Season of Perpetual Hope

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There is no death worse than the end of hope. -Pelagius, 120AD, Rome

I watch one movie each Christmas without fail- Home Alone. I watch it because it's reminiscent of my youth, because it features Mannheim Steamroller Christmas music, because it talks about what matters most- love and family. I watch it because of a special line. When Kevin's mother struggles to fly home to be with and look out for her son, she tells the man in Scranton that this is "the season of perpetual hope". I like that. I like this movie for that. I like that it has a happy ending. I am hoping to have one myself.

It's the time of year when we hope we have actually been good. It's when we hope that good things will come our way. It's when many young men hope the young women with whom they are infatuated will accept their proposals. It's when we hope our families will accept our significant others and that everyone at the family gathering will get along. It's when we hope to get something that isn't trash from the White Elephant exchange. It's when we hope that the delicious and decadent foods we eat don't actually count towards our caloric intake! It's when we hope people we love will think of, remember, visit, and love us as much as we love them. It's when children hope presents will materialize if they go to bed on time. It's when parents hope to find the special gift or be able to assemble it in time! It's when we hope to have enough to make miracles for other people. It's when we sometimes give hope to others by our kind deeds. It's when we hope that the next year will be better. It's when we all hope that the world might one day be a little kinder, a little safer, a little more beautiful because of "peace, goodwill toward men". It's of course the season when we hope that God will forgive us because His son was willing to step in and take our stripes for us.

Last week, I thought about the last years since I moved to Vegas. I realized that they alternate between a really lousy year and then a decent or at least quiet one. For me, 2015 has really sucked. Last year was quiet, and 2013 sucked, but 2012 was the best year of my life because of a particular person because of whom I hoped for things I really thought might be lost to me forever. Next year, if the pattern holds, it will at least be quiet, but it could be awesomesauce. As you well know if you read anything I write regularly, this time of year, I think about my perpetual hope that God will send me a geautiful birl or restore one to me taken from me and allow me to be a dad, raise some children, and have a reason to get up excitedly on Christmas morning. This year, for the very first time in a long time, when I thought of the Christ child, I considered the prospects for my own, the promise of progeny that accompanies the rainbows I see. I keep hoping that "love" was real and will return.

Christ is our highest and most lasting hope. I find it silly that so many people, particularly our leaders, insist on trying to make earth, which is fallen, the utopia that heaven alone can sustain, trying to build with imperfect men what only the perfect Christ can attain. "A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn". Christians are the true religion of peace. That doesn't mean everyone who purports to be Christian is, but Christians are the kindest, most giving people as a rule on the planet. It's because we realize we are lost, fallen, helpless, and hopeless, unless we are found acceptable in Christ's eyes to receive of His mercy, His grace, and His gifts. He doesn't need our frankincense, gold, or myrrh, but He does need our faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity, humility, and diligence. Each of us hopes to be a better man next year than we were in this, and at Christmas we get the chance to practice those virtues, not only with strangers, but more importantly with those we claim to love. Far too many people assume virtues for acts of beneficence towards people they never met and excuse atrocities against their own kin. This makes their beneficence towards strangers largely imaginary but their spite towards their families wholly real. Let us really love those we say we love and then meet other people so that we can love them too. That's what Christ would have us all do as a gift on His birthday.

I do not think it is a bad thing to celebrate Christmas proximal to the New Year, when we consider on the past, plan for the future, and hope for good things in the present. Each day is a gift. It allows us to hope that today will be better than yesterday, that this year will be better than last, that our present self will improve on the decisions made by the self we put to bed the night before. Christmas, because of Christ and what He represents, is truly the season of perpetual hope, that helps us consider that anything is possible, that any man, no matter how low he falls, is still a Child of God and within His reach through the Atonement of a Savior. "I bring you glad tidings of great joy that shall be unto all people for unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord." Hope. Hope that Christ will do what He promises. Hope that He will bring you good gifts. Hope that He loves you enough to save you from the mistakes of your past. Hope that His power, mercy, grace, and virtue will cancel out your weakness and rebelliousness. "Wherefore, how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth, that they may know that there is no flesh that can dwell in the presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah, who layeth down his life according to the flesh, and taketh it again by the power of the Spirit, that he may bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, being the first that should rise...he shall make intercession for all the children of men". Whatever else happens in this world, wherever I fail, and whenever other people hedge up my way, my hope is in Christ who eventually will make all things right. He knows what I hope, what I wish, who I miss, and where I would like to be. For a wise purpose in Him that's not where I am needed most at least right now, and everything I have earned will eventually come to pass. He is the Lord of the Harvest, and the promise is sure that whoso believeth in Him shall have life everlasting. This is Christmas, the season of perpetual hope, and I don't care if it costs me everything I own, I am going to get in line with God's Only Begotten Son.

Merry Christmas. May God's love be more evident in your life this year, and may His spirit be with and abide in you today and always. Godspeed.