Advent: Hope & Imagination

From the classic holiday cartoons like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, or “Frosty the Snowman” to the modern-day movie classics like “The Elf '' this season evokes imagination. That's at least a part of the magic of Christmas, is it not? As a child imagination came so easy this time of the year. No matter what perspective of Santa Claus you grew up believing, there was probably at least a little mystery and intrigue connected to the legend of the big guy, ya know? There was a naivety that came to us as children who were able to imagine something beyond the constraints of our reality. For many of us, that creativity wains as we “mature” doesn’t it?

Jesus says in Mark 10:15 that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” There is a child-like aspect of imagination that most of us lose in our adulthood. We grow beyond our capacity to imagine a better way or a different way. For some of us, we spend a lifetime's worth of time and resources trying to recapture our youth and childlikeness. Jesus with some regularity demonstrates that life in the Kingdom of God looks more like child-like faith than our sophistication often allows for. What is it that drives us away from the child-like faith and imagination that Jesus seems to be drawn to? 

Often when I am meeting with a married couple in a pastoral counseling setting processing the ways that they feel stuck in their relationship I ask them to imagine what a marriage they would enjoy would look like. Helping them answer this question usually takes a lot of time and energy. Why is that? Many of us have lost our capacity to imagine. We are well versed and even gifted at applying logic, and that certainly has a place. So much of life is lived beyond the constraints of a linear way of thinking and sometimes A + B doesn’t equal C. When things don’t add up, we get stuck and lack the creativity to dream for a better future. We lack the capacity to imagine a way forward, so we grow increasingly frustrated in our inability to get ourselves and our relationship unstuck! I’ve been there. We’ve all been there, but is that the way of Jesus?

Advent evokes for me this child-like faith and imagination, even in my adulthood. The incarnation of Jesus begins the life of the single most beautiful person this world has ever known. The presence of God took on flesh, came from heaven to live amongst His creation. As if that wasn’t miraculous enough, the story of Jesus doesn’t stop there. 

Jesus, upon whom the glory of God radiates, in whom the image of God is made visible lived a perfect life in His humanity and died a sinner’s death that was deserved by you and me and then rose again from the dead, conquering death, hell, and the grave once and for all,  for all who would believe. The entire birth-death and resurrection of Jesus is one solid and steady stream of marvelousness. Advent invites us to reflect upon His coming, to rest in His presence, and invites us to awe-filled anticipation of His return where we will be with Jesus for all of eternity. 

This past Sunday in observance of Advent, we lit the candle of Hope during our corporate gatherings of Missio Dei Church. We briefly reflected upon the Advent of Jesus, as our hope and read from 1 Peter 1:3-9 which says: 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

How is hope connected to imagination, you may ask? When Jesus entered humanity he came as the person of hope and brought with Him a message of hope. Jesus consistently and regularly invited people into a different way of viewing the world and invited them to live according to a different value system than those of the world. He spoke in parables or stories that evoked imagination and taught this different worldview and these different values in practical and easy-to-understand ways. That is not to say the greater story that He called us into was easier per se, but there was a beautiful simplicity to it. A simplicity that demands imagination. For example, try to understand Jesus as our Great Shepherd without imagination. I for one am not a sheep farmer and have no idea what the life of a shepherd entails, but I can relate to Jesus as the Great Shepherd through imagination. John 1:14 tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” When we read Scripture, we aren’t just reading interesting facts about Jesus, we are reading Jesus! 

Imagination invites us into the story of Jesus, and through Him into the story of hope that He is telling. As we examine the despair that surrounds us, the depression within us, and the prevailing darkness of the world that seems to always win, we are invited to hope through a different story, the one Jesus is writing with His life. What relationships seem broken beyond mending in this season of your life? How may God be inviting you to imagine a way forward in the hope that Jesus can mend any brokenness? What pains in your life seem to persist with no healing? How may God be inviting you to imagine a way forward in hope that Jesus can heal the deepest pains of your life? What is overwhelming you right now? How may God be inviting you to imagine Jesus, the hope of the world carrying your burdens with you? 

The invitation to imagine is not an invitation to a delusional way of living, but a life of child-like faith that believes the claims and promises of Jesus. That responds to His call to a different way of living, a different way of relating in the world according to a different set of values. The way of Jesus was so countercultural to the people he came to live among and still is for us today. If we’re going to rise above the values of our world and live according to the ways of Jesus we’re going to have to catch His vision for a different way of living. To do so, we’re going to have to believe that His words and His teachings are true, and evoke imagination in how we practically live them out.

I know, I sometimes get stuck in the rut of hopelessness, and Jesus invites us this Advent season to recognize and rest in Him, the hope of the world. For each of us, that may look unique, but for all of us, that is His promise! My prayer for you is that this season evokes and invites you to imagine a better way forward, according to the promises and presence of Jesus, our Hope! 

Submitted By: Matt Korte