Cultivating Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love this Advent

It’s been a really hard year. Two of my grandparents have been in and out of the hospital all year, and my dog passed away at the age of six in July due to cancer. I’ve had to walk with students and friends through some really complicated circumstances. And to put the sarcastic cherry on top, I’ve had to wrestle with all the death and destruction I see in the world. When people who care about me have asked me how I’m doing, I've often said, “It feels like death is at my doorstep.”

Looking back on this past year, it feels particularly complex to enter this season of Advent.  Traditionally, Advent is a four-week-long period prior to Christmas, devoted to preparing our hearts for Christ’s birth and his return. 

Each Sunday during this season also focuses on a key theme: hope, peace, joy, and love. It’s hard to feel hopeful when a lot of my hopes about the future died this year. It’s hard to feel peace when it seems like every month there’s a new circumstance outside of my control I need to navigate. It’s hard to feel joy in a year that has been marked by so much weeping. And it’s hard to feel love when the reason why I grieve is that I loved what I lost. 

That being said, it’s in years like this that I NEED Advent. I need to be reminded of hope, peace, joy, and love. I think there are two reasons for this. 

1. Advent Reminds Us of God’s Faithfulness

Advent helps me reframe hope, peace, joy, and love from products of my circumstances to gifts from God. 

Few stories in Scripture convey this truth better than Mary’s actions in Luke 1. Mary has just learned she is pregnant — despite being unmarried — and that her child, according to the angel, will be called the Son of the Most High. 

In first-century Jewish society, this is a terrifying and life-threatening discovery. A pregnancy like this could bring public shame, social isolation, and even punishment under the law. Yet, instead of withdrawing, Mary goes to the home of her relative, Elizabeth, and sings a song of hope, peace, joy, and love, known as Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55). 

Mary is not naive about her reality but chooses to see how God is at work despite her circumstances. She has eyes to see and hands to receive God’s gifts, saying, “The Mighty One has done great things for me” (Luke 1:49). 

As I reflect back on the past year, I would be lying to myself if I said there weren’t ways God was offering me gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love. Regardless of how hard things have been, God has felt incredibly near, and I’ve experienced his invitations to trust what he’s doing constantly throughout the year. I’ve experienced deep love from my wife and close friends in the aftermath of putting my dog down and in processing so many hospital visits. And, just like Mary, these experiences with the Lord have drawn me to sing songs of praise. 

However, at the time of writing this post, I don’t personally feel like singing very many songs.  This brings me to the second reason I need Advent. 

2. Advent Draws Us Into Community

Advent helps me reframe hope, peace, joy, and love from individual feelings to communal commitments. I love knowing that during Advent, I’m not engaging with this season of practices alone, but with the global church. 

It’s a season where we all choose to remember Jesus’ birth and second coming, which means that when I don’t have the strength or ability to sing songs of hope or joy, I can lean on my sisters and brothers next to me who can. I can be like Elizabeth and receive Mary’s song with delight. I can be like the disciples who benefited from Peter’s proclamation of faith that Jesus is the Messiah in Matthew 16. What a joy it is to know that my ability to engage with God in this season isn’t solely dependent on my own experiences! 

How might the Lord be inviting you to enter into this Advent season? Is there a song he might be inviting you to sing in community? Is he asking you to lean on the faith of those around you?

God, thank you for the gift of Advent. Would we know your faithfulness as we celebrate that you are with us and making all things new. Amen.