St. Paul, at the end of 1 Corinthians 13, exclaims “Now abide these three: faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love.” Of these three marks of the Christian life, two get a lot of attention: faith and love. We may struggle with our faith in a time of doubt in a secular age, trying to reconcile faith with belief and the historical Christian creeds. Divine love, of course, holds everything together and we know that our whole lives are to be rooted and grounded in it. But often hope is not so much a focus of our Christian lives – until perhaps an emergency comes and we switch into “hope gear”, praying, perhaps for a miracle. There is nothing wrong with “hope gear” but it is one we should use a lot more often.
That the Christian year, Advent Sunday, today, begins with the theme of hope reminds us how important it is as a part of our Christian lives. Israel waits expectantly in hope for a Messiah who will bring in the reign of God, gathering all nations onto a “peaceable mountain of the Lord” as we hear in our first lesson from Isaiah today. And so, in Advent season, we join in that expectant waiting and hopefulness, as we prepare for the celebration of the Messiah’s birth at Christmas.
But hope is not something that belongs just in Advent. The hopefulness of Advent pervades the whole Christian year. Lent and Good Friday are full of the hope of Resurrection. Resurrection and Ascension lift us to hopeful lives. And even in ordinary time, we read of Jesus’ offering hope to prisoners, the poor, the politically oppressed, the sick, the demented and the outcasts, including those outside the religious respectability and acceptance of his day – the Samaritans and the Gentiles. While the disciples were a bit slow to understand, Jesus was building a community of hope.
But what do we do when a situation feels hopeless? Perhaps a personal situation has soured and it feels like there is no satisfactory resolution. Or finances are so bad it feels like there is no hope anymore. Or there is less and less hope in our health or that of a loved one. Or we are in a work situation in which we feel trapped without hope. Or we survey the global political and economic situation where there is so much injustice, violence, corruption and lack of respect for fellow human beings and we feel hopeless.
We may feel anger, despair, cynicism, depression, hopelessness – often with very good reason. And to make things worse, the values of what constitutes something to hope for are often in conflict -- one person or group hopes for peace and reconciliation, another hopes for conflict and victory. This conflict in what to hope for can be seen in the political debate about the environment, resource extraction and pipelines (or in the US debate about guns). Hopes can conflict with one another and do.
So perhaps, as Christians, a question is “What do we hope for?” “What is the end of our hope?” Again, we come back to the passages in Isaiah and the minor prophets: the image of the Messianic commonwealth in which all peoples and nations are gathered together peacefully, where all are satisfied, especially those who have suffered and been oppressed. The image is of a God who cares for ALL creation, whatever their race, creed, history, gender or other characteristics. And insofar as we as a church are called by Jesus to try to model that reign, we hope and work for peace, justice, truth and love; not for war, oppression, untruth and hatred.
Therefore, we are called not to give up hope, no matter how bad the situation, whether personal or community or political. We saw the anchor in our children’s talk today. The early Christian symbol of an anchor for hope suggests that no matter how bad the storm, we are still anchored in the love and hope of God in Jesus Christ.
But that personal anchoring or commitment is not the end of it. Rooted and grounded in the divine hope, we are called to offer hope to others, whether in the commonest and most simple ways – a few friendly words of encouragement – or in public work and witness in support of the values of the reign of God. Our epistle today urges us to “put on the armour of light . . . the Lord Jesus” (that is, the values of the reign of God) and not to make provision for sin and selfishness. While we did not read it, the passage begins, “Owe no one anything but to love one another”. When we love another, we offer each other hope; and when we offer each other hope, we love one another. And so, love and hope are in our relationships with all people, whatever their creed, dress, ethnic identify or other identity. All whom we meet are God’s children and share in the divine hope.
But what about the apocalyptic, the subtheme of Advent as a time of preparation for the Last Day, the world-shattering coming of Christ? Of course, we all face a Last Day, the day of our deaths, and if we live with faith, hope and love, we should be prepared for it and not be anxious.
Just as there is much in the world that might make us feel hopeless, there are also teachings floating around about the Last Day that only bring fear, despair and hopelessness. Some groups claim that that Last Day is near and quite wrongly believe that Christians have a role in bringing it on, for example, by encouraging war in the Middle East or between Christianity and Islam. Some groups continue to predict down to the exact day and hour the date of the coming of Christ on the Last Day. And as world events become more and more tempestuous, this apocalyptic talk will be more and more common.
Today’s Gospel is unequivocal in condemning such an approach. Jesus declares, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” For anyone to think that he or she knows that day or believe that we can and should bring on that day through promotion of war in the Middle East is self-idolatry of the first order. Of course, we are to be prepared because we do not know the hour. But if we live with hopefulness, living the values of the reign of God, we can face that Last Day, the hour of our deaths, with confidence.
Finally, back to our small community: we are called to be a community of hope, offering as much hope as we can to one another, especially in situations of difficulty and despair. We are called to be aware of the different kinds of hopelessness people feel in the community and offer what support we can. And, of course, we are to offer whatever hope we can to ALL who come through our doors and in whatever situation we find ourselves in our world.
We come back to the image of the anchor as a sign of hope. Perhaps we are called to be anchors of hope in world in which many are at loose ends, floating different directions, perhaps in danger of drowning. Our ancestors built this church building to last because they believed it would be an anchor for the future. Let us take on that vocation of being anchors of hope in a difficult and troubled world.
But even that is not the end of it all. There is also the time to shout “Anchors aweigh!” and move forward to new ministries and ways of showing love and justice to the world. Hope goes with us in that enterprise, as the anchor goes with the ship. We do not throw the anchor into the sea; we hoist it up and travel with it. Thus, we travel with confidence, knowing we have the anchor of Christ.
Let us pray. “Almighty God, grant us grace to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” – indeed, to become anchors of hope in our troubled and broken world. Amen.
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