Nothing will be impossible with God. These words echo words spoken to Abraham in Genesis, when Sarah is promised a child in her old age. "Is anything too wonderful for God?" Sarah's late in life pregnancy began the history of the Hebrew people. Now Mary's unexpected pregnancy signals another new beginning. For the early readers of the gospel, the references to these earlier stories of faith would be obvious. Something is up, the story tells us. Pay attention.

So Mary, a young woman with no particular credentials for the job, is called out to become the mother of Jesus. In response, she sings the song we shared as our first reading today, the Magnificat. This song reiterates the song of Hannah in the Hebrew Scriptures, sung when she conceived a child after years of praying for one.

Well, 2000 years have passed since the first Christmas and the rich are still rich, the hungry still hungry. As we near this birthday of the Prince of Peace, our country is reversing long-standing military norms by preparing for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq and condoning assassinations of terrorists around the globe. The fighting in the land where Jesus was born continues and the intransigence of the violence in what three different faiths call the Holy Land makes a mockery of that title.

Need suggestions for six impossible things to believe? How about peace on earth, goodwill for all? How about the rich being sent away empty and the hungry being filled with good things?

Were prophets like Mary and Isaiah just more optimistic than I am? Certainly, their lives were no easier, their worlds no less complex. What allowed them to sing with such joy about the future? What allowed them to envision a world of justice and truth and compassion? Where does the energy for such visions arise? What is the source of exulting in the midst of uncertainty? What permits these Biblical ancestors of ours to believe in the possibility of a better reality than the one they see?

Hope. Hope is the yeast which causes the bread of compassion to rise.

Hope is also, I'm afraid, a hard word to comprehend. Like the word love, it is a word used in widely variant ways. So let me say what hope is not.

Hope is not the same as optimism. They are distant cousins, perhaps. Optimism perks up with happy sayings which may or may not fit reality. She speaks in pleasantries even when the situation is anything but pleasant. "I'm sure everything will be fine!" Optimism declares.

Hope is the member of Optimism's family who has seen a harsher side of life and knows a darker reality. Hope knows that happiness is not guaranteed and that people don't always act fairly or with kindness. Hope is the cousin who faces the dim truth of the present, but refuses to let go of the wonder and beauty and peace that is still possible in the world. Hope is tenacious.

Hope is not wishy-washy. If someone says to you, "Is your car running well?" and you reply, "I hope so," the implication is that you aren't so sure. Hope used this way means something less than certainty. It is not the kind of thing on which you'd bet your life.

Another odd way we use the word hope is when we really mean its opposite. If you say to someone, "There's nothing left to do but hope," don't you mean, in fact, that things are hopeless?

And like our word love, we often trivialize hope. "I hope I win the lottery!"

Theologian Jurgen Moltmann believes that hope moves us forward and transforms us in the process. Hope enables us to envision the reality that God desires and therefore, we begin to chafe under the reality we see. We see that the broken-hearted are not healed, that the hungry are not filled and we long to provide a contradiction to the reality we see with the vision of what we know could be.

Pastor Henry Sloane Coffin tells a story about being in the mountains with a group of men who were building a cabin. They were looking for a water supply at the foot of the hill under the new cabin because they had heard rumors about a small spring nearby. It was late August, but they found a steady trickle. As the men stood looking at it, they shared a variety of opinions.

"I think that's just drainage off the hillside," one said. "No," said another, "I think there is a spring, but I don't think it's enough to give a dependable supply for a household." Others chimed in with their doubts. Still, they needed water, there was no other source and there was a reputation about a spring around there.

So they started digging. Imagine their surprise when they unearthed an abundant flow of water. When they walled up a well hole with a 48 gallon capacity, it filled in less than an hour, though it was late into a dry August.

Our own search for a Spring of Living Water is not so different. We hear rumors about it existing, but we aren't so sure. We explore, but the evidence is not obvious. Is there really a spring? Can it really supply all of our needs? Can it really bring peace on earth?

Hope is the virtue that allows us to seek out the Spring.

Hope is visionary; firmly grounded in realism, yet at odds with reality.

Hope is an open door, inviting us to walk into a new reality imbued with the goodness of God.

Hope does not take us out of this world, but plants us in it, while stirring our hearts to transform it.

Hope is the tight bud of a rose, surrounded by thorns, yet energized with the possibility of blooming.

Hope is a peasant girl believing that with God, nothing is impossible.

Hope is waiting to be born.

May we welcome it, with Mary, saying "Let it be to me according to your word."