Oh Come, Oh Come
Hope for tomorrow gives us confidence for today.
The season from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Year’s is a bittersweet one for me. It is one in which I am reminded of the brokenness of this present world, and filled with the hope of what lies ahead.
In my Reformed Christian tradition, the season of Advent in the church calendar represents not only the period of looking forward to celebrating the first coming of God in human form in the appearance of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem during ancient Roman times, but also a season of looking forward to Christ’s final return at some unknown future time and place, when he will “wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).
It is also a season in which this promise holds great hope for me, for it is the season in which my wife and I lost our first child three years ago. Amidst the celebration of life all around us, we struggled to come to terms with the anguish and sorrow of a late-term stillbirth, the larger brokenness of this world that it represented, and the deep longing within our souls for a world in which pain and death would not exist. The hope that God’s promise offered to us in our Christian scriptures, and the peace that his Spirit brought through that hope, was and remains great comfort to us in the midst of the pains of this created-yet-fallen, redeemed-but-not-yet-restored world. This hope allowed us to carry our grief, yet carry on – not shrinking into ourselves, not just surviving, but thriving in community, loving those around us, welcoming another child, and making bold life moves in faith.
In the same way, the hope that we have in the eventual restoration of God’s original created order – one where peace, love, and justice are not just the norm but the only state of things – gives us great confidence for how to live today. Our convictions about where we stand on issues of truth, justice, and myriad other things – firmly held as they are – must be treated as articles of the world as it is now. In the ultimate restoration of all things, there will be nothing left to argue about or be divided by – all things will be made right and just.
In living in the space before that time, this confidence and the peace that it brings remind us that those around us – in agreement or disagreement with us – are co-travelers in this imperfect world, all of us in need of ultimate grace and redemption as well as earthly love and compassion. To one extent or another, we are all metaphorically blind and deaf, and as the ancient Jewish prophet Isaiah foretold, one day all of our eyes shall be opened and our ears unstopped (Isaiah 35:5). Our confidence in the love that we have received, and the promise of all things wrong one day being made right, compel us to abandon fear and hate, and to love those around us, even in disagreement or division (1 John 4:14-21).
Jay Boyles is the Vice President of Advancement at the One America Movement.
Nice message. I wonder if we would be more successful saying “natures god” or “natural laws” or “ the unknown creator of all things “ instead of the word God. Don’t get me wrong , I believe in God , but it’s just that it seems people have failed to rally around the fantastic truths you speak of while we stick to the word “God”. Maybe if we referred to nature we would could establish the universal truths you so eloquently , I suggest Natures God could get us closer . Natures God is written in the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence! Thank you.