COVID Christmas 2.0: Hope That Has Teeth To It
This Sunday marked the beginning of Advent and with it the lighting of candles. My church, perhaps like yours, lit the candle of hope.
Hope seems to be in short supply these days.
Last Christmas we imagined that Christmas 2021 would look different. Christmas 2021 was supposed to be full of parties and hugging and houses bursting with people celebrating.
And yet here we are.
News headlines of yet another variant. Conflict and anger on many issues. In and out of lockdowns. Perhaps you will be able to attend a Christmas Eve service but you will most likely be wearing a mask, if you do.
Many of us might be standing at the beginning of Advent, feeling more hopeless than hopeful.
There is no sense as to when the pandemic might end or when the world might settle from this chaos. Let alone anything else we might be dealing with.
What exactly is there to hope for? Where do we even find hope?
For the past few years I have been chewing on this quote by Rikk Watts.
It seems very relevant this year, COVID Christmas 2.0.
“I am of two minds about Sunday school nativity stories. I love that kids are learning this story but there’s another part of me that says,˜Don’t sentimentalize the gospel. Don’t take the teeth out of this thing. Because it’s the edginess of this story that changed the world. You’ve got to be careful with that somehow. I don’t know what the answer is - I’m not criticizing anyone.
If someone here is an artist perhaps you could do a series of Christmas cards. Where you see slaves raising their hands in joy and delight with the shackles broken and then, “Happy Christmas” with a little explanation on the inside that this is what Christianity had done. Women being treated with dignity and respect because that is what Christianity brought to the Ancient World. Trying to bring peace where there was war. That is what Christmas is about. Those would be gutsy Christmas cards, I reckon.”
Don’t take the teeth out of this thing.
Don’t sentimentalize the gospel. We need the edginess of the story.
If you look around at different commercial depictions of the nativity, things look pretty tidy. Mary and Joseph are clean, showered and serene. The Shepherds have well groomed beards and all their teeth. The animals are quietly looking on with beautiful coats and angelic faces. It all looks tidy.
Hardly people in need of a Saviour.
Life looks pretty good in Bethlehem. And hardly a picture that inspires hope for those of us whose lives do not look so tidy.
Sentamentalizing the story of Christmas does not give us hope.
Because life isn’t always so tidy. Christmas can be more of a reminder that things are not what they should have been rather than fill us with hope.
How can we be hopeful people in a time of pandemic and grief and loss and difficulty?
Perhaps by leaning into this one truth - hope is not something we find. It is not something that can be bought or created of our own device.
Hope is a person and his name is Jesus.
Jesus came into a very untidy time. A time where the peace, “Pax Romana”, was kept with a foot on the people’s neck and a sword. A time of disagreement amongst religious leaders. A time of oppression, when men died on crosses. A time of poverty and death, sickness and disease. A time when people were trying to take matters into their own hands with zealots and fanaticism.
That’s the edginess we need to remember. Not a cleaned up version but the real truth about what Jesus arrived into. Something very much like what you are living. A real human existence.
That is where our hope lies.
Our hope is in a God who came right into the thick of things. A God who sent himself with sacrificial love to a people He made a covenant with. An expression of commitment and faithfulness, kindness and compassion the likes that the world had never seen.
Our hope is that He came. Our hope is in what He was able to do. Our hope is in Jesus.
And Jesus, unlike everything else, does not disappoint us.
Jesus - that tiny baby in the pictures is actually the Hope of the Nations. He is what all those who went before longed to see and know. He is the full revelation of God made man. He is THE word into the darkness. And He is triumphant.
This Christmas, in a time when our hope tanks feel low, we need to remember that our hope is not just a nice word to put on a wall. It is not a sentimental story.
It is a hope that has teeth to it. It is prisoners set free, women treated with dignity, peace for places and souls at war. It is fearless, all powerful, a miracle in a manger.
Our source of hope is Jesus. There is a bright future ahead because of Jesus. There is a peace for our fear, comfort for our mourning, rest for our souls because Jesus is alive and well and He is making all things new.
This Christmas - Jesus is offering you hope by offering you himself. He is a never ending well of hope. And it is yours for the taking if you are willing to ask.
The more I continue following Jesus, the more I am realizing that Jesus is the source of all good and beauty and I am a child humbly asking for more of that.
Jesus is our hope so we do not have to try so hard. We just have to trust Him.
May you receive the gift of Hope this advent. Hope from the One who is Hope. Hope that is strong, hope that is not sentimentalized.
Hope that has teeth to it.
This Advent, may you find that Hope is a person. And may you know Him by name because He already knows yours.