Looking Beyond the Horizon

The season of Advent is upon us. Advent means “arrival” or “coming.” In the Church, Advent is an anticipatory time, where we prepare for the coming of the Christ child. We ritualize our sacred waiting by lighting Advent candles, one for each Sunday leading up to Christmas Eve night, when we light the Christ candle.

Last Sunday, we lit one purple candle that symbolized hope. That’s the theme for the First Sunday of Advent. We await the birth of Christ with hope.

So, what is hope?

For the German theologian Jürgen Moltmann, hope is the wellspring of life. The pastor, professor, and author, who is well-known for his book Theology of Hope, writes, “We learn to love when we say yes to life. So we learn to hope when we say yes to the future.” Coming from Moltmann, whose theology was molded by his experience as a prisoner of war during World War II, that is a powerful suggestion.

In an essay titled, “A Meditation on Hope,” Moltmann points out that “the Indonesian word for hope means ‘looking through the horizon to what is beyond.’ True hope looks beyond the apocalyptic horizons of our modern world to the new creation of all things in the kingdom of God’s glory.”

Hope looks beyond the immediate, beyond what is anxiously visible, beyond our apocalyptic horizons.

For Jürgen Moltmann, the apocalyptic horizons were the confines of a POW camp, and violence begetting violence in a seemingly endless cycle of warfare. Our apocalyptic horizons look different, but what we see still prods us with despair.

The racial profiling and kidnapping of human beings by masked ICE agents at schools, in grocery store parking lots, on worksites, at court houses.

Vulnerable people living under the constant threat of war and terrorism in Ukraine, Palestine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria.

Ideological extremism fanning the toxic flames of sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia in our public narrative, our policy-making, our university curriculums, our social interactions, our sense of safety and security.

Millions of children living daily with the reality of hunger in America, wondering whether they will have any food for dinner at the end of the day in the richest country in the world.

These are just a few of our apocalyptic horizons.

But people of hope don’t stop our vision-casting at points of despair. People who light candles of hope are the ones who say yes to futures that are always waiting beyond the horizon, no matter how fearful our present circumstances may appear. Hope is the wellspring of life—good and fruitful life; and hopeful people live their lives based on what they see at the point where fear stops and life begins.

So, what do you see beyond the horizon? What does your faith tell you?

Looking beyond the horizon, I see every authoritarian who rules with arrogance being brought down and the humble lifted up.

I see those who hunger being filled with good things, while those who hoard and commodify goodness are sent away empty.

I see those who mourn being comforted; the meek inheriting the earth; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness being filled; the merciful receiving mercy; and the peacemakers being called children of God.

I see nothing in life, death, or in all creation being able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And with that vision, I see an end to war, and the money used to fund it being given to the betterment of the earth God gave us to share.

I see patriarchy crumbling, and the wellbeing of women and girls being lifted up.

I see the abundance of food that God’s creation provides not being withheld, but shared with all in need.

I see the the militarization of closed borders giving way to the hospitality of open tables.

I see the tired old myth of colorblindness opening its eyes to our God-given differences and no longer allowing racism and white supremacy to keep us from celebrating them.

I see no queer person living in a closet, and instead being encouraged and supported to let their light shine as the person they were made to be in God’s image.

And I see all flesh seeing this together; because all of this is the reality of things hoped for, the new creation of all things in the kingdom of God’s glory—things that are always shining behind clouds that are here one moment and gone the next.