Exhortation

Today’s sermon is about hope. Hope is not certainty. Hope doesn’t guarantee complete control. A hopeful person is not someone who has anticipated and managed all the contingencies before he begins. Hope doesn’t avoid all mistakes and miscues.

Hope is a virtue of adventurers: From hope, and through hope, and to hope are all adventures. Adventurers don’t know where their quests will take them. For adventurers, mistakes are part of the job description. Columbus never discovered what he set out to find, but his “error” discovered, and created, a new world.

Adventure is a fitting theme for Advent. Advent means “coming” or “arrival,” but to arrive somewhere, you first have to leave somewhere else. Advent reveals the God who arrives because it reveals the God who leaves home for a far country. Advent is the human adventure of the Triune God.

Christian hope comes from being caught up in the adventure of the God of hope, the Father who places all His bets on the Son and the Son who hopes in His Spirit. In hope, we know our final destination, even if the trail twists in unexpected ways. Swept along by the Spirit of God’s adventure, our errors merely open fresh byways for exploration and God turns even our sins into moments in the adventure.