Holy Tuesday is about preparation, endurance, and hope despite the grim realities around us. In the face of the certainty of death, we are shown how best to live.

Recognizing the place for a genuine religious hope born of faith and for an enthusiasm for realization of social and ethical gains in any historical situation, Christianity will nevertheless, when true to itself, set its face against utopianism or popular brands of optimism.

In “Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter,” Timothy Keller reflects on how and why the secular hope of progress has failed, and he instead offers the Christian reason for hope.

Have we any hope and faith for export? In this time of apprehension and pessimism, here as well as over there, have we any hope and faith to spare?

This remembrance helps develop a confident, enduring Christian hope that is more than wishful thinking and leads to real-world action.

Shoup’s actions during Christmastime 1955 offer an un-planned, un-staged snapshot of a political system and world view strikingly different from that of Lenin, Stalin, and Xi—a system founded on the freedom to believe in God or Santa or not, to believe in the meaning of Christmas or not, to believe in Immanuel or not.

In short, America—and good, decent people who live here—has allowed me to become who I am and gave me everything I have. I doubt my story would be possible in any other country, but even if it was, it happened here.

If God’s example was deep concern for the lost and needy, then at all times, but especially during the celebration of Jesus’ birth, we should be so concerned as well.

Despite the gloomy outlook, there are several reasons for hope this Advent season. This is not nearly the darkest period in American or global history, and there are good reasons to believe that the US still possesses all the tools needed to revitalize the country and stabilize the international system. The question is whether we will use them effectively.