Hope through difficulty

In today’s reflection on the daily mass readings, Fr Richard considers how God’s hope is often revealed through difficulty and trials, rather than perfection

Readings for 18 December: Jeremiah 23.5-8; Psalm 72.1-2, 12-13, 18-19; Matthew 1.18-24. Text of readings can be found here.

You can blame it on Christmas movies, the John Lewis TV advert, scenes on Christmas cards and chocolate boxes, and nowadays social media as well. There is an image in the public mind of what constitutes the perfect Christmas: the turkey perfectly cooked with all the trimmings; the tree looking immaculate with beautifully wrapped presents beneath; and the house full of happy and harmonious family members. Often, the truth can be a long way short of this, and we have all heard of (or experienced) a Christmas that’s less than perfect.

In our readings today we see a God who is not concerned with a chocolate-box image of perfection. Indeed, it seems that it is disaster, difficulty and vulnerability that God prefers to work through in order to show forth his hope. Jeremiah was writing to a people whose very nation had been destroyed; Israel had been conquered and the people sent off into exile in a foreign land. Yet out of these ashes God promises to raise up “a virtuous branch for David”, a king who will rule with integrity, and restore the nation.

In the Gospel, God is working out his purposes for the salvation of all through an ordinary, lowly family, the couple’s very relationship threatened by this unexpected pregnancy. It is through these less-than-perfect circumstances that God enters into our less-than-perfect world, in order to draw it back to him.

As Christmas approaches, with all its expectations, let us be on the lookout for God’s hope manifesting itself through the struggles, the disappointments and the difficulties – for that is where his hope is most often to be found.

Mass today (Thursday 18 December) is at 10am in St Dyfrig & St Samson, Grangetown.

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