The First Sunday of Advent

Nov 28

Hope and Expectation

Hope, by definition, is the expectation of something happening. Usually, this is a positive desire and anticipation. For example, I hope for good weather when I go camping. I hope for a good school year that does not leave me completely burnt out. I hope to pay off my student loans sooner than later. I hope sick family members get well soon.

Hope is abstract and intangible. It is not something you see or smell or taste or touch or hear. It pairs rather well with faith in that respect. Hope, though, carries with it the weight of waiting and patience. When we hope, we look ahead to a future occurrence of something. It is a future-oriented action on our part, and any time we start to focus too much on future prospects, worry and fear can swiftly take center stage.

How, then, can we wait with patience and hope without allowing worry and fear to overwhelm our hope?

I’ll be honest – this is not an easy question for me. One of my recurring struggles with depression often revolves around the idea of hope, or rather, hopelessness. To be without hope is discouraging and disheartening. It makes it hard to approach life with joy or to hold an expectation for good. I regularly catch thoughts of hopelessness underlying my daily choices and ponderings. Living without hope adds a weight to my days that is difficult to throw off, as it is sly and slips its way underneath any good I experience and makes me doubt future goodness.

When I was planning this post, I looked over Bible verses with the themes of hope and expectation. Many of the Old Testament verses I found reminded me that the Israelites struggled with hope and expectation, too. God gave the promise of Christ to Abraham thousands of years before the conception of Christ. During the years between the giving of the promise and the fulfillment, the people lived with the expectation of the promise through drought, famine, slavery, exile, idolatry, unfaithfulness (on the people’s part), and more.

However, in the book of Isaiah, we read:

            How beautiful on the mountains
            are the feet of the herald,
            who proclaims peace,
            who brings news of good things,
            who proclaims salvation,
            who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
            The voices of your watchmen –
            they lift up their voices,
            shouting for joy together;
            for every eye will see
            when the LORD returns to Zion. (Isaiah 52:7-8, CSB)

In these verses, we see two different people: the herald and the watchmen. The herald was the messenger bringing good news to the ones who waited. The watchmen were the lookout. Their job was to wait and watch closely. The herald brought the joyful news, "Your God reigns!" whereas the watchmen received the message and shouted for joy. The watchmen were waiting for the news of the LORD’s return and rejoiced over the herald’s pronouncement of peace, good things, salvation, and God’s reign.

Psalm 130 expands on the role of the watchmen a bit more:

            I wait for the LORD; I wait
            and put my hope in his word.
            I wait for the LORD
            more than watchmen for the morning –
            more than watchmen for the morning. (Psalm 130:5-6, CSB)

The watchmen were waiting for the morning, for the first light of day, when they could relax their guard. There was a longing for the morning and the expectation that day would surely come. The watchmen do not wait in vain, so neither do we wait in vain for our God. I like how Charles Spurgeon puts it, “[God] is worth waiting for.” And while we wait, we are to put our hope in God’s word. Spurgeon writes, “Waiting, we study the word, believe the word, hope in the word, and live on the word; and all because it is ‘his word,’ – the word of him who never speaks in vain. Jehovah’s word is a firm ground for a waiting soul to rest upon.” Waiting while maintaining hope is not easy, but we are given the tools needed to patiently wait and expectantly hope – faith and the word of God.

To return to my original question: How can we wait with patience and hope without allowing worry and fear to overwhelm our hope? We put our trust in God. We exercise faith by believing God is who He says He is and relying on His Word to strengthen us and give us a firm foundation when worries and fears rock us.

As we enter this Advent season, may we ready our hearts to receive the good news of Christ with a fresh appreciation for who God is and what He did for us.

A Song- “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”

A Reading- Luke 1:5-17

A Prayer-

God of hope, who brought love into this world,

be the love that dwells between us.

God of hope, who brought peace into this world,

be the peace that dwells between us.

God of hope, who brought joy into this world,

be the joy that dwells between us.

God of hope, the rock we stand upon,

be the centre, the focus of our lives

always, and particularly this Advent time.