In this Advent bonus episode of For God and Country, Reverend Joel Mooneyhan joins Jenny Beth Martin to explore the first week of Advent—Hope. Drawing from Luke 1 and the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Joel explains how God brings light into darkness, why Christian hope endures even after long seasons of silence, and how believers today can avoid placing their hope in politics, circumstances, or earthly success. This conversation offers a powerful reminder that true hope comes from Christ, who entered the world in humility to redeem humanity. Perfect for anyone seeking a meaningful, Scripture-rooted reflection during the Advent season.
In this week’s For God and Country Advent devotional, Jenny Beth Martin welcomes back Reverend Joel Mooneyhan for a deep dive into the first week of Advent: Hope. Together, they explore Luke 1 and the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, a couple who waited faithfully through 400 years of silence as Israel longed for God to speak again.
Joel unpacks why hope is always the first Advent candle—light breaking into darkness—and how Christians today can remain steadfast even when the world feels chaotic or discouraging. From Israel’s suffering under foreign empires to God choosing ordinary people to prepare the way for Christ, this episode offers a powerful reminder that our hope belongs in Christ alone, not in politics, success, or circumstances.
Highlights from the episode:
Whether you’re following Advent for the first time or seeking a deeper reflection during this season, this conversation offers encouragement rooted in Scripture, tradition, and timeless Christian truth.
Watch or listen to every episode at JennyBethShow.com, and join us next week as we continue the Advent series with Peace.
Reverend Joel Mooneyhan | Instagram: @southernreverend
Jenny Beth Martin | Instagram: @jennybethm
Narrator (00:14):
Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:18):
Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show, Merry Christmas. I'm Jenny Beth Martin and this is our bonus pod for God and country. We're going to be doing an Advent devotional and our special guest pastor, my brother Joel Han, is joining us again today and we're going to get right into it. Joel, thanks so much for being with us. It's good to be back. So what are we going to be studying during Advent?
Joel Mooneyhan (00:38):
Okay, so Advent, for those of you who don't know, it's the season of preparation that leads into Christmas and it's the beginning of the Christian calendar. So where we left off the last time was Christ the King Sunday. That's where the Christian calendar kind of bends and then we reset ourselves and get ourselves in the minds of preparation for the arrival of Jesus and what all that means to us. And so advent is four weeks, and then Christmas, whatever day Christmas falls on. So you've got the weeks who in order, hope, peace, joy, love, and then the Christ candle. So there's usually a wreath and you light a different candle every week and you leave the other ones lit and it symbolizes light coming into the world.
(01:28):
And traditionally in a church service, there's going to be readings from the Old Testament, from the New Testament that kind of point to the anticipation and what the Bible is telling us about who the Messiah will be and all of that. And so a lot of churches are going to be doing that during this season. What I want to do with our conversations is put ourselves in the minds of some of the people who lived through the events of surrounding Jesus' birth. I think that when we're reading any story in scripture, but particularly the gospels and when we're reading about the life of Jesus, if we think about them in terms of what would we do in these situations or what is it like? If we could imagine being there, how would we respond? And so I want to spend a little bit of time on each of the weeks focusing on a different character or group of characters in the story.
(02:25):
So this week, the first week of Advent is hope. And so I want to start with the gospel of Luke. And I guess before we start, we should say a prayer and then we will jump right into it. Okay? So let's pray Almighty God thank you for this time of year as we prepare our hearts and our minds to receive you and to the world. Again, as we do every year, help us to focus ourselves on what it means to be your people and focus our hearts on what it means to welcome you into the world and be your ambassadors. So in the midst of this conversation, we know that you're with us. So we pray that your truth will be illuminated through our conversation and that people who hear it will be encouraged and uplifted and edified by the things that we say. We pray these things in the name of Christ I'm Amen.
(03:18):
So we're going to start with Luke chapter one and we'll pick up in verses eight through 17, we're going to be reading about Zechariah and Elizabeth and what their story tells us about hope in the world. So while Zechariah was serving as a priest before God, when his division was on duty according to the custom of the priesthood, it fell to him by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense and there appear to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, don't be afraid. Zechariah for your prayer is heard, and your wife, Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name John and you'll have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great before the Lord and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink. He'll be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb and he will turn many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just and to make ready for the Lord that people prepared.
(04:40):
So Zacharia and Elizabeth were an older couple and they'd age past the point where it could be reasonably expected they would ever have children added twitch. They couldn't conceive anyway. And Israel in the background had been 400 years since they had heard from a prophet. And during that 400 years they were basically passed around to four or five different empires. They had a brief period of independence and then Rome took over. So for 400 years they were subjugated and basically fundamentally, I don't want to say godless, that might be too strong of a word, but they had not heard from Yahweh, they had not been a profit, they had not been anything to indicate that God was ever going to make good on this promise to send a messiah and save them. And that's where we find zacharia. And so I think about what it would be like to be a people who had had not heard from God and what kind of questions they'd be having.
