We Wait in Certain Hope That Christ Is Coming

We Wait in Certain Hope That Christ Is Coming

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
   so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
   for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
   the face of God?
My tears have been my food
   day and night,
while people say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

These things I remember,
   as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
   and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
   a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
   therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
   from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
   at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
   have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
   and at night his song is with me,
   a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
   ‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
   because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
   my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
   ‘Where is your God?’

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
   and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
   my help and my God.

                                                     Psalm 42

 

This illustration of HOPE, sees the very word written into creation, our common home, among vines growing in search of light, as we grow in search of Christ. 

The Advent candle radiates light, merging into water droplets, a reminder that all life is sacred, and One. We cannot live without water, we cannot live without light, nor can we live without hope.   

As the cracked earth cries out to be quenched, so too our “soul thirsts for the living God” (Psalm 42:2) who, though we have faith will come, can so often beg the question “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:3) 

In these dark times, when such unbearable violence is taking place where Jesus lived on Earth, how profound it is that the Psalmist names Mount Hermon in Palestine as a place from which “I walk about mournfully…with a deadly wound in my body,” yet still finishes to say, “Hope in God.” It has been suggested that Mount Hermon may even be the site of the Transfiguration. 

As we approach Christmas, when God so radically and transformatively becomes incarnate, as one of us, in the mess, pain, and struggle of human life, we must have hope in the fulfilment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah: 

“The days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah. In those days, in that time, I will raise up from David a just shoot; he shall do what is right and just in the land.” (Jeremiah 33:14-15) 

That tiny, fragile shoot is coming. He came to us as a baby, born under occupation, in a land of turmoil and chaos. He is coming to us now.  

Erin Kennedy is a Catholic freelance visual artist, educator, and Mum of three who's working to create intentional Christian community with her husband and fellow Christians in Logan, South of Brisbane.

This devotional is the fourth in a series of daily email devotionals for Advent 2023. This year's series reflects on the longing, hope, and beauty of God’s ‘Common Home’ being realised, revealed, and renewed through the birth of Jesus.

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