Finding hope during the darkest days

At the darkest time of the year, we celebrate the Feast of Lights

and the Christmas star, signs of the Spirit of God blowing on the

coal of the human soul to enflame the passions of hope and freedom.

In Isaiah 11:1-10, the prophet gives the people of God a curious sign

of hope and witness to their freedom in God at the very time when the

tree of life that was the Northern Kingdom was felled by the

Assyrians: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse.”

This image of hope was lifted up when all they saw was the despoiled

remains of a once lively and lovely homeland.

Christians can be too quick to claim this image in the spirit of

victory and fail to recognize and accept their own darkness of

despair and defeat which this prophet addresses in us, and for our

time.

Our freedom through faith is in the awareness that God is at work

in everything, whether we notice it or not, whether we believe it or

not. When we do not notice and do not act with God, even in defeat,

we lose our freedom and we become hopeless. For the prophet, hope is

an act of a new creation, one that does not reject the old, but uses

the old to nurture and provide substance for the new. Hope is no

passive thing; it is a response to what we see God is willing to do

with us to bring about His purposes.

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not

yet born, and not yet become desperate if there is no birth in our

lifetime. There is no sense in hoping for that which already exists

or for that which cannot be. Those whose hope is weak settle for

comfort or for violence. Those whose hope is strong see and cherish

all signs of new life and are ready every moment to help the birth of

that which is ready to be born.

From Isaiah, we hear that life can begin again, at the very moment

we can’t imagine it to be true. We may find ourselves standing beside

the bed of a loved one who is told her or she is “terminal,” or

standing in the wreckage of a marriage or relationship we just knew

could never end, or standing at the graveside of someone we knew just

couldn’t die. That is the moment we need to hear, “Life can begin

again.” We don’t believe it then, but we need to hear it over and

over.

At the darkest time of the year, we are reminded to be on the

lookout for signs of hope that may be too small for the hopeless to

see. The woman and the man who hope are free to act, to assist God in

what he is doing in their midst.

The Christian story of hope begins with a man and a young woman

who are asked to give up what they thought they wanted from life and

to give themselves to what God was doing in and through them.

Grace and peace,

Rev. Dick George, D. Min.

Mesa Verde United Methodist Church is located at 1701 Baker St. in

Costa Mesa. Call (714) 979-8234.