Readings for Advent I: Jeremiah 33:14-16 I Psalm 25:1-10 I Thessalonians 3:9-13 I Luke 21:25-36
Where have you settled?
Have you managed to light the first candle, if you have an Advent wreath?
At this special time of year we turn our attention to candles, but do you have a ritual or habit before you even begin to prepare something special?
If so, do you know how it came about?
What do you gain from it?
At times, when I realize that inspiration will not come of its own accord, I tend to pick up the family hymnal I have inherited.
To call it merely a hymnal would not be quite right. Rather, it can be described as a handbook for country people, printed by the Courland consistory at the beginning of the 19th century, which collects 686 hymns, readings for each Sunday, and, by the way, the Small Catechism. When the weather did not allow a journey to the distant church, this book was the source to turn to, in order to strengthen the place of faith in the rhythm of a person’s life.
Lifting the book, I see that on the lower part of the pages there are finger marks left over the passage of time. However carefully the hands were washed before lifting it, the grime of everyday life and duties has left its imprint – testimony of nearly two hundred years of human life.
At the back, written in pencil in the old orthography: “Deews Kungs irr muhsu stipra pils, kur behdās warram twertees.”
I realize – behind me, since the book came into the family, there are five generations. After me there are already two more. Of those who came before my mother, I know little. I never met them. The only thing that remains is these fingerprints and the awareness that there were people who repeatedly drew strength from these words. People just like you and me, who understood that there is not only work and pleasures, cares and successes, but that there is something greater and mightier than us and this passing life, something nearer, that surrounds us in its embrace and calls us to turn to it – God.
Today, on the first Sunday of Advent, we turn to hope. May the flame of the first Advent candle open our gaze to hope!
I invite you to draw a breath, slowly breathe out again, and become aware of what is around you and within you.
What does “hope” mean to you?
In these times, is it even worth thinking about such a concept?
This Sunday’s verses from the Gospel of Luke may perhaps only increase the feeling of insecurity, even fear, especially when they mention the terrible floods that recently swept away hundreds of people right here in Europe. Yet the destruction of the world is not what Jesus preaches. On the contrary, he prepares his followers for liberation – “your redemption is drawing near.”
Our outlook on life is determined by life experience. It is framed by events that have touched us personally, and from this arises a tendency to feel that what a person experiences is unique. Of course, this can be understood when an individual suffers some particular loss. But looking more broadly, we see that trials repeat themselves in one generation after another, or even several times within one generation. They can also be macrocosmic or microcosmic in their impact. In that same hymnal there are prayers that apply to such cases – in times of plague, in times of great famine, in times of war. And alongside them are prayers for country people, in especially critical circumstances – when lightning strikes a building, or hail may destroy the entire harvest, or in childbirth.
Looking at it from a human point of view, one can find comfort in the cyclical movement of history – unpleasant, life-threatening events – war, famine, the flourishing of evil, repeat themselves. Yet there is some unwritten law of nature, or natural law, by which everything returns to balance and peace sets in.
The Christian vision is broader. It is based on the revelation that the Old Testament prophets already recognized – God wants to establish justice in the world. This culminates in the event of redemption with Christ’s resurrection from death. God’s grace-filled action leads the world from limited life to transformation into the eternal.
Jürgen Moltmann, in his book “Theology of Hope”, writes: “Christ’s resurrection is not only comfort for his life, which is otherwise full of suffering and doomed to death, but is also God’s standing against suffering and death, humiliation and evil.” God’s will is to save the world. This is brought about by Christ’s resurrection after death. The final sign of the world’s salvation will be the destruction of all evil and injustice upon the earth with Christ’s coming in fullness. This is the hope that gives direction to our lives as followers of Jesus.
We are in an interim time.
We have already been redeemed. God accomplished this in Christ’s death on the cross and in his resurrection, so that the whole world might be redeemed in him.
We wait, in hope, for limited life to be transformed into the eternal.
We are called to live as those who wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise.
Perhaps it is precisely the fact that we live in an insecure, uncertain time that makes us reconsider the everyday view that judges life by material terms, for example, by the continuous improvement of living conditions. What happens when economic circumstances do not allow dreams to be fulfilled? Each of us knows the answer.
God’s promise in Christ calls us to a different understanding and approach, one that is based on the promise of faith. It is not an escape from this time, not a hiding in a dream world. Letting God guide us opens our eyes to what is wrong, what can be changed. It can be hard to restrain impatience, as the early years of the church experienced, yet it is not we, but God, who is in charge of everything. Our calling is to live in hope – as those who rely on God and his promise, as those who know that Christ will come. As Paul points out regarding the Christian household in Thessalonica, “May the Lord fill you abundantly with love for one another and for everyone else, just as we love you, so that your hearts may be strong and pure in holiness before God and our Father.” (1 Thess. 3:13)
Living in hope for the fulfillment of God’s will in Christ demands much of us. Trust does not always come easily. Yet in the moments when we are able to do so, sometime, somewhere, without knowing it, without knowing us, perhaps someone will also see our fingerprint on some piece of work. Perhaps together we will have helped to plant in them the light of faith and hope. May it burn!
Rev. Ilze Kuplēna-Ewart
(image: Arta Skuja “Light from Light” I)