We begin Advent, as we always do, in the dark. Before a single candle is lit, before a single carol is sung, the Church hands us the first word of the season: hope. Not the glossy, sentimental hope that fills store windows this time of year, but the deep, stubborn hope Isaiah speaks of, a hope forged in a world that knows conflict, uncertainty, and fear. For many, that world is not theoretical. It is the world we live in now.
Almost every day, someone reaches out to me, overwhelmed by the state of things. And truly, there is much that weighs on the human spirit. Families wonder where their next meal will come from. Neighbors fear they will lose health insurance. Working people struggle while CEOs receive pay packages of staggering proportions. Fear is thick in the air, fear about the future, fear about security, fear about whether anyone is listening. We are people called to live with hope yet sometimes hope feels like a distant dream.
It is into this world that Isaiah speaks his bold vision: nations streaming toward the mountain of the Lord, weapons of war hammered into instruments that cultivate life, peace learned instead of violence practiced. This is not poetic escapism. It is a prophetic conviction: This is not the world’s final story.
Yesterday, I stood in a cemetery preparing to preside at the funeral of a man I had never met. As I waited for the hearse to arrive, I wandered among the gravestones. Each marker held a story of mothers and fathers, long lives and short lives, joys and sorrows now known entirely only to God. One tall, weathered monument caught my eye: the grave of Rev. Samuel Tobey, the first minister of our Church here in Berkley. After the burial, I visited his stone, paused to pray, left a small token of remembrance, and continued.
Near the cemetery’s entrance, another significant marker drew me off the path: the grave of Rev. Thomas Andros, the Church’s second minister. As I did at Rev. Tobey’s grave, I offered a prayer and left a token. I had read about Thomas earlier this year but had not dug deeply into his life. One story now seems especially fitting for Advent.
As a teenager during the Revolutionary War, Andros was captured and imprisoned on the notorious British ship Old Jersey off Long Island. At just seventeen, he escaped. Years later, he wrote about his dangerous journey home, during which he battled yellow fever, slept in barns and haystacks, and traveled mostly at night to avoid capture. What is striking in his recollection is not the peril but the thread that runs through it: hope. Andros believed that God had preserved him for a purpose: that he would make it home, that a future awaited him beyond the darkness he endured.
What is even more remarkable is what occupied his mind during his escape. Andros regretted the trouble he caused the officer who had allowed him to go ashore for water, the moment he used to slip away. Years later, after the war, he tracked down that officer and wrote to apologize. Even in fear and illness, he carried compassion. His was a stubborn hope, one that moves, acts, and remains mindful of others even in hardship.
This is the kind of hope Scripture calls us to. Hope that insists God’s future can interrupt the present. Hope that says what is now is not what shall be. Hope that walks in the light even while the world remains dim.
Isaiah ends with an invitation: “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Not “wait until the world improves,” but walk now. Hope is not passive. It moves. It chooses. It acts.
The Gospel of Matthew offers a complementary message. Jesus speaks of ordinary life, eating, drinking, working, continuing even as God is quietly drawing near. “Keep awake,” he says. Not out of fear, but attentiveness. God’s coming often looks ordinary before it looks miraculous. We do not get to control when or how grace breaks in. Christ comes when God is ready.
Together, these readings teach us that hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is a way of living while we watch for God’s promise.
That is Advent: sitting in the not-yet, trusting that light is coming even before it appears. Hope often begins as the smallest shift, a breath, a moment, a spark.
We live in a world still learning to turn swords into plowshares. The night can feel long. But Advent does not ask us to pretend the darkness isn’t there. It asks us to stay awake to the possibility of God at work within it.
Hope is the caregiver at the bedside. The parent who keeps going without answers. The community that chooses compassion over cynicism. The person who prays even when belief feels fragile. The Church lighting one small candle and declaring, “The light is coming.”
Today, we light the first candle of Advent, a single flame against the dark. Sailors say the glow of one cigarette can be seen for miles across open water. May this flame, in our sanctuary and in our hearts, be seen for miles as a sign of hope.
“Come,” Isaiah urges, “let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
Even now. Especially now.
