I have a brother who lives with bi-polar disorder. He had his first episode of mania more than 30 years ago when he was 15 years old. He had his second experience of mania right before he was going to graduate from high school. Instead of going to prom and getting his diploma, he was locked down, tied to a bed, and heavily sedated with medications. I remember going to his room by myself and begging God to restore my brother; I promised to live my life for Jesus and give up my own desires if God would just heal my brother.
The morning after I said that prayer, the doctor called my parents and let them know that my brother was awake, coherent, and they didn’t have to restrain him anymore. My heart soared with hope for my brother and his future. He got married, bought a house, and they had three children. For several years, it appeared as if my brother had been fully restored, but somewhere in that time, my brother decided he didn’t need to take medications and rejected his mental health diagnosis.
If you’ve worked at Indwell, you can easily imagine what unfolded: marriage breakdown, inability to keep a job, jail time, loss of access to his kids…the list goes on. Relief and gratitude were replaced with anger at God for seemingly answering my prayer and then reneging on me. My hopes for my brother crashed and it became a point of tension between God and me for many years.
One of the Hebrew words for hope is qavah, which also means “to wait.” This type of waiting is rooted in an image of a cord being pulled tighter and tighter, creating tension until it breaks. This type of waiting is a combination of expectation and angst. It’s the type of hope that I had for my brother for a long time. It’s also the type of hope that characterizes Advent.
Advent is not synonymous with Christmas. Advent is the season where we wrestle with our hurts, disappointments, and failures. Inasmuch as the days are darker and colder, so are our thoughts and meditations. We ponder the fallen state of creation and the woes of the world all the while holding on to the wonder of what will come. Slowly, as Advent progresses, the darkness gets pierced with light and more light until we arrive at Christmas and a different hope arrives: elpis.
Elpis is a Greek word that means “living hope”. Jesus was and is our living hope, our elpis. We don’t have to experience qavah forever because the good news of elpis, the hope of heaven who came into the world.
My brother still experiences serious mental illness, probably worse than ever. He is visibly troubled and distressed. But when I ask him where he wants to be, his eyes tear up and he longingly says, “Heaven.”
As you experience the shadows of Advent, keep your eyes on the light of Christmas, Jesus, our living hope.