(05:58):
Does God still care? Does God hear us when we pray? What is God doing? What is God waiting on? And then into this story, we're introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth. And what I find interesting is that Zechariah and Elizabeth are known for their faith and the fact that they prayed continually. So even in the midst of the waiting and the longing and the uncertainty, God found people who were praying with hope and praying with faith. The way I like to think of it is that hope is the expectation that there is something better and that something better will come. And so God looks and he sees this couple and he finds them praying, he finds them waiting and he finds them not giving into despair. And then I think about where we are as a country and where Christians are around the world. I mean there are places in the world where it must certainly feel like God is far, far away.
(07:18):
And then we find that there are people who pray and there are people who hope, but then there are people also who want us to place our hope in the wrong things. I think Israel is probably in their time they couldn't rely on their military might. They couldn't have hope in that anymore. They couldn't have hope in their righteousness. They couldn't have hope in their wisdom. Everything that they had hope in by the world's standards had failed them. And so all that was left was the hope in God. And I feel like a lot of people today similarly will place their hope in so many other things, finding the right partner in life, the right spouse, going to the right school, getting the right job, getting the promotion. We place their hope in elected officials. We place their hope in a lot of things. And I think it's not bad to pursue the things that we care about.
(08:23):
It's not bad to care about issues that impact us, but we should never be placing our hope in things that are transient and in things that have no power to actually save us. I think as Christians, there's a certain level of elation and despair that is inappropriate for any circumstance. If it signifies to somebody that we're putting our hope in anything other than Christ, getting the right boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife is a great thing. But your hope can't be in that getting the right job, getting the right school, the right person getting elected. We can be happy about those things, but ultimately those have no power to save us. And so we have to be careful what we put our hope in. We have to be careful what causes us to despair. And remember that as Christians, our hope is in a living savior. And our hope is in a God who came down all the way from heaven to earth as a helpless child in a backwater village, in a subjugated, people in the corner of an empire and giving up all of his dignity to come and be a part of the world that we live in to save us. And that's where our hope lies and that's where our hope should lie.
Jenny Beth Martin (09:56):
Elaborate on that. Giving up all of his dignity. How? By becoming man and baby and child. Well,
Joel Mooneyhan (10:03):
You can think about it from a few different directions. Obviously you think of God becoming human that's already losing the grandeur of, I mean losing eternity and losing all that comes with that. But not just coming as any old person, not just inhabiting a great warrior, but coming as a baby who needs to be fed and wiped and changed and who needs to be taught to speak and then needs to be taught to walk, who needs to be taught everything And then who's going to grow up and have arguments with his parents and he is going to grow up and he is going to have difficulty with his friends and he is going to grow up and he's going to feel anxiety and he is going to feel fear and he's, he's going to experience everything that we experienced to the utmost except sin.
(10:57):
And he's going to carry all of that for us. That's not something dignified. I mean the human experience is, I would say the human experience is beautiful for all the pitfalls and celebrations, but it's certainly not a dignified thing. I think that's one of the problems that there are some religions have with Christianity is that God giving up dignity. But to Christians, that is the thing is that God loved us enough to put aside his grandeur and be a part of this experience from the ground up. But then you take into account just the social and political and cultural circumstances of a peasant girl pregnant out of wedlock. Her people, they have a client keen, they don't have any kind of independence. I mean they're poor in ways that we can't really get our heads around just because of where they were in time. So not only does God come as a human, but he comes as a human of a subjugated people in a place where they have no political power, no cultural power or anything, and still through that is able to rescue humanity. And I think that's where our hope lies and that is what we begin to prepare for as we enter into advent.
Jenny Beth Martin (12:35):
Well, I think that that makes a lot of sense. And all of the things that are on earth that we sometimes put our hope in are fleeting relationships don't always last. People don't always live the jobs go away. Good things happen. So I'm not saying everything is bad. The things that you hope for it is also fleeting, but God is not. He's solid, he's rock solid and he's always there.
Joel Mooneyhan (13:03):
And I'm not saying by any means that we shouldn't hope for the best and that we shouldn't be happy when things go well l but we need to keep the perspective that as Christians, the most important thing we place our hope in is the one who came to save us. And so I mean you'll get on, you watch the news, you get on social media and if there's an election, half the people are gnashing their teeth and ripping their clothes and half the people are throwing parties and popping champagne bottles and fine, there's going to be another election. All of these people will fail you. None of them will die to save you. So be happy and all of that. But remember that as Christians we're called to hope in something bigger than that and exemplifies something bigger than that. And that goes for anything that we celebrate and keeping that perspective and setting an example to the world so that when there are people who are in despair, they can look to us and say there's something to hope in. What are those people hoping in? And when there are things to celebrate, how do these people keep perspective? Because their hope is in something else and a hope that doesn't fail, like you said, a hope that's eternal and a hope that isn't going away.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:46):
Alright, and so on Advent candles, popup quiz. What is the color for this week or a
Joel Mooneyhan (14:53):
Month? This week is going to be purple.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:55):
Okay. And why is it
Joel Mooneyhan (14:56):
Purple? I don't know the reasons for the colors. I can't remember. It's not in my head. I should have prepared a little bit for that.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:03):
Well, it's a pop quiz.
Joel Mooneyhan (15:05):
It's true.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:05):
You just failed.
