c. 2004 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Now comes the season of hope and disappointment.

Stores and malls are heavy laden. For merchants, Christmas is an annual roll of the dice. Some will guess right, some wrong. Some will tally up December’s sales and smile, some will fold their tents and leave vacancies for other dreamers to fill.

Customers, meanwhile, will spend money they don’t have to attain goals they consider worthy, such as showing their love, pleasing a child, easing the pain of a bad year. Whether a new DVD player, diamond or drill will work anticipated magic remains to be seen. For now, people hope.

As calculating, callous and cynical as we might be in other seasons, Christmas taps our capacity to hope. No matter how disappointed we were last year, when our gifts missed the mark or a family event fell flat or we felt more alone than ever, this year we will try again.

We will make lists, shop carefully, imagine happy faces, and take the fearsome risk of laying our love and neediness bare before others. Or we will wish we could.

I doubt that we will ever be more like God than in this season of hope and disappointment. Many think they are being God-like when they judge other people harshly, name sins and sinners, tell other people how to live their lives, and quote the Bible’s don’t-do-it commandments as an excuse to reject. But that shows both a poor grasp of Scripture and a portrayal of God as small and vindictive.

Isaiah said it better when he sang of Messiah’s coming as a branch from Jesse. (Isaiah 11:1-10) God had anointed Saul as king, but when Saul sinned, “the Lord was sorry that he had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Sam. 15:35) God sent his prophet Samuel to a Bethlehemite named Jesse, and from Jesse’s sons, God chose the youngest, David, to be his next king.

In time, David also would disappoint God as a ruler and as a man of honor. So, too, with his successor Solomon. So, too, with subsequent kings. And yet God kept trying. When one hope fell short, God dared another. As Isaiah saw it, God never lost his desire for a messianic king who would show the “spirit of the Lord,” namely, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of the Lord.

It is fashionable nowadays to prowl the Old Testament for proofs of what flesh-related behaviors God rejects. But the larger story is of God’s hope, God’s mercy, God’s willingness to risk everything, even unto death on a cross, even unto loving those who have spent two millennia waging horrible wars in his name.

Like a merchant in December, God guesses right some times and wrong others. God entrusts the Gospel to churches that abuse it in pursuit of power, privilege or people-pleasing. God entrusts the Law to the angry and fearful, hoping it will soften their hearts, watching them grow stone cold, instead. God sends angels to herald good news to the poor and oppressed, and watches the powerful prey on their weakness and seize even more wealth. God calls for peace and receives war, for justice and receives cruelty.

Still, God keeps trying. That is the miracle. Despite the sin of Saul, God anointed David. Despite David, God bolstered Solomon. Despite a history replete with idle rich and incompetent rulers, God anointed Cyrus, King of Persia, to send the exiles home. Despite centuries of apostasy, God anointed another from David’s tribe. Despite rejection of that Son and vile deeds done in his Name, God tries again and again.

Even now, even this Christmas season, God is like the lover who wants desperately to ease another’s pain. Her efforts might fail and prove disappointing, but creation is better for her hopefulness. In time, hope will be rewarded.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. Visit his Web site at http://www.onajourney.org.)

MO/JL RNS END