Hope

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool. ~ Albert Camus, The Rebel (1951)

Today is the First Sunday of Advent. It is also the First Sunday of the Church’s Liturgical Year.

Advent means coming and in this season (mainline) Christians prepare for the coming of the Christ. One of the ways of preparation is by making an Advent wreath and lighting its candles as reminder of the gifts Christ brings to the world.

The gift celebrated on this First Sunday of Advent is Hope.

Many years ago, when I was a student at the University of Louisville’s Kent School of Social Work, one of my professors said that hope was the most evil teaching of all religions. He said that humans—and the world—were basically hope-less; there was no hope in the future, so we must depend upon ourselves alone.

The first thought his words evoked was Albert Camus’ explanation of The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus used Sisyphus's perpetual and futile pushing of that damned boulder to the top of the mountain only to see it roll back down again as a metaphor for our contemporary lives spent working at repeated tasks in offices and factories. We never consider the absurdity of our situations except, perhaps, as Camus observes, only at the rare moments when we becomes conscious of the absurdity of our work and existence.

My theological perspective is that without the hope that at some future time the boulder that Sisyphus was condemned to eternally push to the top of the mountain only to see it roll back down again would remain on the mountaintop, Sisyphus would go completely insane. Likewise, without some sense of hope that our existence is beyond absurdity—that there is something more to life than our lives spent working at repetitive tasks—we are condemned to the neurotic existence our society has created for us.

This is where the hope of Advent comes in. It is also why so many of us believe in something beyond ourselves. It is a primary function of our religion, being it Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, or any of the other myriad faiths practiced in our world.

Christians celebrate on this First Sunday of Advent the gift of hope—hope that our lives are not futile; that something lies beyond our absurdity.

I, for one, need that hope!

Hope abides; therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory. ~ Sri Chinmoy