I have a couple of favorite holy days. One of them is a bit unusual. It's the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter. I love that day for its honesty, because that's the day we spend most of our lives in but is so quickly forgotten between the horror of Friday and the joy of Sunday. Saturday is a day of waiting, of uncertainty, and even of despair.
Advent is similar. Four hundred years have passed since God has spoken to his people. The promised Messiah seems a distant dream. It’s easy for us to forget that, knowing that Jesus’ birth is just around the corner, mere weeks away. But they didn't know that. Oh, a few knew, at least in part. Elizabeth. Zacharias. Joseph. Mary. (I don't care what the song says—she knew!) But most of the world went on as usual, having no idea that the greatest and strangest event in history was just ahead. Advent was for them a time of waiting, of uncertainty, and for many, a time of despair.
On the first Sunday of Advent, we remember hope—a hope that exists in the tension between what we believe will come and what we have yet to see. To get a better understanding of what hope is, we must turn to the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament, which uses two different words for hope. Tikvah (תִּקְוָה) means to trust or have confidence in someone or something. Qavah (קָוָה) means to wait for someone or something. Both of these words are sometimes translated as hope, and together, they show us the Judeo-Christian meaning of the word. Hope is trusting in God and waiting for him. This is Advent. God has promised to send a Messiah. The people have confidence in his promise and are waiting for its fulfillment.
Only sometimes, it's really hard. It's hard to believe in something we can't see. It's hard to wait when it feels like we've spent a lifetime waiting. It’s hard to trust when we have seen so many opportunities for God to step down into the world, we’ve envisioned how he can best rescue us, and he hasn’t come through in any of the ways we’ve asked or expected. And yet, we can’t stop hoping. Hope is stubborn like that.
On the first Sunday of Advent, the verse that popped up on my Bible app was John 1:5: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (NIV). I've been contemplating that verse for the past two days and wondering what it has to do with hope, and I've come up with two things.
First, Madeleine L'Engle quotes this passage in her classic book, A Wrinkle in Time. Mrs. Who recites it in a very different context than John's gospel, in response to Charles Wallace asking if anyone has ever successfully fought off the “Dark Thing,” a great evil that threatens the universe. The quote made him realize that Jesus had fought against the darkness. Along with other famous individuals—but Jesus was named first. (And yes, the book has been banned.) Yes, it’s dark. Yes, it’s hard. But there are people casting light into this great darkness, continuing to fight against it, and Jesus is leading the charge.
Second, Isaiah references light and darkness in a different yet parallel way: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (Isaiah 9:2 NIV). And again, this points to Jesus. This beautiful, moving passage leads from the previous chapter, which is full of distress and gloom and darkness, to the prophecy of a child being born for us. This is the moment we still live in, simultaneously walking in darkness and seeing a great light. But this is also our hope. That the child who was born for us will destroy the evil that threatens our world and lead us into a glorious future, beyond our wildest dreams.
Most Bibles note a potential different interpretation for one of the words in John 1:5. I love this, because both interpretations are true, which is probably why both are used in different translations. The word that is translated “overcome” can also mean “understood.” When our hope is rightly placed, the evils in the world cannot overcome it, and they also cannot understand it. Hope is what sets us apart in a world overwhelmed by darkness. We who persist in hope are odd. We who refuse to give in to despair are absurd.
It’s hard to hope. It’s hard to wait. It’s hard to trust. It’s tempting to give up when we see so much evil surrounding us. But let’s stubbornly hold on to hope anyway. And let’s live into this season, trusting that even when we can’t see clearly, our Savior is coming and has come, bringing the light that will one day fully outshine all darkness. And let’s confidently wait because the light that is yet to come will be far more glorious than anything we’ve ever dared to imagine.
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