‘MANY are saying, “Who will show us any good?” Ps 4:6 To suggest that the Advent message has important and relevant things to say in these uncertain days will possibly leave one open to ridicule, for these are terrible times for our country and its people, especially the weak and the vulnerable.
It seems as if there is no good news, nothing to encourage or lift people’s hearts; nothing but fear and anxiety about the future. People have lost trust in the very values and people and institutions they once believed in; they feel let down by their leaders at every level of society. The flag waving and the rhetoric have been exposed for all to see.
There is an inclination at such times to invent a hope that is in reality denial because we long for something to numb the pain and ease the disillusionment. The hard truth is the problems remain; the fear and the anxieties don’t go away.
The hope Christians speak of is quite different; it is anything but denial.
The scripture readings chosen for Advent are very candid about the difficulties and uncertainties we face every day. Tomorrow’s reading from St Matthew’s Gospel for example points out the apparent random nature of our very existence: “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left; two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.”
In the same chapter there are warnings of wars, famines and earthquakes; betrayals, persecutions and corruption. This is a world in crisis yet it is to that troubled world that Jesus speaks of hope and redemption, telling us to be patient, not to give up. We are not to be overwhelmed by what is going on around us.
Christian hope is not an escape from struggle or even a guarantee that we won’t experience loss and disappointment; rather it is the conviction that the struggle is worthwhile and that the outcome for good is assured because it is in God’s hands.
In the hard times of the 1980s – another era of economic crisis in Ireland – members of the Taizé Community were invited to lead en ecumenical mission in Dublin. In preparation for their visit participating parishes and congregations were asked to seek out signs of hope. When people went looking the signs were there in abundance in individual lives of simple goodness as well as community-led programmes of compassion and care.
Such hopeful signs are still there, as we were reminded in the recent Carer of the Year awards which highlighted so many examples of extraordinary self-giving and goodness.
They remind us that even in the here and now we can all play a part in translating hope into gain.
Desmond Carroll, a son of the Church of Ireland, spent most of his ministry in western Canada where he became Dean of the Yukon. A selection of his writings Northern Reflections, published in his memory, includes these words about the Advent hope.
“Advent is one of those periods in our spiritual life in which we are asked to pause and reflect. We are being reminded that in our quest for the ancient truths we need to readjust the fine-tuning in our systems and weigh the immediate with the distant. We can so easily become absorbed with our present situations that we fail to understand the long-range purposes of God. The nearness of God in the Christmas event can reduce our vision of the overall plan that has been unfolding since the beginning of time.” He goes on to remind us that St Paul had an understanding of a world that is to come through the travail of the world that is now.
"We may feel inadequate on a personal level in the face of the issues of our time but the hope that is born within us at baptism strives constantly to overcome the seemingly impossible and respond with courage and faithfulness. " – GL