Hope- Advent 2022

A thrill of hope. The weary world rejoices.

O Holy Night was originally in French, and sometimes this line is translated "The weary soul" rejoices. I'm Ben, and I'm a first year teacher in a tough school, so I count as a weary soul. And in this season of my life, the hope of God thrills me.

That's because my new job burned up all my other hopes. Before Labor Day.

I was hired in July and I was feeling hopeful. I had just started anti-anxiety medication - it was working great. I was excited about the possibility of a new career, teaching theatre to middle school students.

After just two weeks in the classroom, I had to double my dose of Lexapro, just to keep from falling apart. Any first year teacher is falling apart, and I also work at a challenging school. I've broken up fights in my classroom. Half of my classes literally cannot stop talking for 30 seconds.

There's no simple way out of this. I've tried behavior systems, positive reinforcement, contacting parents, engaging lesson plans, rearranging my room. I've tried Hamilton.

There are wonderful people at my schools who want to help me and do help me. They're doing the best that they can, but they're also weary souls who are also beyond capacity. Together we make up a weary school in a weary world. And we need real hope outside of ourselves, and outside of the school system.

What I want to believe, what the world wants me to believe, what Instagram ads want me to believe is that possibility produces hope. But in Romans 5, the apostle Paul says that suffering produces hope. Specifically that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

For Christians, suffering produces real hope by pointing us away from possibility and to what has already been done in Christ and the love of God that has already been given to us through the Holy Spirit.

Suffering produces hope, and I really wish there was another way. But if hope were earned through chances and striving and results and luck, who could attain it? And how many could attain it? 

But we can all suffer. We all do suffer. And when you're a weary soul in a weary world, what's something that you can do? That's really easy to do?

Fall. Fall on your knees and hear the angel voices.

A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Fall on your knees

Oh hear the angel voices

Oh night divine

Oh night when Christ was born