03.12.2025
Saint Francis
First Sunday of Advent
Nov. 30, 2025
St. Francis Lutheran Church
Pastor Elizabeth Ekdale
Hurry up and wait! Start that hymn! Light that candle! Finish that sermon!
We do a lot of waiting in our lives – it is part of our human condition. And there are many different ways to wait. Generally, we are impatient, exasperated, and annoyed while waiting.
We believe waiting has no value and nothing good comes from it.
As people of faith, there is a different way to wait in our lives. We can wait with hope. Hope, unlike optimism, is independent of our circumstances. Hope is not based on the possibilities of the situation. Hope is grounded in the faithfulness of God and God’s promises. Hope is a central theme during this blue season of Advent.
Despite some frightening images, the Advent reading from Matthew offers not fear and damnation, but hopeful expectation. God in Christ comes again because God loves us. When will this happen? Only God knows. But in the meantime, we are to wait with hope.
Be on guard, Jesus says. Be mindful. Wake up. In other words, don’t let your heart be weighed down -- your spirit distracted with the worries of this life, so you overlook the signs of new life and hope all around. Keep alert. Signs of hope are all around -- even in the most unexpected places.
Let me share a story of where I experienced hope in the most unlikely of places. I’ve traveled to El Salvador many times to accompany a Lutheran congregation in their lives of faith. The poverty is grim. The lack of healthcare is unjust. The gang killings rob families of their innocent children.
The suffering of our Christian siblings of Cordero de Dios is palpable. But so is their hope which I’ve witnessed in the most surprising of places – cemeteries. Yes, grief is always present but it is a grief infused with hope and faith. On every grave, are colorful and elaborate decorations – flowers, candles, streamers, and ribbons – an abundance of decorations. Decorations that are almost joyful. It is a recognition that death does not have the final word for their loved one. Families can wait with hope until that day when they are reunited. It was a witness to us that hope can spring up even in the valley of the shadow death; indeed, it is there that hope becomes truly manifest. Hope can thrive even in situations which can elicit only utter hopelessness. Why? Because hope is based on God’s coming into the darkness to dispel it with divine light. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. Where have you experienced hope in the most unlikely of places of your lives? Where at St. Francis?
Jesus' call to be alert and to pray for God’s realm to break through into our world is as pertinent a call for us this Advent as it ever has been. Famine, war, disease, still plague our world. Closer to home, people struggle with misplaced priorities, greed, and the trivialization of relationships. Our broken and hurting world needs Christ to come and so we refocus our empty waiting to waiting with hope expectant and longing for Christ to come again.
If darkness has descended upon you and your world, you need not try to persuade yourself that things are not as bad as they seem or to search desperately for reasons to be optimistic. Remind yourself instead of a very simple promise: the light of the One who was in the beginning with God -- shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
If you need further encouragement to wait with hope, come to worship every Sunday during this Advent Season -- we have 3 hope-filled Sundays remaining in this brief season. Even today, we discover hope and love in the presence of the AIDS Memorial quilt displayed in our fellowship hall. Yes, we grieve the lives of our loved ones cut short by AIDS. This congregation continues to mourn the death of our beloved ones. Yet, there is hope -- when I saw our panel for the first time, I saw hope in the love of family and friends who created each square. Even in our grief, there is everlasting and sacred hope.
The world has launched into Christmas – no waiting allowed. Here we can. As we wait with hope, I invite you to sit quietly and come face to face with the twilight musings of this Advent season and our lives. Ruminate on your hurts and hopes in your heart and know that in your hands a candle will soon flicker to you the message of peace and healing and light born in a manger. Our hope-filled waiting becomes our ability to savor. Our hope-filled waiting enables our hearts and minds to focus on what genuinely matters. Our waiting transforms our anxiety and impatience into thankfulness beyond measure with an overwhelming promise of new life for each one of us in Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Sources and Inspiration:
Advent Sermon by Rev. Susan Kintner preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Palo Alto
Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 1967
