Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

This is the time of year when all the Christian writers come out of the woodwork to offer their Advent devotionals. Every year, I get tired of all the serious, sober one-liners we should reflect on for the whole season. They’re all wise and thoughtful, but it gets to be too much to take in.

So if you can’t absorb one more pithy statement or rumination about how a Christian can approach Christmas, please scroll on, with no hard feelings.

These days, I keep thinking about hope and its agony, how warming hope’s promise is, but how devastating its wait is. I used to think Emily Dickinson’s lines were so sweet:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –

And sore must be the storm –

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –

And on the strangest Sea –

Yet – never – in Extremity,

It asked a crumb – of me.

But I know better now. I don’t know a hope that doesn’t ask for even a crumb. That sounds like limp-noodle passivity, shut-down apathy, which is not a healthy way to live.

I find that vibrant, throbbing hope asks for a lot, lot, LOT of surrender, trust, agony–words I prefer to forget about.

I’d love a conversation with Miss Dickinson and ask what she meant by saying that hope doesn’t ask a crumb of me. She’s a brilliant writer, and she must have had some good reason for the line. I like these of hers better:

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,
I open every Door.

I think it’s hope that motivates a person to “open every Door.” And to be clear: I’m not talking about hoping it rains tomorrow, or hoping your cold will go away soon, or wanting to get pregnant and holding your newborn ten months later. I don’t mean to dismiss that kind of hopefulness, but let’s be honest: praying the same agonized prayer for years or decades is another kind of hope.

The kind of hope that opens every door is a hope that’s been waiting a long, long time–years and years and years with no sign of anything ever changing. This hope longs for dawn, aches for light and relief from murkiness and questions and waiting. This hope is a tenacious push, a desire that never goes away, eyes that long for the night to end.

In the Christmas story, hope is what the Jews held close to their hearts every time a woman was pregnant, because they were so desperate for Messiah, a rescuer. They were living under an oppressive regime, and they believed the prophets’ words that had never yet come true, not even after thousands of years. They still hoped for Jesse’s rod to bloom into justice. They hoped for the Prince of Peace to reign on David’s throne. They didn’t know what shape their hope would take, but the ones who were attuned to their hearts’ desire opened every door, looking for their Dawn.

Did you ever notice how often the familiar prophecies use will?

The LORD will indeed give what is good, our land will yield its harvest.

The desert and the parched land will be glad, the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.

They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Today, far removed from Jewish women’s hopeful waiting, we carry our own stories of night and longing–at least all those attuned to their inner pulse. Single women hope for true love and meaningful work and a place to belong. But we don’t have a monopoly on longing and hope. Hope for dawn, for change, for the night to end, is the common thread that connects all people who carry hope for years.

But here’s the kicker: hope is slippery.

Hope is shaped by and linked to desire.

And desire is closely akin to demand, which is where hope turns ugly.

We know how those demanding faces look. We’ve heard the bossy, impatient voices in our living rooms or in front of us at Starbucks. Next time, let’s listen with compassion to that brassy, harsh woman. Maybe her hope went awry. Maybe her hope was sweet at first, but that was ten years ago, then her hope spiraled into demand, and the woman’s crustiness has nothing to do with the poor barista and everything to do with heartache.

When the Jews didn’t get their promised Messiah for thousands of years, their hope wept and moaned, “How long, O Lord?” What I love about this is that God never told them to stop groaning and asking.

Lament is a form of hope because it looks outside itself for the dawn. Lament acknowledges the deep holes of the soul; lament names what is dark. And with tenacious, stunning courage, lament lifts its eyes beyond the closed door to the eastern horizon.

Hope requires immense courage and staggering risk, holding throbbing possibility that sometimes makes me feel I’ll bleed out. With all due respect to Emily Dickinson, hope asks me for far, far more than crumbs.

The Psalms model for me hope’s posture: name what is unbearably dark and unfair, weep and howl over it, and open my door to God who brings the dawn.

The purest form of hope is worship. Hope doesn’t kick open the door nor slam it shut and go silent. Hope turns the knob, risks the click of the latch and mourns the devastating darkness and speaks to the Man of Sorrows who’s acquainted with grief. Lament is worship because it trusts the only one who can do anything about the dark, and it declares Him endlessly loving and mighty and wonderful.

Hope is not a chirpy Pollyanna. Hope is nurtured in silence and secrecy, but its softness and expectancy leak out in winsome, delightful ways of living. In contrast, crushed hope-turned-bitter festers in invisible places of the personhood, but reveals itself in caustic words and ugly negativity. The old saying is true: what’s in the heart comes out.

Luke records that Zechariah, finally able to speak after his son John was born, crafted a prophetic poem of worship. His people’s long wait was nearly over, and he worshiped:

…the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven.

Zechariah had opened every door, didn’t stop hoping for Dawn, and named what He loved about God: His tender mercy.

Maybe hope involves more than the thing hoped for, more than the dawn waited for. Maybe the best part about hope is that it’s the place we experience, sweetly and piercingly, God’s tender mercy even in–especially in–the dark.

I wrote a book one time about living well in a place I hadn’t planned to be. It also talks about how to dream, which is akin to hope. You can order your copy here!