Pastor’s Corner – November 30, 2025
Advent: Optimism or Hope? Matthew 24:36-44
Jürgen Moltmann, one of my favorite theologians, at the age of sixteen was drafted to the German army in 1943 fighting the British force in Hamburg, his home town. He was responsible for an antiaircraft with other teenage soldiers. There he experienced the horror of war and cried out to God for the first time. Later he ended up in Scotland as a prisoner of war for three years. In the camp he read the Gospel of Mark and came across a passage where Jesus cried out on the cross and died, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” There he felt, “there is a divine brother who feels the same as I do, saving me from self destruction and desperation.”
In Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, he makes a clear distinction between optimism and hope, and by hope he means Christian hope; Jesus who is the human face of God in solidarity with human suffering is hope. Optimism is anticipation of a possible bright future based on the past or present promise. When my son does well in school academically, I can be optimistic for his success in college, but it would be misleading to be optimistic about athletic prowess in football, since there is no basis for him in that field. We can be optimistic for our projected budget for the coming year based on the past and present generosity. We can be optimistic for our future political landscape, however messy our present reality may be, based on movements within that call for change and accountability.
Christian hope on the other hand is when everything is lost and there is no hope but despair, God comes to us as light in darkness! When we feel utterly forsaken and feel there is no future but only present anxiety that anticipates horror, meaninglessness, despair and death, we feel the presence of God in Christ. Therefore, Christian hope in Jesus anticipates joy in present life no matter what circumstances we may be in because God is coming.
This, my beloved, is Advent! More than ever do we not feel the need for Advent that anticipates the coming of God? Let this desire set the tune for our season today, as a movement from despair to hope, from loneliness to communion, from horror to joy, from death to life! Throughout the Advent season God reminds us of God’s faithfulness in Jesus Christ. So, in the name of Jesus who is our hope and light, come Sunday let us worship God! Amen.
Pastor Dae