The Thrill of Hope

I’ve never been able to explain it.

Christmas drives me nuts.  It takes control of me quite ruthlessly and doesn’t let go unless a couple weeks into January.  It’s something outside of this world that swoops down and grabs me.  It fills me with joy.  With hope. What is it?  It’s kinda silly.  I mean, December 25th is, REALLY, just another day on the calendar … why does it FEEL so magical?

The song O Holy Night, talks about a “thrill of hope”.  It’s easy to miss a little tiny lyric like that … but when you think about it in context, it’s insanely epic.  But at the same time, fervently and tear-jerkingly intimate.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

Imagine a “weary world”, immersed in “sin and error pining” … hopelessness.  At some point in the very distant past, they were promised a Messiah.  But after years and decades and centuries and millennia of expecting turning to wondering turning to doubting turning to forgetting … all of the sudden, somebody sees a star in the sky.  Nobody wants to believe it.  But this star …  … represents the thrill of hope.

I was talking to my brother about what “hope” is.  We decided that “hope” is that pivot of “what if”.  Let me share some examples.

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“I know we’re facing an infinite army of Sauron … BUT WHAT IF Frodo is still alive?”

“I know there’s no hope for the Blue Jays to win the World Series … BUT WHAT IF Joe Carter hits a Grand Slam?”

“I know George Bailey is going to jail … BUT WHAT IF we can raise the money he needs?”

“I know there’s 384403 km, an unpredictable atmosphere and the dead cold of space between Earth and the Moon … BUT WHAT IF we could land a space shuttle there?”

“I know the Nazi forces are going to smear our corpses all over the battlefield … BUT WHAT IF something as simple as bad weather delays Hitler long enough for reinforcements to arrive?”

“I know I just watched the Twin Towers crumble to the ground … BUT WHAT IF we can save some of the people inside?”

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It’s easy to imagine the moment before the pivot.  We’ve all had moments of hopelessness.  Whether mild or deathly serious.

It’s also easy to imagine the moment after the pivot.  We’ve all heard of football games where a receiver nabs the ball out of the air and, against all odds, runs clear across the field and wins the game with mere milliseconds to spare.

The most difficult thing for me to articulate is that moment of the pivot.  The thrill of hope.

Hope is crazy.  Hope is a rebellion against everything you’re expected to believe.  That fictional wizard Galdalf had it right when he said: ”There never was much hope.  Just a fool’s hope.”  There have been men and women in fiction & history who dared to hope and were first considered fools.  Morpheus.  Aragorn.  Roosevelt.  Churchill.  Obama.  They were fools to be the first to say “What if?”  Nobody wants to believe a fool.

The best way to articulate that pivot point of hope is the snap of the last play in a hopeless football game.  A good quarterback knows that the only way they’ll have a chance at winning is to somehow get that ball into the hands of most foolish guy on his team.  Because the fool is the only one who believes it’s possible.

He gets the ball and starts running.  People shake their heads and scoff.  He gets past the first blocker, people shut their mouths and start watching.  He gets past the second guy, and everybody drops their nachos.  By the time he’s past the fourth guy, everybody is on their feet, screaming – filled with this thrill of hope.  ”I know he’s not going to make it … BUT WHAT IF he does!”

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“I know we’ve been enslaved for more generations than we can count and the prophecy of a Messiah is probably nothing more than a silly legend that won’t come true …

…

…

BUT WHAT IF that star in the sky means something?”

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I don’t know about you, but I’m glad Jesus had the guts to show up, put his glory aside, take the ball and start running into the deadly football field that is the world.

It’s difficult to understand what Jesus’ coming to the Earth meant … much less to articulate it.  The “magic of Christmas” has become a devastatingly overused cliché but WHAT IF there IS some kind of mystical, otherworldly realism to it?  That force from outside this world I mentioned at the beginning … that swoops down and grabs me every Christmas … what if that’s the thrill of hope trying to find a home … so it moves into the first guy wearing a Santa hat.  Then again, maybe I’m just Christmas crazy.

In any case, I believe that the Christmas we celebrate today is no more than a rusted, decrepit old remnant of what Christmas once was.  But if we can somehow hold onto this thrill of hope … maybe we’ll get closer …

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francy