Joel Mooneyhan (15:06):
I just wanted to do the devotional. Well, I should have gotten to Hobby Lobby and gotten an admit wreath or something. That would've been nice. But we have a very nice setup. So
Jenny Beth Martin (15:17):
Yes we do. And my team did a good job putting it together for those who are only listening, we've got this great bookshelf with Garland and it's, it is decorative for Christmas, Christmas time. It's okay that you don't know what the colors are. We can look that up and tell people next.
Joel Mooneyhan (15:33):
We can even put it on the screen. I guess I wanted to have a wreath, but I just did not have the time to get one and bring it in.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:39):
It is okay, we can do without it. So it is a purple candle, it's a candle for hope. And we can keep our hope in God and in Christ.
Joel Mooneyhan (15:54):
And we were talking about symbolism earlier, so you may or may not like this, but somebody might just kind of another thing that hope is always the first candle lit. Hope is always the first thing that comes out of darkness. And so when you light the admin candle, which it's one light in the darkness, and I think it's a good image to keep in your mind when you're thinking about it, when you're reflecting on what it means for Christ to come into the world, Christ comes into a world of darkness. And even now, Christ is a part of who we are. We need to be people who are bringing Christ into the world, even if it's very dark, bringing that candle of hope and it will grow.
Jenny Beth Martin (16:46):
And even when things are going well, you still have to bring Christ forward.
Joel Mooneyhan (16:51):
Yeah, Christ above all else.
Jenny Beth Martin (16:53):
Very good. Okay, so next week we're going to be talking about peace, peace, hope and peace. Remind me the other two.
Joel Mooneyhan (17:02):
Peace and then joy and then love. So we're going to talk about the different characters in the story that we all are familiar
Jenny Beth Martin (17:10):
With. And he didn't actually believe it did. He
Joel Mooneyhan (17:19):
Had a hard time with it. So he gets the news and he said, are you joking? You're telling me that me and my wife are going to have a baby? And the angel says,
Jenny Beth Martin (17:35):
And this is really exciting news for someone that struggled to try to become pregnant, to find out that you're going to be pregnant is good news. But it's also hard to believe.
Joel Mooneyhan (17:44):
It is hard to believe. And then the first thing you want to do
Jenny Beth Martin (17:48):
Is deny.
Joel Mooneyhan (17:49):
Well, the first thing you want to do when you hear is to share it. And then what happens to Zacharia? He's not allowed to tos
Jenny Beth Martin (17:55):
The whole pregnancy.
Joel Mooneyhan (17:57):
And of course their son will be John the Baptist.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:02):
Yes.
Joel Mooneyhan (18:06):
There's another little riff I could go on. I don't know if it would be
Jenny Beth Martin (18:09):
Sure if we have a little bit of time.
Joel Mooneyhan (18:10):
I find it interesting. There's a lot made of Mary and for good reason. She's found to have favor with God. But what's interesting is that her cousin is Elizabeth Zechariah's wife
(18:31):
And God also looks to them to be the parents of the one who will prepare the way for the Messiah. And so God is not just looking for the right woman to bear his son, he's also looking for the right man to be his father and Joseph. And he is also looking for the right people to bear the child who will be the forerunner. So it's not just that God is looking to marry, he's looking for a group of people. He's looking for a family or a community of people who will not just raise his son in the world, but raise the one who will prepare the way for his son. And I think that's another interesting call for us, is that God is looking for not just us as individual Christians, but us as the body of Christ in the church, to be the people who will continue to proclaim the good news and prepare the way for the Lord and bring that hope into the world. So it's not just a call to us as individuals, it's also a call to us as a body of believers. So I guess it's a plug to get involved in a local church or get involved in something where you can be a part of the community and help bring the hope into the world that way as well.
Jenny Beth Martin (19:57):
That is very good.
Joel Mooneyhan (19:59):
That's a freebie.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:00):
Okay, well good. Since you failed the pop quiz,
Joel Mooneyhan (20:02):
I guess I got to get something to redeem myself.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:06):
Alright.
Joel Mooneyhan (20:07):
So yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (20:08):
So we need to encourage people to remain hopeful in God for the next week. And do you want to close us in prayer?
Joel Mooneyhan (20:15):
Yeah, let's close in prayer.
(20:17):
Almighty God, thank you for this conversation. We pray that as we have spoken, that your truth is what has been heard. If there's anything that we've said that's gotten in the way of that, we pray that you would move us out of the way so that your message is the one that rings out. Thank you for our conversation. Thank you for the freedom that we have to be here to do this. And we pray for those listening that they would be encouraged, that they would be edified, they'll be uplifted, and it would carry them into their upcoming week with Glad Tidings and bring all of us back together next week to continue to reflect on Advent and the coming of our Savior. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.
Jenny Beth Martin (20:58):
Amen. Thank you Joel. That is Joel Mehan, my brother and our special guest pastor, and this is the Forgotten Country Bonus Pod of the Jenny Beth Show. We will see you next Sunday for another bonus pod. I'm Jenny Beth Martin, thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about freedom and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes@jennybethshow.com as well as Facebook Rumble, YouTube, Instagram X in your favorite podcast platform.
Narrator (21:35):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.