Advent—the season when we talk about waiting and hope. The place that always makes me think of Advent is the airport. No one wants to live there. We’re only willing to endure the lines and the $35 turkey sandwich because it gets us where we’re going. Airports are thick with expectation—and frustration. That’s Advent, too: slowing down, lighting candles as the days darken, naming our need for Christ, and admitting we’re not where we want to be yet.
Jeremiah speaks to people who needed hope desperately. They’re in exile—marched away from home and temple, starting over in Babylon, wondering if God is still with them, wishing they could go back. In that darkness, Jeremiah promises a different kind of future: not nostalgia, but a ruler whose reign looks like justice and righteousness. Hope isn’t just “feeling better soon”; hope is God setting things right.
We know the ache. After nearly two years of pandemic at the time, we kept revising our timelines: first, “when this is over,” then “when things go back to normal,” then “when things settle down,” and finally… “sometime.” Like gate updates that bump your flight in 20-minute increments—3:00… 3:20… 3:40… 4:00—our optimism kept slipping. That kind of hope grabs for the next rung. Sometimes that’s all we can manage. But Jeremiah invites deeper hope.
Deeper hope is plural. I noticed how often I say, “I hope…” Jeremiah’s promise is for a people—“Judah,” “Jerusalem”—and for generations yet unborn. Advent hope is bigger than my mood; it’s the future God is making for us.
Two pictures help. Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber tells of laboring 44 hours with her first child. She says she kept going because she imagined her mother, grandmother, and a long line of women who had “ridden that freight train” before her. Hope came from belonging to a people. She also describes ordination: kneeling while others lay hands on you, feeling the weight of those who once kneeled, too. Our vows stand because we shoulder them together. That’s what Jeremiah’s promise sounds like—communal, connected, sustained.
Then there’s the Stockdale Paradox (from Admiral James Stockdale’s seven years as a POW): hold two truths at once—an unshakable confidence that, in the end, life will prevail, and a ruthless honesty about present reality. The “optimists” who kept saying “by Christmas… by Easter…” often broke when dates slipped; truth-telling hope endured. Advent trains exactly that muscle: candles and honesty, hymns and headlines, “the days are surely coming” and “this day hurts.”
So, what does Advent hope look like here?
It is truthful: not wishful thinking or a return-to-normal fantasy, but eyes-open trust that God is acting.
It is communal: not just “I hope,” but “we hope”—for our neighbors, children, and those yet to come.
It is moral: tied to justice and righteousness, not just comfort. If our hope never moves us toward Matthew-25 work—eradicating poverty, dismantling structural racism, vitalizing congregational life—it isn’t Jeremiah’s kind of hope.
Friends, let’s hope together this Advent. Light the candle. Tell the truth about now. Refuse airport optimism that only kicks the can. Pray and work for justice and righteousness—the shape of God’s future—and trust that the Branch who comes in Bethlehem will finish what he starts.
