Wednesday of the First Week of Advent
When I was a little girl, my friends and I sometimes engaged in a little playful competition at twilight. The object of the game was to be the first person to spy a visible star in the darkening night sky. The first one to point to the novel star sang a little ditty that went like this, “Star light, star bright; first star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.” Then the victor made a secret wish, expressing some unspoken desire of the heart. Jiminy Cricket’s famous song from Disney’s Pinocchio expresses the same longing of a dreamer’s heart:
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
As a child, I was skeptical that such whimsical, celestial wishing had any power to alter my destiny. It’s easy to see that wishing upon stars is the stuff of fairy tales and childhood games. I often see people approaching prayer with a similar skepticism, however. When you approach God, do your prayers sometimes feel like wishing upon a star, or are you confident that they’re grounded in faith and hope? Today’s readings help to reinforce hope in our lives.
In our everyday English conversation, we tend to use the word wish and the word hope interchangeably. I hope I get to go the game next week, or I hope I get a new bike for Christmas. Those expressions fall more into the wish category and are based more in emotion that triggers uncertainty. We also experience both wishing and hoping passively. We sit idly by, simply waiting around as we wish or hope that our desires would be met. Sometimes we approach prayer similarly. Biblical hope is different! Biblical hope is grounded in faith; biblical hope is an active pursuit. A common Hebrew word, tikvah, translated hope has the word wait at its root. As people of faith, we wait expectantly, we wait confidently, we press forward in active, prayerful longing for the things of God. That is what it means to hope. We wait, we have hope, knowing that we may not receive all that we wish for, but expecting to receive all that we hope for. We hope in the promises of God, not in the things of this world. Our first reading from Isaiah declares, in hope, that God will provide a feast, destroy our veil, destroy death forever, wipe away our tears, remove our reproach, and save us! Our psalm declares, in hope, that the Lord is our shepherd who gives us rest, guides us even through tribulation, spreads a feast table for us, anoints us, sends goodness and kindness to companion us, and invites us to dwell forever with him. In our Gospel, Jesus heals us and feeds us, giving us a beautiful picture of the Eucharistic banquet. As a Eucharistic people, what are we if not hopeful? Whatever God reveals in God’s word is true for us. We can count on God’s promises being fulfilled in us and in our lives because God is faithful.
During Advent, in this season of waiting, let us nurture biblical hope, which is grounded in faith in our good God who loves us. Come, Lord Jesus!
- Elizabeth Wourms