First Sunday of Advent

Luke 21:25-28,34-36

Advent is indeed a time of hopeful anticipation. But the hope that it represents has never been rooted in cheerful circumstances. To the contrary, this hope has always risen from difficult days and desperate situations. Despair is not simply the opposite of hope. If the hope that we have in Christ were rooted in a state of endless bliss, what kind of hope would it be? But how much meaning it has when it flows from people who acknowledge that they are sinners awaiting the coming of Christ.