Expectations

That's what this season is all about! Call them hopes or wishes: Kids write their wish list, you may have hopes of a peaceful and festive family Christmas.

But what it really comes down to is expectations. And when our expectations are not met, we are disappointed. 

In the Christian tradition, the season before Christmas is called Advent, which means "coming" or "arrival." As Christians, we expect, we hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We expect we hope for him to change the world and make it better. We don't celebrate Christmas to commemorate something that happened a long time ago. We celebrate Christmas because of the hope it brings us: God came into this world as a human being! Small, frail, poor. God came to be with us, to be like us, and to show us how to live and how to love. 

The reason we still celebrate this is that we still have hope that the world can change. That we can change and live the way Jesus did. Even thousands of years later, we still have that hope. Without it, everything we do would be pointless and meaningless.

Not only do we have that hope, but we also have the expectation. Expectation is a little more certain than hope. 

Having expectations of our family or of ourselves may lead to disappointment.

Having expectations of God never will. In God's time, God will bring what we have every right and reason to expect of God: Peace, love, justice. 

I'm counting on it!