Advent's Purple Hope

By now, if you've been journeying with me for long, you will know that the meta-context of The Abbess is covenant and it's faithful keeping--as communicated through the rich Hebrew word cHesed. This means that Advent has a special covenant context...indeed, the ultimate covenant context. For with Christ's incarnation, he heralded the approach of the New Covenant God had spoken of through his prophets...a covenant he would write on the hearts of those who would receive the Son of God as Savior and Lord.

Four hundred years is a long time without a word from the Lord. Four hundred years. Had YHWH forgotten his people? Surely not. Times had been bad before...war and defeat and exile. But four hundred years...that is a long time to wait. It is painful to wait that long, enduring one conqueror after another. What of David's long vacant throne? Does the Lord not see the suffering of his people, or hear the cries of their oppression.

But hope...hope is the twin sister of faith. As long as there is faith, hope remains. And so we see that faith is the essential component. Faith in the Faithful One. The One who promised is faithful. The One who makes and keeps covenant faithfully does not forget.

Forgetfulness...that is the path of empty, useless suffering. Forgetting Who promised. Forgetting what was promised. Forgetfulness brings doubt...and doubt can poison faith, and sicken hope. Suffering without hope brings despair...and the color of despair is Black.

YHWH's promise of a New Covenant called for the people of the Old Covenant to wait with a faith that would overcome doubt and strengthen hope. And this hope did not disappoint them. But it certainly was purple, this hope...four hundred years of purple dreams of a royal Son of David, while they lived a purple nightmare of beatings and bruises.

Hope is purple because Emmanuel, God-with-us, came to inhabit a human body so that he could suffer with us and for us as the Suffering Servant...as YHWH's New Covenant. And we are called to be suffering servants as we grow more like Christ.

And that is why Hope is Purple... because waiting is hard and it requires faith... and faith perseveres because it remembers YHWH's cHesed for his Beloved... and faith that remembers while it waits and suffers never loses hope.

As we light the First Candle of Advent--the candle of the Purple Hope--let the fire represent Sister Faith who, together with Sister Hope, dispels the darkness with bright remembrances of cHesed and kindles the Spirit of Expectancy in our hearts.

Be blessed.