It was a cold day with bone chilling wind. Only the truly motivated would be willing to stand outside for very long in this kind of weather. But stand outside they did, practicing the best kind of anticipatory waiting. This patient group stood in a line wrapped halfway around the building. They were of all ages, all colors and every conceivable economic range. There were teenage boys in ripped up jeans and elderly grandmothers dressed for afternoon tea. What could possibly draw such a diverse crowd?

I almost decided not to go to this event on Thanksgiving weekend because of the anticipated crowds but went anyway because it was free and we had friends visiting from Canada who generally enjoy such things. And I am so glad we did go because the attraction itself, though absolutely spectacular, was not nearly as interesting, at least on that particular day, as the crowd of visitors and their reaction. 57,000 people took part in this opening event. 57,000 people walked around in complete awe and wonder. Some visitors had clearly never been to such a place; some were veterans. I speak, of course, of the DIA, the newly refurbished and reopened Detroit Institute of the Arts, a beautiful beacon of hope in a city that, just prior to this event, had been described as the most dangerous city in America.

Today’s first reading from the prophet Isaiah is also about hope. It is one of the most cherished passages of scripture in all of the Bible. If you read these words aloud, they articulate the deep and persistent hope for peace and justice as well as the Messiah who will be able to bring that hope to reality. "The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion together and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them… What better vision for this time of Advent, what better picture of hope than that of a calf and a lion snuggled up next to each other? And the little child leading them…The character of this leader will be shaped by the spirit of the Lord. This will be no ordinary child; this will be no ordinary leader. This is a child who will change the people of the earth, a child who offers salvation.

The prophets of the 8^th century BC, which includes Isaiah, had a unique role in history. The prophets of this era began to function less as private counselors to the kings as was the case with Elijah and more as very public figures who interpreted international affairs, critiqued complacent religious practices and condemned abuse of power. The prophecy of Isaiah, Amos, Hosea and Micah took place in the shadow of the expansion of the Assyrian Empire which would eventually bring an end to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

When Isaiah began to prophecy, the Jews had been fighting for forty years. First they fought with the Assyrians, then the Egyptians, then the Assyrians, then the Egyptians. … That’s the way it was for Isaiah. Isaiah was tired of it. He was tired of four decades of killing. He was tired of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters fighting with each other. He was just plain tired of people fighting. Isaiah longed for peace; he longed for peace as much as a parched dry thirsty man longs for water or a starving man longs for bread. Isaiah longed for peace because he had experienced so much war. Through God’s movement in him, Isaiah had a vision of a different kind of world, a world enveloped in hope.

Isaiah was not only tired of war and longed for peace. He had read the book of Genesis and knew that all human beings were made for peace. He knew that God created us to be peaceful with each other. Isaiah knew that we were made in the image of God, and therefore we are made to be peaceful with each other. When God created Adam and Eve and humankind, it was not God’s intention for us to hurt each other. It was not God’s intention for human beings to fight with each other.

The prophet Isaiah was full of hope.  Isaiah dreamed dreams of peace, and he wrote down these beautiful, beautiful dreams, some of the most memorable words in the whole Bible. "The lamb and the leopard shall lie down together. The suckling child, one who sucks at his mother’s breast, shall play with wasps and not be stung and the weaned child, three or four years old, shall put his hand into a den of cobras and shall not be bitten by the snakes." Isaiah was a dreamer of peace. He had dreams and visions of peace. He had hope.

Hope is one of the most important aspects of the human spirit for without hope we cannot move forward. In I Corinthians 13, St. Paul tells us that the greatest attribute is love, sacrificial love but hope is right at the top of the list of faith, hope and love. Hope is what helps us to see other possibilities. Hope allows us to keep on trucking through the muck and messiness that everyday life sometimes brings. A few weeks ago, a parishioner gave me a copy of the bestseller Nickle and Dimed. It is an extraordinary story of a writer going undercover as a low wage earner. As the author described the people with whom she worked, I realized that the most disconcerting thing is that they have lost hope. The working poor, whom Barbara Ehrenreich describes, are clearly people who have been robbed of their dignity, an all but certain one way street to a dead end of hopelessness.

Charles Revson, founder of the successful cosmetic manufacturing firm Revlon, once said, "In our factory we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope." Smart advertisers know that one thing people the world round need is hope. Hence the popularity of lottery tickets. One poor mother, who was raising her children on a small salary earned from long hours of hard work, was asked, "Why do you waste your money on a lottery ticket when you can hardly make ends meet?" "Yeah, I buy a ticket every day," the woman acknowledged. "But a dollar is not too much to pay for 24 hours of hope." Though gambling on the lottery will usually disappoint, like all of us, this woman needs hope.

Hope is a vital ingredient to life. Without it, far too many people come to the conclusion that their life is simply not worth living and finally give up. When hope is gone, they have nothing left. Norman Cousins, in Head First, the Biology of Hope (Penguin USA, 1990), illustrates the power of hope. He tells of two physicians who were to deliver a paper at a national meeting of cancer specialists. One was complaining bitterly, "I don’t understand it, Bob. We use the same drugs, the same dosage, and the same schedule of treatment. Yet I get a 22% recovery rate and you get a 74% recovery rate. How do you explain that?" The other responded, ‘I give them hope. I emphasize that they have a chance.’"

Joan Chichester, a Benedictine sister in the Roman Catholic Church and one of the most compelling prophets of the modern Christian world is frequently asked: "How do you keep going when the obstacles are so high?" Her response is one that I will always hold close to my heart. "I see myself as but one snowflake gathering on a branch. Eventually enough snow will fall to make the branch break." In her case, she is talking about the machinery of the Church of Rome and its position on the ordination of women. But the vision is compelling for all who hope for a world in which the wolf and the lamb will lie together.