It is Christmas Eve for the Cook family, and we are nestled in at my sister’s house just north of Washington D.C. The remnants of the storm that hit Michigan rolled in this morning. Freezing rain fell with its distinctive crackle as it lightly covered steps, sidewalks and streets and delayed forays out for critical items in the last hours of the shopping season.

The hazy afternoon brought a thaw and some of the family are napping, Jocelyn and Julia have gone out in search of a few last grocery items and a “reset session” at a local playground Julia has been eyeing. I’m sitting in a quiet corner of the living room and peace has settled into my bones.

Finally, we are all able to breathe…

Jocelyn and I had the good sense to put up all the Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, thinking it would give us space to enjoy December. But the late Thanksgiving compressed the season into a near unmanageable sprint nonetheless. 

I was able to poke fun at it a bit with my Christmas thank you card that went to the 300 volunteers in Kensington’s Care Initiatives. There I was, happily sprinting along, presents in hand with a thousand holiday expectations and regrets chasing me. If I’m honest, though, it would have been a little more true-to-life to replace the painted-on smile with a grimace of anxiety. 

Don’t get me wrong – there is a lot of fun and reconnection to be had. We break from our typical rhythms to remember and be grateful. But at the same time, I felt a kind of “decision fatigue” set in as we thought through our mounting gift and Christmas card lists. The shorter time we had to take in all of the “magic of the season” between Thanksgiving and Xmas exhausted us all the more. 

And as we all ran from place to place, commitment to commitment, event to event, I’m embarrassed to admit that, sometimes, I barely heard the Christmas carols promising the peace of the season.

There was one, however, that managed to cut through the Yuletide noise. It’s a favorite of many:

A thrill of hope the weary soul rejoices… 

I’d been pondering that line for weeks. I was reminded of it in a blog post from a friend who offered it among others as Hymns of Peace for Turbulent Times. It was also one of the feature songs in Kensington’s Christmas Eve services>.

As I rolled those promises around in my head, I came to realize it isn’t just me that’s weary. It sometimes feels like the very bones of the earth are feeling the fatigue with us.

We lie to ourselves and each other with often devastating personal, relational, and communal consequences. 

We yell at each other on social platforms – conceived of only in the last twenty-five years – with algorithms designed and continuously tuned to generate ever greater strife, fueled by bad actors who profit from our mutual outrage.

We have undergone perhaps the most contentious election in a century. And while some brace in anxiety for the next four years and beyond, others welcome and celebrate the disruption.

We are weary. 

I am weary. Weary – and waiting – for a thrill of Hope. In that weariness, it would be easy to “opt out” and go in search of something to deaden the pain.

But when I invest time to pursue a bit of quiet and solitude, letting a larger Reality overtake and still the clamor of my everyday demands and regrets, I can hear the promise of something wild and marvelous in the stories we re-tell and celebrate this season.

That Hope and its attendant thrill that we all long for is, in fact, a Person.

Hope came to us in our weariness, enfleshed in the utter vulnerability of an infant born under dubious circumstances and crushing poverty. 

Hope pierced through the frustration compounded by the prophets of old falling silent for four centuries. It was Reality’s quiet response to generations of coercion, power plays and bloodshed.

Hope – even now – cuts against the demonic construct of assigned worth based on performance, social status, and wealth. 

And those weary souls who awoke and understood were thrilled and rejoiced.

And yet, even though Hope is infinitely and lavishly available, it is perplexingly elusive in the earthly thrills we pursue.

Hope will evade participation in our satisfaction when everything seemingly comes together in our personal or work lives.

It isn’t Hope filling us when we get our next shiny new phone, go on our next vacation or clinch that next business deal. 

Hope (and its thrill) has nothing to do with having the right party – or person – in political power.

The Thrill of Hope is made manifest when we surrender to it and let it grow into a conviction of something… bigger… than our small agendas and ultimately meaningless desires. As we grow into that conviction, we will be progressively driven by the self-sacrificial Love that reached across infinity, just to be with us in our mess.

Hope has the power to embrace, overcome and redeem even the worst situations we can individually or collectively muster. It is not caught up in the golden, deceptive light of our nostalgia; but offers a clear-eyed future, unfettered by our mistakes. 

Instead, Hope comes near with a steely love, makes room for redemption in the Creation it gifted us (and we have horrifically scarred). Hope then beckons us come near and fully experience a thrilling redemption and transformation – and eventually take part in spreading it.

Australian musician and writer Nick Cave rightly observed, “Hope is optimism with a broken heart.”

Even as we rejoice in Hope, we are invited to let it fill our weariness and join in the Thrill of Hope that makes the world more kind, more just and more fruitful.

The Thrill of Hope fuels an utterly counterintuitive act of rebellion against the powers of chaos, evil and divisiveness. It smacks of utter foolishness to a world still caught up in its own standards of “the good life.”

What does that silent “love rebellion” look like? What are ways we can practically take part?

You might not like the answer. I certainly didn’t.

I am winding up a yearlong personal study of the <Sermon on the Mount> in Matthew’s Gospel. It is perhaps Jesus’ most complete message of God’s original design for human relationships in the face of the world’s brokenness. There is a lot about good news for the poor, the disenfranchised and the lonely that we all need reminded of.

But about four months in, just before May, several threads converged and a new reality came into focus:

We spend a lot of time talking about loving the neighbor, but Jesus calls us to far, far more.

Very early on in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus starts to make a case for Enemy Love with ever-growing challenges in quick succession:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

(note: another translation changes “righteousness” to “right relationships,” and what follows bears it out)

…blessed are the merciful…

…blessed are the peacemakers…

…blessed are you when people insult you… 

(That is, mercy and peacemaking is hard, consequential work.)

It gets even more specific and uncomfortable from there:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (emphasis mine), that you may be children of your Father in Heaven.’” ~ Matthew 5:43-45

Time and time again, God who became enfleshed taught Enemy Love – his teachings are heavy with that countercultural challenge. I simply cannot un-see that – despite the inconvenient and perplexing questions that arise.

Love those for whom your relational expectations are met? Easy Peasy.

Love those you disagree with – where the relational divide is seemingly uncrossable? THAT is where He is ultimately calling us.

A couple of important caveats on this side of heaven:

• This is not giving a pass to perpetrators of genuine trauma in your life. That requires a caring community with real expertise and practical experience to effectively navigate.
• It doesn’t happen overnight. It begins by yielding to the Thrill of Hope and very slowly allowing ourselves to be transformed by it.
• I’m sure there are others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind.

In the end, how far do we go to pursue right relationships? I don’t know. And I don’t believe many – certainly not I – have overcome hardness of heart and touched the outer limits of our ability to experience it. 

Simply put, always go a little further than you’re comfortable. And remember – God says you are mysteriously blessed when people insult you for making the effort.

In the end, I am convinced that the wounds we are experiencing – individually, relationally and societally – will only begin to heal when we slow our rhythms. As we do that, we understand the great Hope that has come to heal and redeem us. When we have done that hard work, Hope invites us to join in the thrilling adventure of taking love, forgiveness and reconciliation to a world that might fight back instead of change.

So take time in the next few days. Recharge. Rest. In tiny ways, let yourself be ever-transformed by Hope; and then give it away in thrilling ways to the undeserving people in your life that Hope wants you to reach.