“The church can’t survive on sentiment and nostalgia.  If we try to do that, we will wake up at midnight and discover that our lamps are going out.  Sentiment, nostalgia, optimism: these are weak, thin fuels.  We need premium oil for our lamps if we are to keep the light of the church burning in the time of trial.  Christianity is not for sissies.  We need to understand the difference between optimism and hope.  Optimism often arises out of denial of the real facts; hope, however, persists in spite of the clearly recognized facts because it is anchored in something beyond.  This time of the church year is about hope.  We need to face up to the horrors of the twentieth century and the apparent chaos and randomness of life and then see if we can still say “Jesus is Lord!”” – Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 92.