Advent: Week 1 - Hope

Hope: The Light That Finds Us Where We Are

“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)

By the time we’re over fifty, we’ve lived long enough to know that darkness isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it’s just the slow dimming of things we once counted on: energy that used to be boundless, a parent’s voice on the phone, the shape of a marriage we thought would stay the same forever, or the sound of children’s feet running down the hallway on Christmas morning. We’ve buried dreams along with people we loved. We know what it is to light candles at funerals as well as birthday parties.

And yet here comes Advent again, stubborn and gentle, asking us to believe in hope one more time.

Advent Candle - Hope

Remember the women God chose to carry the first whispers of Christmas hope. Sarah laughed in disbelief when the angel spoke of a baby—her body felt like a closed book. Elizabeth hid herself for five months, stunned that her long-barren womb had been remembered. Mary was barely old enough to have children, let alone the Son of God. None of them felt ready. None of them felt young enough or strong enough or spiritual enough. And still the Light came.

That’s the scandal of biblical hope: it doesn’t wait for us to feel hopeful. It arrives like a baby—small, unexpected, impossible to ignore—and grows in the very place we thought nothing else could ever grow again.

This year, let hope be simple. Light one candle and name one hard thing out loud to God. Speak the name of the child who hasn’t called in months. Whisper the diagnosis. Admit the loneliness. Hope isn’t shocked by any of it. Hope has been born in stables, in prisons, in upper rooms where disciples wept. It can be born in your kitchen while the cookies burn and the bills sit unopened on the counter.

The promise is still true: a light has dawned. And it is looking for you, following you from room to room, waiting for you to open the door of your real, lived-in, beautifully weathered heart. Open it just a crack, dear friend. That’s enough. The Light knows how to get in.

Merry Christmas!

#advent2025 #adventhope