Advent is a time of hopeful waiting. We wait with patience and expectation but also with joy and excitement. Children are great models of faith for Advent because of the exuberance with which they wait for Christmas. If you are with children on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day, really watch the way they wait for Santa to come. When was the last time in your life you were that excited about something? Children at Christmas are generally excited about the gifts they are or will be receiving. How excited are we about the numerous gifts we have been given?

Advent is a time of joy and excitement, but also patience (this part is a bit harder for adults as well as children). In a passage telling the reader to be patient, the letter of James says to "steady your hearts" (5:8). What a great image of patience - to steady one's heart. Our culture tends to be one of instant gratification, which seems to make patience even more difficult. I am a very impatient person, whether waiting in line at the store Christmas shopping or driving behind someone going slower than I would like to be driving. Naturally then in my prayer life, I tend to be impatient. I want things to happen now. God doesn't work that way (at least in my experience and occasionally to my frustration). Ideally, we would model our own patience after God's patience. The second letter of Peter tells us that God's patience is for our sake. When the early Christians were concerned that the second coming had not yet occurred, the letter reassures them:

In the Lord's eyes, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years are as a day. The Lord does not delay in keeping his promise--though some consider it "delay". Rather, he shows you generous patience, since he wants none to perish but all to come to repentance. (2 Pt. 3:8-9)

While we wait for God, God is waiting for us.

We wait in hope. I have often thought that hope is a forgotten virtue. We talk about faith and love quite a bit, but we don't talk about hope very often. Today's world often seems so cynical and tired. Sometimes when facing just one more scandal in the Church or in the government, it is hard to find that glimmer of hope or even know exactly what it is we are hoping for. It is precisely for these reasons that I think hope is so needed today. We hope for a new day and a better world. The color of Advent is a blue purple, the color of the sky at dawn right before our world is lit up by sunlight. In our part of the world the days are at their shortest this time of the year, so many of you, like me, may begin your day in darkness and witness that purple blue sky while you wait for the light. We hear at this time of year the proclamation of Isaiah, that "the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." (Is. 9:2) We read the prologue to the Gospel of John,

What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn. 1:3-5)

When we live in darkness, our eyes become accustomed to the darkness. We accept evil and sin in our world because we have become blind to the alternatives. When the Gospel of Matthew talks about the end-times, Jesus warns that "because of the increase in evil, the love of many will become cold." (Mt. 24:12) We lack the imagination and love needed to come up with new and creative ways of addressing the problems in our world and our lives. Poverty and violence seem inevitable. When somebody suddenly turns on a bright light, the natural reaction is to flinch, cover your eyes, and turn away. And yet light is the only thing that dispels darkness. Darkness is the absence of light - it is overcome by light but cannot overcome light. Choosing light is not always the easier choice, but in the end it is the only choice. Advent is the time to face the darkness. We bring light to the world through our acts of love and kindness, through cultivating patience, joy, and excitement. Advent is a time when we choose hope over despair. In choosing to be an Advent people, a people of hope, we must heed the words of the first letter of Peter:

Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. (1 Pt. 3:15)

Do people see you as a hope-filled person? If someone today asked you the reason for your hope, what would you say?