We live in a world of twilight, an in-between world, not fully light and not fully darkness, not fully good but not all evil.  We live in a time of struggle between darkness and light, between hope and despair.  We know that in baptism we are born to the light and yet we also discover the shadow within us that lingers on the edge of our awareness and taunts us with our weakness, our failures, our guilt, and the futility of our small efforts to rise above our passions.  Sometimes it seems that there is no escape from the darkness.  The dark place in the deepest part of the night lures us into the realm of despair and bids us to make friends with the darkness.  Temptation, sin and evil seem so overwhelming that resistance seems futile.  Darkness and despair are tyrants in our lives that rob us of our freedom, bullies waiting to ambush us, humiliate us and steal what little we have, monsters in the closet or under the bed just waiting for us to fall asleep in order to destroy us.  It is here that hope enters into our life like a little child.

     Hope is the child that we are still waiting upon to grow to full maturity.  Hope is a promise and a prophecy.  Hope is innocent and untainted by the cynicism of the world.  Hope is the moment right before despair when we wake up and realize that there are real possibilities for the future.  Hope is the small hand of the child in the loving embrace of the Father.  Hope is the light of dawn and of the new day having just been birthed pushing through the dark passage of despair.  Advent is full of hope.

     Our readings for Advent are largely from the prophecies of Isaiah.  Isaiah is a book written in the tension of the battle between hope and despair.  During Advent we hear many of the beautiful prophecies of the Messiah who is to come, of a restoration, of the persistence of a faithful remnant, of the consolation that God promises us in times of darkness, of a new springtime of life in the desert, of a road that is a holy way and that is carved out of the peaks and valleys of our experiences.  It is in these readings and prophecies that hope is born.  As beautiful as the readings are we must remember that they are responses to the darkness and despair of the failures, sins and infidelities of the people of Israel.  Only in the tension between hope and despair do we experience true joy in the love of God who comes to rescue us from our own frail, human nature.

     Hope shows its face in our readings from Isaiah, “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?…Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old…Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways!” (Is 63,16f; 64,4)  Hope shines as a beacon of light against the darkness of the despair that the people of Israel face, “Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.  There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt.” (Is 64,4ff)  Hope finally raises its hands up like a child imploring to be swept up into the loving arms of a Father who has the strength to make all things new again, “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.”(Is 64,7)  Hope allows us to rest in the hands of the Lord God who will win victory over the darkness of despair, not through force and violence, but by gently working with his knowing and loving hands all of our failures and sins into the pattern of his will and purpose, remaking us in the image of his Son, Jesus the Christ.  In the light of hope we see that even our failures and sinfulness can become a grace and can yet be molded into a worthy vessel of life.

     Jesus admonishes us, “May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”(Mark 13,36)  Hope waits and watches and does not give into the sleep of despair in the night but remains awake to the coming of the day of our vindication.  Pope Benedict has commented, “What is difficult is to wait, what is easy is to despair; this is the great temptation.” In fact, the great witness Christians can give to a world without hope is, precisely, “to always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope.”(1Pt 3,15)  Come, hope of the world, and bathe us in your light!