I watched it happen for years. Being in community with high risk and street-involved youth for nearly two decades gave me a front row seat to the annual cycle of holiday disappointment. Each December I'd watch as some of my young friends pinned all the hope they could muster on Christmas. Some, after suffering years of disappointment, hoped against hope that Christmas would be perfect. Others had good holiday memories, but recent years had gone wrong, and they carried a hope for returning to those better days from years ago. From Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve you could see the hope they carried.
After Christmas the story was different. For far too many of the youth I knew Christmas was one more tinsel coated gut punch. The hope they had carried all through the holiday season was rewarded with one more blast of disappointment wearing down any ability to hope at all.
In Season 1 episode 10 (The Hope That Kills You) of Ted Lasso the main character, coach Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is in the pub when a few fans come up to thank him for doing his best, even if it's not that good. They wish him a very low-key good luck on the upcoming match. Ted responds, "You're acting like we lost the game already, yeah? Why don't you have a little hope?." The owner of the pub, Mae (Annette Badland) has been listening in and says, "Aw, Ted. Haven't you lived here long enough to realize? It's the hope that kills you." This statement is something my young friends, disappointed one more time by Christmas, would identify with.
Hope is a word we throw around a lot this time of year. We have ornaments and other decorations that say hope. There are Christmas cards with hope printed on them. The first candle lit in the advent wreath is hope. That candle is sometimes called the prophecy candle. This seems fitting since the prophets were the voice speaking the hope that the Messiah, Jesus, was coming. But it took a long time for the Messiah to arrive. For how many people did it feel like "It's the hope that kills you" when year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation the Messiah didn't arrive.
Another aspect of Advent is that those of us who follow Jesus are encouraged to look for where Jesus is arriving in our lives. It's a wonderful encouragement, but I wonder for how many of us "It's the hope that kills you." If we have been waiting for Jesus to arrive in our lives in a certain way, maybe for a long time, and he seemingly hasn't it can become harder to hope.
The third aspect of Advent may also lead to a hope that is killing us. In advent we look backward to see Jesus' arrival as a baby in the world; we look around the present for how Jesus is arriving in our world today; and we look forward to Jesus coming back to this world. That third aspect is something that we've been waiting a long time for. The early Jesus-followers thought he was coming back in their lifetime and he didn't. Now over 2000 years later we are still looking for the return of Jesus and perhaps the passing time has sucked our hope away.
In that episode of Ted Lasso, ACF Richmond loses the game. In a very disappointed locker room Coach Lasso speaks:
"So I've been hearing this phrase y'all got over here that I ain't too crazy about. 'It's the hope that kills you'. Y'all know that? I disagree, you know? I think it's the lack of hope that comes and gets you. See, I believe in hope. I believe in belief."
In this statement Ted buoys his team, but I think he offers us something as well. As we have seen it might be hard to find hope at Christmas. Jesus' arrival as a baby was a long time ago. We might struggle to see where the Messiah is breaking into our lives and world now. The prospect of Jesus coming again has maybe waned over time. However I think Ted is right, "I think it's the lack of hope that comes and gets you."
Yet, what do we do if we cannot seem to muster much hope? I think one answer comes to us from St. Ignatius who would often ask, “Do you have the desire for this desire?” Do you desire hope this season? Do you have the desire to desire hope this season? It all starts with wanting to have hope, or wanting the desire to want hope.
Paul tells us in Romans 5 that,
"we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us."
Hope does not disappoint us when it is hope in the fact that God has poured his love on us in the past, is pouring his love on us in the present, and will pour his love on us in the future. Love is always arriving. It is always Advent. That hope doesn't kill us.
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