Light a candle for hope in a darkened world

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My friend George, whom I have written about before, lives in the West Bank in Jerusalem.

 

He is a man of peace, living in the middle of fear and terror. He is known in the area as a peace activist, having sent his children to a non-religious school, a place that worked for peace through education. George often says to me: “Never say never; hope springs eternal.”

 

One of the great themes of Advent is that of hope. It is also the theme of this year’s Jubilee Year. Pope Francis once said that hope is not optimism but rather “a present, a gift of the Holy Spirit, and for this reason Paul was to say that it never disappoints”.

 

Hope never lets you down. Why? Because it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. As Pope Francis added, when speaking about hope in September 2013, hope has a name and “this name is Jesus”. It is impossible to say one hopes in life unless one hopes in Jesus, as otherwise “it would not be a question of hope, rather it would be good humour or optimism, as in the case of those sunny, positive people who always see a glass as half-full and not half-empty”. Instead, it is Jesus, the one “who recreates life”, that “gives us hope”.

 

Hope, in other words, is not simple optimism, an idealism that will not let itself be defeated by what is negative; nor is it wishful thinking, a fantasy that someday our ship will come in; nor is it the ability to look at the evening news and still conclude that there are good reasons to believe everything will turn out well.

 

Hope is not based on whether the evening news is good or bad on a given day or if we win the lottery or our favourite team win the league. Hope looks at the facts, looks at God’s promise to be with us always, and then – without denying the facts or turning away from the evening news – lives out a vision of life based on God’s promise, trusting that a loving, all powerful God is still with us in this world and that is more important than whether or not the news looks good or bad on a given night. Hope is summed up in the person of Christ.

 

During the season of Advent, we often light candles as a sign of hope. Unfortunately, this practice, ritualised in the lighting of the candles in the Advent wreath, has in recent years been seen too much simply as piety. Father Ronald Rolheiser, the Canadian theologian, says: “Lighting a candle in hope is not just a pious, religious act; it’s a political act, a subversive one, and a prophetic one, as dangerous as brandishing a firearm.”

 

To light an Advent candle is to say, in the face of all that suggests the contrary, that God is still alive, still Lord of this world, and that we celebrate that coming in place and time. So, this Advent, light a candle. Light it for hope in the presence of God in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Ethiopia. Light your candle as a sign of hope in a broken world; of hope that God is coming always to heal and restore that broken world.