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Dec. 18 "Behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy"
Dec Sunday, December 18 | Romans 5:1-5
Esperança, not Confusion
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The Bible I read, the one in my heart’s language, translates Romans 5:5 as saying that “esperança (hope) does not bring confusion.” The Portuguese word for hope, esperança, is rooted in the word for waiting, esperar. I appreciate that particular choice of words because of how it highlights, in the vernacular, that waiting in God is not puzzling or drowned in uncertainty. Of course, life is indeed full of surprises, twists, and turns. Uncertainty, in that sense, is all around us, as the COVID-19 pandemic is here to remind those who need reminding. Uncertainties about the particularities of our faith commitments are also far from uncommon. Often doubts, to quote Frederick Buechner, “are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” But the waiting in God, the waiting itself, the hope that focuses not on a predictable outcome but on the expectation that God works things for good, has an aura of clarity. Our hope does not, in itself, confound!
The source of this hope, this waiting expectation, this esperança, is Jesus Christ. It is through Jesus that God’s grace is accessible to all humankind. Jesus’s birth brings the hope that another world is possible, the expectation that a world in which love, justice, and peace will prevail. Through Jesus, Christians are called to help implement aspects of this new possible world of justice, love, and peace. Our commitment to the Gospel and one another compels us to work for God’s reign here and now. However, the new possible world that Jesus’s birth represents is also radically ahead of us. As we work and live surrounded by extreme suffering at home and abroad, Jesus’s birth reminds us that we are called to work for a better world and also to esperança: to work for the love, justice, and peace that Jesus’s birth represents and also to wait expectantly for the day when, because of Jesus, all things will be new.
– Dr. João Chaves Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Mission
