This is an adaptation of a Christmas Eve reflection that I gave at Living Spirit UMC on December 24, 2018.  

In our collective memory of Jesus’ birth, we think about nighttime and stars shining in the darkness.  Both groups of visitors, the shepherds guarding their flocks at night in Luke’s gospel, and the Magi from the east following the star in Matthews gospel reveal that the night time, the darkness is an important part of the Christmas story.

Lights shining in the darkness are often signs of hope.  Stars, candles, Christmas tree lights, these lights give us hope and joy in a season of long nights and short days.  This weekend, some friends and I went for a luminary lit hike on the winter solstice at Westwood Hills Nature Center.  The event was to raise awareness and hope for people impacted by mental illness.  It was powerful to walk through the woods and frozen marsh in the dark on the longest night of the year but to see these little paper bags of candle-lit hope along the trail. 

Hope is different than optimism or figuring out the odds of something good happening.  Hope is not wishful thinking or statistics.  Christian hope is in the person and personality of God, and it lives in the tension between what is and what should be.  But often hope leaves us disappointed, that tension means that sometimes the cord breaks.   

Last month, a group from Living Spirit went to hear Austin Channing Brown speak about her book, “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.”  I couldn’t make it to the event, but I did spend my day at the airport in Orlando last week reading the book.  It is so good, if you haven’t read it, I recommend it whole heartedly.  The final chapter of the book is called, “In the Shadow of Hope.”  I want the chapter to be in the warm sunshine of hope, or in the candlelight glow of hope, but Brown writes about the shadow of hope. 

“hope for me has died one thousand deaths.  I hoped that friend would get it, but hope died.  I hoped that person would be an ally for life, but hope died.  I hoped that my organization really desired change, but hope died.  I hoped I’d be treated with the full respect I deserve at my job, but hope died. . . I hoped things would be better for my children, but hope died.  . .

So, instead of waiting for the bright sunshine, I have learned to rest in the shadow of hope.  (she goes on to quote TaNehisi Coates):

            African Americans who were born in this country in 1750/1760 if they looked backwards their parents were slaves.  Their grandparents were slaves.  Their great grandparents were slaves..   If they looked forward their children would be slaves.  Their grandchildren would be slaves, and possibly, their great grandchildren will be slaves.  There was no real hope within their individual life span of ending enslavement- there was nothing in their life that said, this will end in my lifetime. . .  And they struggled, and they resisted. 

Brown continues. 

This is the shadow of hope.  Knowing that we may never see the realization of our dreams and yet still showing up.  I do not believe that I or my children or my grandchildren will live in an America that has achieved racial equality.  I do not believe that this is a problem that America will fix within any soon-coming generation.  . . I ask myself, where is your hope Austin?  The answer: it is but a shadow.  It is working in the dark, not knowing if anything I do will ever make a difference. . . This is the cool place from where I demand a love that matters.  In this place, I see the sun setting behind me, its light as far away as the stars, and I let the limitations of hope settle over.  I possess not the strength of hope but its weakness, its fragility, its ability to die.  Because I must demand [that love] anyway.  It is my birthright.  It is the culmination of everything my ancestors endured, of all that my parents endured. 

When the sun happens to shine, I bask in the rays.  But I know I cannot stay there.  That is not my place to stand.  So I abide in the shadows, and let hope have its day and its death.  It is my duty to live anyway. 

The candles of the Advent wreath are traditionally lit in honor of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.  O Holy Night celebrates each of these Advent themes.  A thrill of HOPE, and his Gospel is peace,  A weary world reJOYces.   Humbly he taught us to love one another, his law is love. 

I don’t know what chains you are hoping to have broken this Christmas.  I don’t know if it is your hope itself that has broken instead.  What I do know is that the God of love, the prince of peace, has given us a fragile hope and radical love, born in a tiny baby. 

So while my hope moves in and out of the shadows, I put my hope in the God whose law is love and gospel is peace.  Let us continue to pick up the broken cords of hope and put our hope in the prince of peace, not in the political parties, or programs or people that fight for our hope.  But let us put our hope in the person who stepped into our darkness to give us hope.  Amen.