God has a Christmas present for us—today.

And God wants us to have it—today.

"What?" we say, "Christmas is four weeks away. What’s the rush? Why not wait?"

Well, OK, let’s wait. Let’s look forward to the joy of carefully (or not so carefully) unwrapping the packages under the tree on December 25. And let’s look forward to the joy we see in our children’s and grandchildren’s faces when they see what’s inside. And let’s also look forward to the dinner we will share with family and friends.

And let’s be honest with ourselves. Sometimes waiting for Christmas—that sense of eager anticipation—is better than the actual event. The gift God presents to us today is exactly that sense of anticipation and longing, of yearning for the coming of God’s Kingdom. We call that gift "Hope."

More than anything else, the season of Advent is about hope. This four-Sunday journey begins in a dark place, with anguished Hebrew Bible texts calling out for God to act, and with the vision of Christ’s Second Advent, when he shall gather his people from the four winds.

The prophet prayed to God:

The psalmist sang:

Both are pleas to God to act, to set things right, to save his people. We hear anguish in them, even desperation. We hear the voice of a people who know that things are not right—people who know their own iniquity. And yet—these are hopeful texts, full of the sense that God might yet act, that the people might yet return to God, and God to the people, that God’s power will shed its light into the darkened hearts of humanity.

And so they hoped, and lived in hope. The author and poet Robert Louis Stevenson wrote:

Living in hope allows us to move forward—to travel hopefully—into the light of God’s presence, perhaps at first with only a glimpse of that light. But let us remember that saying attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt:

We lit a candle today, one small flickering light to signify the hope of all humankind, the hope that was born anew in a stable in Bethlehem, the hope that will come to its final fruition in God’s time, the hope which leads us forward day by day.

The prophet and the psalmist offered their words of hope to a people whose situation was truly desperate. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the clear expectation of "the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ," giving them hope for the journey to that day. Mark wrote his Gospel in a time of strife between Jews and Christians as well as Romans and Jews, speaking to a church whose members were scorned by all. The early Christians looked for a sign of hope in a time when imperial power was growing. They were accustomed to speaking in vivid and dramatic images—and the image of Christ returning on the clouds is certainly that. We may find such images terrifying, and there are people who use this passage and others like it to "scare people into heaven." But to the early Christians, this was a message of hope, an assurance that God was not absent, that God’s purposes would be fulfilled, and that they would number among God’s elect.

But we—this nice middle-class group of people in Brandon Manitoba in 2005—what do we hope for today? Where is our longing for the Kingdom? Where is our sense of needing God to act?

One thing is certain: we won’t find the fulfillment of this hope under our Christmas trees. We live in a land that is an object of hope for many people around the world. Our way of life is the dream of the developing world.

Even in the midst of plenty, God still needs to act in our midst, opening our eyes to his bounty, opening our hearts in gratitude, and opening our lives in generosity. Let us then use this Advent season to turn our lives anew to his purposes, studying God’s word, renewing ourselves in prayer, and denying our own wants so that others may enjoy the blessings which we know.

God offers hope in this season. Hope for us, and hope for all his people. This hope is God’s gift to us—the only Christmas present that lasts beyond Christmas Day, right into eternity.

Let us then share this best Christmas present of all, this wonderful message of hope, as we live into God’s future, and call others to live it with us.