First Sunday of Advent: Hope

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As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there are many Christian traditions that have, for various and sundry reasons, not become a part of the LDS tradition. Some are because of the 19th Century frontier Protestant roots that many of the early Latter-day Saints came from. Others are because our church does not agree with or embrace those traditions. And some are just because the Latter-day Saints moved to the Intermountain West in the mid-1800s and developed their own traditions separate from the greater Christian community in the eastern United States.

One tradition that I have been pondering for the past several years is that of Advent. A professor of religion at Brigham Young University, Eric D. Huntsman, is a man I have never met yet have heard so much about from friends of mine who attended BYU. Several years ago, he began observing Advent with his family, incorporating LDS scriptures and stories into a month-long celebration of the birth of Christ. I love this idea. I've never been able to fully utilise it, and I probably won't be this year, but I decided I was going to write at least one blog post each week related to it. (My apologies for not getting this done until Friday evening! I started it on Sunday but got busy...)

The first Sunday of Advent is focused on Hope. As I was thinking about what I wanted to write for this post, my good friend Tei Street shared this video on Facebook.


I, too, wonder what will happen when my generation, and the generations coming after mine, will stand up for truth and righteousness, filled with brightness of hope and love of God and of all mankind.

Then I see things like this and I don't have to wonder. So many young people are doing amazing things already. I have the privilege of associating with many of them through programs like Teen Institutes and Operation Snowball, Inc. Then I am reminded of this short passage from sixteenth verse of the sixth chapter of the Second Book of the Kings in the Old Testament:
Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
But you see, the news media don't focus on the good in the world, except for early morning shows. Instead, we hear about all the hate and all the anger and all the frustration. And yes, there are a lot of those things in our world. But I wonder what would happen if the media devoted as much time to seeking out the good in the world as they do seeking out the bad. How would we feel about the future? My hunch is we would all have a greater sense of hope and peace. And so as the Christmas season begins, I turn my mind again to a favoured passage from the Second Book of Nephi in The Book of Mormon:


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