The first Sunday of Advent invites us to grasp for Hope in the midst of dislocation; to cling to that which is not-yet as though we could pull it toward ourselves, or the other way round.
This is an invitation into an active longing, born from a sense that things are not as they should be, met with the audacity to believe that they could be.
Advent connects us to a recurring chapter in the life of the people of God: taking stock of the gathered gloom around us, clinging to stories of how God has shown up in the past, and straining our hearts to find God showing up here and now, or even just beginning to peek above the horizon.
• Take a moment to think honestly about that which is not as it should be in the world, in your community, and in your life.
• Then, shift perspective a bit and consider that question from the vantage point of someone who is quite different from you—particularly a person with less power in the world—bearing those burdens as well.
• Now take a moment and imagine what a world looks like where these wounds have been met with healing. Imagine what the not-yet looks like.
With this sense of things as they are and things as they should be, we light the Hope candle, allowing that flame, however small, to bring light into this present darkness. And alongside this act of defiance against the way things are, let us wait, trusting that God is faithful and at work redeeming all things.
[Light the Hope candle]
Now, we join our hope to the cry of Isaiah 64:
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence--
as when fire kindles brushwood
and the fire causes water to boil--
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!
When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
From ages past no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who works for those who wait for him.
You meet those who gladly do right,
those who remember you in your ways.
But you were angry, and we sinned;
because you hid yourself we transgressed.
We have all become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.
We all fade like a leaf,
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
There is no one who calls on your name,
or attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
and do not remember iniquity forever.
Now consider, we are all your people.