Small Things and Possibility: An Advent Reflection
We live in a world in which bigger and better define our expectations for much of life--so much so that we tend not to see potential in small things. But as the prophet Zechariah reminds us (Zech 4:10), we should not “despise the day of small things,” because God does some of his best work with small beginnings and impossible situations.
It’s amazing that God often begins with small things and inadequate people. It certainly seems that God could have chosen “bigger” things and “better” people to do His work in the world. Yet if God can use them, and reveal Himself through them in such marvelous ways, it means that He might be able to use me. And it means that I need to be careful that I do not in my own self-righteousness put limits on what God can do with the smallest things, the most unlikely of people, in the most hopeless of circumstances.
I think that is part of the wonder of the Advent Season.
I am convinced that one of the main purposes of the incarnation of Jesus was to provide hope. In fact, I believe that both the season of Advent and the season of Lent are about hope. It is not just hope for a better day or hope for the lessening of pain and suffering. It is more about hope that human existence has meaning and possibility beyond our present experiences, a hope that the limits of our lives are not nearly as narrow as we experience them to be.
Our hope cannot be in circumstances, no matter how badly we want them. If our hope is only in our circumstances, we will always be disappointed. That is why we hope, not in circumstances, but in God. He has continually revealed himself to be a God of newness, of possibility, of redemption. The best example of that is the crucifixion itself, followed by the resurrection. That shadow of the cross falls even over the manger.
It all begins in the hope that God will come and come again into our world to reveal himself. This time of year we contemplate that hope comes embodied and incarnated in a newborn baby, the perfect example of newness, potential, and possibility. During Advent, we long for that newness with the hope, the expectation, indeed the faith, that God will once again see our circumstances, hear our cries, and know our longings for a better world and a whole life (Ex 3:7). And we hope that as he first came as an infant, so he will come again as King!
Maybe that is what hope is about: a way to live authentically amidst all the problems of life ,with a Faith that continues to see possibility when there is no present evidence of it, just because God is God. That is also the wonder of Advent.
Taken from the writing of Dennis R. Bratcher, Executive Director of the Christian Resource Institute. He is a retired professor of Old Testament; he has earned the PhD in Biblical studies from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and has served as an educator in the church for more than 25 years. He is an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, and has recently served on staff at a United Methodist church.
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