The poet Emily Dickinson wrote:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

Here we are in December. December is not so much another month as it is another mood. We start talking about faith, hope and love just because it’s December. We send greeting cards to people we have seldom seen all year. We decorate our houses with greenery hoping this symbol of life will become real. We string lights around our homes, hoping against hope to chase the dark away. It’s December.

I want to spend these December Sundays talking about hope, about real hope, about spiritual hope. Or as Helen Neimast said, “Waiting with hope is an affirmation that God – not you or I – is in charge, and that God is faithful, worthy of our hope.”…