So like every Jewish girl, Mary would have prayed every day that she would birth the Messiah. Perhaps she was even in the midst of that prayer when the angel came to her and said, "Yes, Mary, your child will be the Messiah."

I imagine that Mary's response, in addition to what scripture records, also included comments such: "I want to bear the Messiah, but not right now, thank you. I'm not married. This won't work. I might be the right person, but it is the wrong time. Could you come back next year, please? That would be a much better time."

But then Mary agreed. She accepted the difficult and wonderful gift God offered her. It didn't happen on her time line, but when do God's gifts ever come on our time line? It didn't happen in the way she had expected, this birth of a Messiah in a stable but when do God's plans ever unfold in the ways we expect after we say, "yes"? It wasn't what she wanted, that her son would be killed on a cross on Golgotha. But God's redemption of the world usually takes us to places we would rather not go.

And how could she have dreamed in those months before Jesus' birth of the miracle of the resurrection, that through her son generations would know:

• that weakness is greater than strength,
• that wisdom is more powerful than might,
• that love is stronger than evil,
• that God's light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall never overcome it?

What did Mary do during those nine months of expectation? What did she think about on the long nights when her back hurt and she couldn't sleep? She had hoped to be the mother of the Messiah and now, during those nights, she was getting used to the idea that it would actually happen. What were her hopes as she spun dreams of the future, and how do her hopes relate to our hopes this fourth Sunday of Advent, this Christmas Eve morning?

Abraham Heschel once said, "We live not by needs alone, but by hopes for that which we do not even know how to utter. A person is what he [or she] hopes for." Something deep and universal in the human person needs hope in order to live. Many aspects of our society masquerade as hope but are not. Optimism, for example, is not hope. There is nothing wrong with optimism; in fact, it is an important part of life. But optimism does not fill that deep need which only true hope fills.

Our hope as we await the birth of Christ is something profound, something woven into the very fabric of our being and only expressible in the paradox that Christ is already with us and is yet to come. That for which we hope is both here and not-yet-here, just as Mary's child, about whom she sings in this morning's scripture, was already present in her womb as he was becoming what he would be. She experienced the child even as she hoped for it, and yet the child would not fully be until he was born.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of hope in terms of birth when he says:

"We know that up to the present time, all creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God's gifts also groan within ourselves as we wait for God to make us God's children and set our whole being free. For it is by hope that we are saved. . . if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8: 22-25)

What is this hope that we patiently await? Our hope cannot really be defined and described, for hope requires mystery. And yet there are a few things we can say about it, because it has been partly revealed to us in what already is. We have experienced God's grace in the love and forgiveness that have come into our lives and changed us, and what is to come will be a confirmation and a culmination of that experience of Christ in the present.

In Raphael's painting, "The Alba Madonna," which hangs in the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), Mary sits with the child Jesus on her lap. He is playing with a toy made of two sticks tied together in the form of a cross, while his mother looks beyond him, her eyes fixed pensively on that cross. The artist is reminding us that the hope of Israel and the child of Mary was born in order to die.

When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his coming death he told them that death is a kind of birth:

"When a woman is about to give birth she is sad because her hour of suffering has come, but when the baby is born she forgets her suffering because she is happy that a baby has been born into the world. That is how it is with you; now you are sad, but I will see you again and your hearts will be filled with the kind of gladness that no one can take away from you." (John 16: 21-22)

In Jesus Christ, God was giving birth to a new world:

• a world in which God has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts, has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly;
• a world in which God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away;
• a world in which God has remembered all the promises of the centuries and fulfilled them now.

That is the world for which we hope, the world we experience a little of now as it grows within us, even as we await its birth in the fullness of time. We hope for a world in which every child of God is fully loved and feels secure in that love, a world in which every tear is wiped away, every pain is eased, every stomach is full, everyone who sleeps is warm, every decision is resolved in a way that leads to peace and wholeness and righteousness. We hope for a world where every bomb is silenced and weapons really are turned into plows; a world where enmities that reach across generations like unwanted tentacles are healed and former enemies break bread together and work for new life in their communities. We hope for a world where forgiveness and changed lives are a part of daily life, where our spiritual connection to God and one another is deep and true. We hope for a world where joy echoes through our lives and imbues our relationships with love.

In short, we hope for a world where Christ is born anew, not as a powerful king in a distant land, but in a stable in a developing country, or a crowded hospital nursery in Los Angeles, where the poor need to know that God is on their side.

We hope for a world where Christ is born anew in a house in Pasadena where love has grown stale, eyes begun to wander, and children feel uneasy at every meal, where a family needs to know that their lives, struggles and hopes do matter to the Creator of the Universe.

We hope for a world where Christ is born anew to those who feel discounted, disbelieved, exiled, disenfranchised, where people need to know that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

We hope for a world where Christ is born anew to those in power, so they may be set free of their golden handcuffs, rely on God's wisdom in their decisions, listen in humility to the voices of those long silenced, and rest in the assurance that they need not earn God's love, it is already given to them freely.

These are our hopes - not so different from Mary's as she carried the Savior of the World within her. As did Raphael's Mary, we know that such hopes are not fulfilled without a price. We know, too, that God is willing to pay that price for us, in fact, has already paid that price for us. The Christ that shall be born has been born already. The Christ that shall be crucified has been crucified already. The Christ that shall be raised, has been raised already. We see the manger and beyond it the cross. And beyond the cross, we see the light of Easter morning that confirms the truth we sing today: God's light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall never overcome it.

Centuries ago, an angel appeared to Mary with an answer to her prayer and a wonderful invitation to serve. Mary said "yes," and gave birth to the Messiah. An angel appeared to Joseph with an answer to prayer and an invitation to be faithful. Joseph said "yes" and married Mary. Centuries ago, angels appeared to shepherds on a hillside with an answer to their prayers for a Messiah and an invitation to follow where God would lead them. The shepherds said "yes" and went to Bethlehem.

Angels come to us every day - dressed in blue jeans and slacks, dresses and suits - with answers and invitations. Answers and invitations that, if we say "yes", will

• shift our time line,
• readjust our priorities, and
• take us to the places of crucifixion that exist today in the world, among our loved ones, in our neighborhoods, in our own life, places of crucifixion to which we'd rather not go. The angels bring us answers that lead us to know that our hopes are fulfilled and our spirit rejoices in God our Savior.

Christ is born again this Christmas, the hope of the world come to Earth. God is answering our prayers and inviting us to respond as did the faithful long ago.