For Christians worldwide, the advancing Christmas season is met with a quiet pause to wait. The idea of waiting isn’t anyone’s favorite pastime, yet it’s something we do throughout our Christian lives. As we wait the annual celebration of Christ’s incarnation, we’re reminded of the different periods throughout salvation history where God’s people had to wait. In those moments where we desire word, direction, or insight most, we are often told to wait. And as hard of times as often come while we wait, our faith offers us something special: hope.
Hope. That’s not a word we hear often these days. Most of the time, we hear the opposite. Television newscasts shout about world disasters: school shootings, murders, crime, political decisiveness, and natural disasters. Our social media feeds are full of links that contain fake or inaccurate news. Even the church seems full of scandals, depressed pastors, messy church members, and lack of finances. It’s easy to view the current situations we know exist and assume there is nothing more, nothing good, and nothing redeemable in this world.
Yet in these periods where we wait, we learn something important about hope: it doesn’t shout, it whispers.
Grabbing our attention
If something is to grab our attention, it must “shout” at us. With the advance of the internet, social media, and cell phones, things “shout” at us constantly. With every alert on our phone, news headlines that fill our hearts and minds with today’s problems, and those who think there’s something wrong with everything in this world, we experience one of those “shouts.” They stand and echo their hostilities, fully expecting to be noticed. Handling such consistently negative stimulation can be extremely frustrating and depressing.
Then there’s hope. Hope doesn’t shout because it doesn’t have to. There is no reason for hope to scream its presence. It is not, nor has any desire, to compete with anyone or anything else. Hope waits, rests in the quiet silence, whispering to us about the things we need to know to get us from our present distractions to our glorious and ready future.
A quiet message of hope
An oft-skipped story in Scripture is the birth of John the Baptist. Zechariah and his wife, Elizabeth, were past the natural years of childbearing. They were childless, and assumed they would be such for the rest of their lives. Yet one day, Zechariah had an encounter with an angel while offering incense in the temple.
The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak. (Luke 1:19-21, NIV)
Zechariah was given a whispering hope: only he and the angel knew of this great message. He was to remain silent, sitting in the blessed promise he received. It wasn’t a message to shout to the whole world, even though we might think it should be. Instead, it was private assurance. Until John was born, hope stayed a quiet whisper.
Access by faith
Romans 5:1-5 gives us a great word on hope:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (NIV)
If there’s one thing Zechariah and Elizabeth experienced, it was shame. Not having an heir – especially a male heir – was a matter of disgrace in those days. (Even now, I find it ironic that the heir they received was certainly not in line with tradition – but that’s a separate issue.) Despite the way others saw them, the two never lost their faith in God. They trusted God for their outcome, no matter what it might have been. Living these very words, they echo the promise of a hope that whispers. Throughout their lives, God told them to continue on, never giving up. They knew God’s promises are true, no matter how they manifested in their lives.
Our faith leads us to a place of hope because it knows God’s promises are true. In the most difficult of circumstances, hope comes to us with quiet words of reassurances, reminding us to stay on spiritual track.
Quieting ourselves
We can’t get to this wonderful hope if we aren’t quiet ourselves. Zechariah’s time in the temple was one of quiet contemplation. Sometimes the best thing we can do is settle ourselves away from the noise and strife, and get back to that place of true and abiding faith where we hear hope whispering to us. Psalm 46:10 tells us:
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God…” (NIV)
Frequently quoted as a centering verse, Psalm 46:10 isn’t just a sentiment for key chains and pillows. It calls us to stop moving, stop listening to other voices, and rest in the voice of God. If we want the assurance of hope, we must stop listening to every other voice in this world and let God speak, empowering us once more. 1 Kings 19:12 reminds us:
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. (NIV)
God doesn’t always thunder. Be sure to attune to listen to the gentle whispers, those that contain the most important messages of hope we can receive.
Listening for hope
For many of us, it’s been a difficult few years. Between the ravages of COVID-19, world events that include war and struggle, and economic downturn in the United States. The recent hurricane season left millions of people devastated by natural disaster. There are some reading this who have lost family members, jobs, housing, and their connections to community. Things might seem beyond bleak as we all attempt to piece together the remains of life with new life ahead. No matter how hard it might be – whether you face cultural stigma, spiritual depression, loss, or something else – quiet yourself to listen for the hope that whispers, bringing you inspiration in the darkness that we find this time of year.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In