Too often, we hear religious and secular leaders appeal to the virtue of hope as a form of magical solution to an experience that brings about total desolation. Sometimes, these inspiring narratives serve as a psychological medicine for those who lament social and structural injustices that have come to define their lives. Also, these narratives can become a strategic attempt to flee from reality and dwell in the domain of utopia. One can imagine how the biblical Israelites dwelling in the southern Kingdom of Judah must have felt as the Prophet Isaiah uttered these prophetic words found in Isaiah 11:1-10 to them and their ruler, King Ahaz. This is because, Judah was under threats from the great Assyrian Empire and the Syrian Kingdom and the Kingdom of Israel who wanted Judah to join them in their planned attack against the Assyrians.
Caught in the quagmire that threatened the very existence of Judah as a kingdom, one would expect a wise king to be strategic and as such, figure out how to play off his enemies. This was what King Ahaz did by joining side with the Assyrians against his kinspeople in the northern Kingdom of Israel and their friendly neighbor, the Syrians. Yet, this strategic move by Ahaz is condemned by God because Ahaz fails to trust in the enduring word of God. His political pragmatism becomes the backdrop for Isaiah’s disruptive proclamation of hope.
Having rejected the kingship of Ahaz, God speaks to the biblical Israelites living in Judah of a day when God’s promise of redemption will be fulfilled. But this divine promise confronts a community weighed down by fear and uncertaintyRealistically, one can imagine the pragmatic response to this promise – what day is that and when will it be realized? When people suffer unjustly, they do have the legitimate right to ask the pragmatic question, when will all this end? To ask such a question is not a rejection of hope. Rather, it is to take God’s word seriously and demand that God must keep the promise made.
Too often, we are conditioned to think that doubt is a sign of a lack of hope. In fact, to doubt is to show a credible sign of intimacy. One never doubts that which one has not fallen in love with. The burden of intimacy and love is to sometimes doubt. This is credible evidence of intimacy with God. However, there is a difference between doubt and despair. Ahaz despaired and took matters into his own hands. He chose to become a stooge of the Assyrians and to embrace their deities as well. For these, God rejected his kingship. Isaiah’s vision, therefore, emerges not from despair but from God’s invitation to a deeper trust.
As one listens to the prophetic witness of Isaiah, one is forced to wonder what type of kingship God wants to replace that of Ahaz with. This becomes most relevant when one considers the fact that empires embrace force as a tool for legitimizing their territorial claims over other nations. God’s promise interrupts this imperial logic entirely. Here is God telling the biblical Israelites through Isaiah of a new era where biological enemies will become allies. How can a wolf be a guest of the lamb? Isn’t it the nature of wolves to devour lambs? This is the disruptive power of the content of hope that one must never ignore. Hope is not about the realization of the familiar. Rather, it is about the gift of surprise that steers those who hope in God towards a new way of being in the world – transcendence.
The Church is intentional at choosing this text for the second Sunday of Advent. Lest Christians forget that God is not like the earthly powers who only perpetuate narcissistic agenda and a social way of being that validates a scarcity mindset, where resources are stolen from the weak by the powerful, Christian hope is about surrendering to a God who is persistent at keeping his word. It is not just about keeping his word, rather, it is more about transforming our collective imagination to allow for a completely new way of being and seeing the world.
From a psychological point of view, the experience of loss can be painful, especially when the loss is due to the abuse of power by the powerful over the powerless. For example, the current genocide playing out in Sudan can be traumatizing and make the victims experience the psychological pain of powerlessness in the face of those who harm them. Yet, to regain what one has lost can go so far at soothing the lamenting heart. It is never enough. Rebuild Sudan as it used to be, the memory of the pain suffered in the past will never go away. What can address such enduring pain of loss that is coded in the psyche of the victims is to be given a new gift that transcends the old logic of what it means to have something. This is what is playing out in this text. Christians, just as the biblical Israelites living in Judah, are reminded of the new promise of God. It is a promise of a new world where ways of being transcend the familiar logic of society. It is a promise where the healing of old injuries does not mean returning to the old world where those injuries occurred. Rather, it is about transcendence.
Advent hope is all about transcendence. It calls for a new social logic that instantiates new modes of being human and relating with others. In the new horizon that opens up for all who embrace Advent hope, God is seen as a God of radical solidarity. This God demands that all who are given life by him must also be agents of life for others. This is because, God has declared that the knowledge of God ought to be a liberating power for all who are held captive by structural evils.
Where marginalities and tribal mindsets used to prevail, encounters and radical inclusion must now become the norm. Where the hated that causes genocidal violence used to be legitimized, an embrace of the other as children of God must now prevail. There shall be no more Gentiles for all have become God’s chosen people. This new vision demands that the old understanding of God as a tribal, racial, ethnic, or national deity give way to a God of all creation who instantiates abundant life for all.
Finally, while we may not be called to despair as did Ahaz, our love of God and fidelity to his word demands that we cry out to him in the face of suffering. Our cries are like rivers that connect us from our insular modes of existence to a God who never fails. To do this, we must surrender our logic to the illogicality of God’s enduring promise.
