Embracing Advent Hope
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus the King, the one who takes our ideas about what it means to rule and reign, and turns them on their head. Yeah, that Jesus.
This is a week of transition for us. We’ve just celebrated Christ the King Sunday, the end of the Christian Year. I showed a clip in the sermon about a high school runner in her final race, seeking to record her personal best time, but at the end of the race she saw a runner from another school—a stranger to her—struggling to finish. She stopped to help the girl, giving up her own chance to achieve her goal. Here’s what I said about that.
“Sometimes the idea of Christ as King makes us uncomfortable.
We think of kings as absolute rulers, people who only care about themselves and their power, people who don’t care about us. But Christ as King is more like that runner we saw at the start today. Christ gives up his power—his right to win—his position as the ruler of the universe. Christ gives that up so that he can pick us up at our lowest point, so we can cross the finish line with him, no matter what kind of shape we’re in.
That’s the kind of King we have.
That’s the kind of life we’re invited to live and share.”
It’s a good reminder for us as we transition from Christ the King Sunday to the season of Advent. Every year we do this—we exalt Christ as King, then turn around and start all over again, waiting for the birth of the Christ Child.
We are called to live the discipline of Advent hope. Hope is a rugged and difficult practice—it’s not simply optimism, which is the belief that things will get better—hope is the daily habit of living life as if God’s promises will be fulfilled. It’s a much stronger and more challenging task for us.
But we live it each year. We sing our Kingly hymns and celebrate Christ as King, only to start again with the hope that a baby will come and change everything. Advent hope is the antidote to the cynicism that takes root in us when the world disappoints us. Make it your practice this Advent season, as we wait again for the birth of Jesus.
Blessings to you,
Pastor John