  Over the 4 Sundays of Advent we focus on Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love.

Hope is a yearning for something, a trust in the possible.  I find hope in the act of prayer.  Even when I am at my most desperate and lost, just praying is a signal that I hope in God and in goodness.

Hope is found in the very act of planting a new church.  We have a yearning for something else, a trust that a new way of being church is possible here in this place.

Hope caused many to share the image of a young boy hugging a police officer in the days after the Ferguson verdict.

How have you experienced hope?  When have you found a confidence in something possible beyond what is right now?

When we train ourselves to claim hope and to celebrate it we align ourselves with what God is doing in the world.

May you see the hope around you this season,

Eilidh