Hope is the Gift, Patience is the Cost

Hope is the Gift, Patience is the Cost

We are good Anglo-Catholic Episcopalians here at St. Monica and St, James. So, when our Bishop Diocesan speaks, we listen. On Monday, Bishop Budde emailed a meditation entitled, “The Cost and Gift of Hope at Christmas.” There’s a paradox: How does a gift have a cost? In her email, Mariann relayed the question that she is most often asked these days: Bishop, what gives you hope? 

“To be people of hope is to risk disappointment;” she responded, “to be people of hope demands that we place ourselves in seemingly hopeless situations; to be people of hope is to courageously face an uncertain future.” That is certainly a cost of hope. And the gift? “The deepest, most lasting hope doesn’t depend on us alone; it comes as a gift to receive and to share…we celebrate Jesus’ birth every year, no matter what, as a reminder that God comes to us, and is with us, no matter what. With God, we needn’t pretend to be hopeful. At Christmas, God invites us to open our hearts to receive hope, and to practice hope, leaning on the sacred traditions that inspired our ancestors to keep the light of hope alive and pass it onto us.”

This night, we celebrate that the Creator of the Universe courageously placed themself in an uncertain future, so vulnerable and powerless that his situation might have seemed hopeless. And when God sent their divine messengers to announce the birth of the only King Chosen of God, they did not go to those whose wealth and power made hope unnecessary. They went to shepherds, who had to feed their sheep wherever they could find pasture. Not surprisingly, those who claimed some of that pasture as their exclusive property resented those who fed the sheep from their property, even though they might later buy some clothing made from those sheeps’ wool. Yet it was to shepherds, whose testimony was considered unreliable, who were the first to be given the greatest news ever, before or since, an everlasting King and Lord of peace, and good will toward all people of peace.

And then these lowly shepherds were told that they would find this king in an even more lowly place: a manger, a feeding trough for the animals. But the prophet Isaiah had proclaimed centuries earlier: “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib; Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” (Is 1:3). Would the Shepherds recognize their King, or would they assume that anyone more powerful than them must be deserving of better accommodations? “So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what they had been told about this child, and everyone who heard it was astonished at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds went back glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as they had been told.”

But before they left, I can easily imagine the warning they gave Mary and Jospeh, lyrics by Hector Berlioz:

Thou must leave thy lowly dwelling, the humble crib, the stable bare.

Babe, all mortal babes excelling, content our earthly lot to share.

Loving father, Loving mother, shelter thee with tender care!

Blessed Jesus, we implore thee with humble love and holy fear.

In the land that lies before thee, forget not us who linger here!

May the shepherd's lowly calling, ever to thy heart be dear!

Blest are ye beyond all measure, thou happy father, mother mild!

Guard ye well your heav’nly treasure, the Prince of Peace, the Holy Child!

God go with you, God protect you, guide you safely through the wild!*

Hope is the gift. Patience is the cost. Were any of the Shepherds still around about 30 years later to see their hopes crushed, and then vindicated? Either way, at every Baptism and renewal of baptism, we recite the Apostles’ Creed: “He descended to the dead.” Patience is the cost. But the gift of hope is everlasting, and no wild can destroy it, or our celebration of it.

* “The Shepherds’ Farewell

December 24th, 2025,

Vigil of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

The Rev. David Kendrick