The hope that doesn't put us to shame

God breaking through in time and place

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5

Lately I find I’m writing a lot about hope. In the last month, I’ve written about where I put my hope, how to cultivate hope, unseasonable and unexpected hope. In a dark world, the maintenance of hope can feel a bit like a full-time job, but if I’m honest, there have been days this week where it all felt too weighty. A couple of nights this week, I skipped my normal prayer and journaling routine, letting fear come in and do its dirty work in my spirit, and wondering whether I’ll ever see some of the things I dearly hope for, all while nursing a kind of existential dread for the coming year¹.

As I write today, it’s the darkest day of the year. The one when the promise of light starts to creep in with each day to follow, the winter solstice. The number of social media posts I’ve seen today centered on the hope of more-light-after-this is… a lot of posts. As it turns out, I’m not the only one who needs to hold onto hope in the dark these days.

Writer Heather Thompson Day wrote this week about her lack of plans for 2025, and it resonated with me, this idea of hope and expectation without specificity, but this is not a work we undergo without challenge. Having a posture of stillness and readiness and trusting a God we don’t see to do things we can’t see yet is not for the faint of heart. But it is the way for people who profess faith.

This week we had the scripture about a priest named Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth who the Bible says, “truly did everything right.”² Zechariah was chosen by lot to go into the Temple to burn incense and there was met by an angel who announced that their long-held prayer was answered. The impossible was happening. Old and unable to have children, Elizabeth would finally bear a son, and they would name him John.

Now, the thing that hits me about this oft-repeated scripture is not the promise nor the miracle, nor the divine silencing of Zechariah, nor the naming of the planned-for Baptist, though those are, of course, wonder-full. But this time on hearing it, it’s the specificity in Luke 1:11 that reaches my ears.

“Then an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah,

standing on the right side of the incense table. “

Do you see why?

We read that the angel of the Lord made himself known to a specific human in a specific time and place. On that particular day, in that Temple, not simply amorphous and floating in its posture, but standing, and not just anywhere but on the right side of the incense table, a place you could point to on a map, and zoom in close-up in a photograph if there were such things then. And God had figured out the perfect timing for this wild announcement, too, making sure that Zechariah was present in a lottery that He for sure had fixed ahead of time, and though this answered prayer may sure have seemed late to John’s weary and elderly parents, the child was in fact right on time to make a way for his cousin, Jesus. In the end, the hope of Elizabeth and Zechariah did not bring them shame.

And, friend, I’m wondering whether you have ever experienced a hope that has brought shame, about the things you thought for sure you’d see by now, things you thought you heard God promise, or if you’ve seen some things you’d hoped and worked and planned for just kind of come apart at the seams. If it didn’t work out in the way you thought, but you’re still hoping, or if you’ve ever felt embarrassed by the hope you’ve continued to hold in your shaking hands about things that seem impossible, I’m here to tell you that you are not alone.

This specificity, this divine breaking-in to human time and space is, of course, what Jesus did in the incarnation, and this physical, active moving of the divine into the human is the reason for our hope. That Luke made sure to note the precise location of the Angel of the Lord standing on the right side of that incense table which existed in a room in the Temple with which they were all familiar - this helps me to believe in a specific and timely breaking into my life and the lives of those I love, and all of the places that really need solid breakthrough these days. Not just songs about light in the darkness, but real, identifiable light. Not gauzy ‘someday’ hope but something we can see and hear and experience and even touch. We need to see long-held prayers bloom into reality as Elizabeth and Zechariah did so that the light can live within us in a way that the world really needs today. We need to have concrete experiences of the Lord opening good doors in a way that we can tell others about from the mountain top. We need to really feel the presence of the Lord coming in, breaking through in ways we may have thought impossible. I need that.

Because that’s who our God is. Emmanuel. God with us, really. That’s our hope, the kind that does not put us to shame.

And this is my prayer for you and me and our dear ones this Christmas. Oh God, reveal your realness to us. O, come let us adore Him.

Raised Catholic rewind:

Christmas Changes Everything - Raised Catholic episode 103 - transcript with link to episode

What I’m reading/watching/recommending this week:

Instagram post - from author Laura Fanucci on being surprised by the joy of pure delight

Song - O the Deep Deep Love of Jesus, by Audrey Assad and Fernando Ortega

practice - make or bake or buy something just for you, thank God for it, feel His smile on you

Prayer:

Oh God how we need you, really, present and helping in a way we can see and experience in this place and time. Thank you God that that is who you are. Please give us eyes to see. For us and our dear ones in the name of Jesus and wrapped in the mantle of our Mother Mary we pray, amen.

1. It’s not my best look, but just being honest with you here, friend.

2. like you and me, I imagine ;)