Advent - Hope

Happy Christmas beloved Readers,

Tell me what you are doing for Christmas. Share with me you wishes and dreams. Was the first response a present you hope for or a gift you wish to give? I spent a good part of the Thanksgiving weekend hearing other’s talk of their hopes and wishes for Christmas. I watched as hundreds flooded our local mall in search of “door buster” deals and the chase for things. While all were out getting and spending I observed something else. I saw very little happiness in it.

I am beginning to think that we hope for all the wrong things and that it leaves us bereft of hope. We say we want world peace but do we really hope for it? We want the homeless to have a home. We do not want there to be starving children in Africa, Asia, or anywhere, but do we dare really hope that it can become a reality? During this festive time of year, do we dare to really hope that the world can be a better place? It can be, but how?

I think that first we have to stop trying to eat the elephant all at once. You can only eat and elephant one bite at a time. We are not able to end world hunger but we can find and feed someone who is hungry or help an organization that already does that. We may not be able to negotiate world peace but we can make peace with someone with whom we are at war. You see I think that we avoid the really big problems in our world because solving them seems so hopeless. The tasks are huge, daunting, and seemingly insurmountable. And then there is the ultimate hope.

Christ has promised to end all of the problems that plague us. One day there will be no more children with distended bellies. One day there will be no more aids, no more violence against women, no more war, and no more broken families. I know to some of you that seems more like fairy tale endings than it does a reality to hope for. That is the problem you see. We are afraid to hope for that finality because it demands that we have faith and that we act on that faith. I have found the best way to live out hope is to give it to others. Here are some practical things you can do to start the advent season with hope.

Dare to believe that Christ will make “all things new.”
Give up some of your personal time to care for the needs of others
Join the Advent Conspiracy – www.adventconspiracy.org
Listen to the Transiberian Orchestra’s Christmas Eve and other Stories
Center your CHRISTmas around Christ not the gifts and trappings
Read Luke 2:1-14 and hear the hope in it

The thing is:
If you want to arrange it,
This world you can change it.
If we could somehow make this Christmas thing last,
By helping a neighbor,
Or even a stranger,
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask.
-- Transiberian Orchestra – Christmas Eve and other Stories

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn