In the first week of Advent, we think about hope, and
death, and the patriarchs and matriarchs. Hope endures—indeed, hope emerges and
unfurls—only when false hope is gone. Abraham and Sarah desperately try to
bring about the hope of an heir; and, in the end, they drive their hope away
into the wilderness to die. God intervenes, of course, and even this false hope
has a redeemed resurrection. But Hagar and Ismael will make their own journey
to the nativity of God, on different paths to those of Abraham, Sarah, and
Isaac. Hope gathers all of time and place to the Bethlehem manger, that all may
be reconciled to God and neighbour.
Our false hopes, our hope in ourselves, must die; and
yet we lay them down in true hope that even these missteps will be guided by
some natal star, to the one who will judge the living (Hope) and the dead (hopes)
in righteousness, with perfect justice and mercy.
What must die today, that hope may emerge?
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