Hope - Week 1
Sometimes hope feels wishful, like crossing our fingers and dreaming of a better outcome. We might hope for better employment, healed relationships, or a brighter future. But that kind of hope is based on things that may or may not happen. When things don’t go as we hoped, it can be crushing—our hope disappearing like vapor.
As a season of reflection and contemplation, Advent invites us to imagine a different kind of hope, rooted in the unchanging nature of God and his promise to restore every part of his creation. Advent hope does not minimize pain or difficulty, nor does it assume things will soon get better. Instead, it faces the darkness with courage and chooses to trust that God’s promises will come to pass, guaranteed by his long-proven, faithful character.
In the Hebrew Bible, the words most often used for hope—qavah and yakhal—are also translated as “wait.” To hope in God means to wait with patient expectation, trusting that he will fulfill his promises.
This kind of waiting leans forward, anticipating the day when Jesus will return to make all things new. Such hope empowers people to persevere, to act justly, and to serve others as a sign of the restoration that will arrive through Jesus.
Out of the depths I have cried to You, Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the sound of my pleadings. If you, Lord, were to keep account of guilty deeds, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, so that You may be revered. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and I wait for His word. My soul waits in hope for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning; Yes, more than the watchmen for the morning. Israel, wait for the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is abundant redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his guilty deeds. - Psalm 130:1-8
When the psalmist cries out from “the depths” in Psalm 130:1, he reminds us that hope often rises from places of despair. Sometimes people suffer from the bad choices of others. But here, the poet asks for forgiveness, implying that the suffering he’s experiencing is the result of his own people’s (and perhaps his personal) bad decisions (see Ps. 130:4, 8). Rather than despairing, the psalmist remains confident in God’s merciful character, trusting God to forgive and exhibit loyal love.
The psalmist compares his hopeful waiting to watchmen stationed on the city walls during a long night, staying attentive to any sign of enemies. The watchmen eagerly anticipate the dawn, certain that night’s darkness cannot last forever. And the psalmist’s trust in God surpasses even the certainty that the sun will rise.
The watchmen base their confident expectation on history—the sun rises every morning. The psalmist similarly trusts in God based on history—the way God has always operated. God rescued and redeemed his people from brutal slavery in Egypt, crushing an oppressive empire thought to be unstoppable. And when Israel later rejected God by ignoring his instruction, God responded with forgiveness, revealing himself to be “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness.”
Rooted in this knowledge, the psalmist trusts that God is willing and able to redeem his people from their failures and the resulting consequences (Ps. 130:7). And he invites all Israel to join him in patient, hopeful waiting.
Waiting helps us slow down and become aware of what we’re waiting for, and just as importantly, how we’re waiting for it.
Israel’s story suggests that human effort alone cannot fix the damage people have unleashed in God’s good world. We all need someone who can truly embody God’s wisdom and lead us back to life. Advent hope acknowledges human failure and need for God without shaming. Followers of Jesus embrace a way of patience with themselves and one another, a way of mercy and forgiveness, waiting upon the one who brings new light every morning and redeems us from every form of brokenness.
God describes himself as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness, maintaining loyal love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.”
Where might God be inviting you to practice patient, hopeful waiting—trusting his character even before you see the dawn?
