HANUKKAH AND ADVENT: SEASONS OF HOPE

I read the paper, listen to the news, look at the bleakness of the sky, and I can get pretty sad!  Things are not good.  There are real dangers out there!  The world needs fixing.  I get scared.  So it is, so it was, so it may always be.

But there is hope.  And for both Jews and Christians, this is a time where both of their stories reflect the idea that as bad as things may be, there is available a small kernel of hope that can flourish, grow, and change the world. And, both stories tell us, it can always start with one, small nobody – like you or me.

Imagine how scary it is to have the largest, most well equipped army attacking you, your family and your way of life.  Imagine that with brute strength this superpower insists that you do things their way or you die.  Everything you hold dear and precious will be taken away from you and there’s not a thing you can do to stop them.  Or is there? 

The Hanukkah story tells us that there IS something we can do.  When the Greek conquerors took over Jewish culture determined to wipe it out, one man stood up to them and said “no.”  He was willing to face terrible consequences for what he believed was the survival of his people. His action inspired others to be brave and to fight for what they believed in.  In the end, a rag tag band of local hicks managed to get rid of the most sophisticated hegemonic power of its day and reclaim their own way of life.  That’s what the Hanukkah lights represent.

We CAN change the status quo.  We DO have power in a seemingly powerless situation.  It might take guts to stand up and fight the powers that be.  It might take courage and persistence that goes beyond the strength we think we have, but it is possible.  And it begins with one small person like me.

Now imagine another situation.  A dictator has taken over your country.  There is no freedom of thought or movement.  There is no hope that life will get better or that there will be times of goodness and love.  Life is bleak, particularly for the poor and the disenfranchised.  Into this situation comes a young pregnant woman, traveling in the dead of winter.  There is no place for her to stay.  She gives birth to a tiny baby in a barn.  Who could be more vulnerable than a homeless baby in the cold?  And yet, that little baby grew up to be a wise, compassionate teacher whose ideas brought love, hope and compassion to many over 2 thousand years and whose followers changed the world – for better and for worse – in his name! 

The advent candles of the Christmas season symbolize the arrival of hope and goodness even when they’re unlikely to survive.  They are the hope that in the darkness of the season and the darkness of bad times, there will be a transformation of the way things are, to the way things can be.  They are the goodness of light that infuses our well-being and dispels our fears.

In both the Hanukkah story and the Christmas story the theme is of hope and deliverance – that there is a G-d who helps us out of a difficult situation.  But even if you don’t believe in such a G-d, the miracle of what one write calls “the potential in small things” can be seen all around us.  It is, as Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed reminds us, the tiniest seed of all that becomes a huge bushy tree.  It is that infinitesimally small cell that became the complicated person you are and that you will become.  It is, as the anthropologist Margaret Mead reminded us: “A small group of thoughtful people that can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Though reading the newspaper can often get me down, it can also often lift me up.  There are stories of people around the world today standing up in their communities and by so doing, begin a revolution of change.  There are stories of kindness and caring for others who are in need.  These are the moments in which the potential of small things become inflamed and spread. 

May the light and the hope of Hanukkah and the Advent of Christmas remind us all of the potential of small things.  And may we in our own small ways find the courage to make big changes in the world.