Hope.
Such a little world, with such deep meaning.
During Christmas we use it frequently.
Kids talk about how they hope they’ll get the present they asked for.
Adults express how they hope they can finish the New Year resolutions
they didn’t complete this year in the coming year.
Your coworker comes into your office and says that
he hopes you guys get a good Christmas bonus.
The overwhelmed Mom in your Bible study
says she just hopes she can hold it together for the holidays.
Hoping in this way feels empty. We call it hope, but it’s more like fatalistic wishing.
And now more than ever, there’s an underlying ache in our society and our world. We all hope for better times. We hope the pandemic will be over soon. We hope things will go back to “normal.” We read negative news article after negative news article and do our best to stay optimistic and “hopeful”.
But sometimes hoping can feel like trying to protect the flickering flame of a candle amid a dark and windy storm.
Is it even worth the effort when it seems so grim and pointless?
I’ve been running a series on my blog for about a month called
“Hope for the Holidays: themed poems and posts to encourage and inspire you this holiday season.”
But none of these posts will encourage and inspire you if we don’t know what hope is.
Is it merely fatalistic wishing? Is it just being optimistic?
What is hope?
I’ve been searching the scriptures this week to give you an answer and what I’ve found is almost the complete opposite of what we typically think of when we hear the word “hope.”
I don’t mean that in Scripture hope is a desire for something bad vs. something good. It is opposite in the sense that when we use the word hope, we usually convey uncertainty rather than certainty.
For example-
When a little kid says “I hope I’ll get a new bike for Christmas,”
it means- “I don’t have certainty that I’ll get a bike for Christmas, I just desire that I do.”
When an adult says “I hope I’ll finish the new years resolutions I didn’t complete this year in the coming year”, it means- “I don’t know if I will or not, but that is my desire.”
When your coworker says “I hope we’ll get good Christmas bonuses” he means, “A good Christmas bonus would bring me my desire, but we can’t be sure we will get one.”
Typically, when we express hope, we express uncertainty.
But according to scripture- certainty is literally the expression of hope.
Read the following verses and see what I mean.
Romans 5:5 says – “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
1 Peter 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Galatians 5:5 “For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith.”
Colossians 1:27 “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Biblical hope is not merely a desire for something good to happen. It is confident expectation that something good will happen. When the word says- “Hope in God!” it doesn’t mean, “Cross your fingers and make a wish!” It means, as William Carey once said-
“Expect great things from God!
And why can we expect great things from God?
Because he has proven himself to us.
And nothing demonstrates this better than his incarnation- the birth of Christ; Emmanuel, God with us.
Jesus’ birth is not only a story of salvation and redemption-
it is a story of HOPE.
He didn’t come when the world was at peace.
He came to a world much like our own, full of great pain and oppression, poverty, desperation, and cruelty.
Jesus met us in our mess. And unlike the world, he didn’t come to teach us wishful thinking or manifestation or optimism. He came to give us eternal life and peace with God and man.
He came to a people that had been waiting for him- expecting him-HOPING for him, for years. He fulfilled his promise, and every prophecy written about him.
He is hope incarnate. He is hope fulfilled. He is hope ALIVE.
This Christmas, we don’t have to be uncertain about our future- about the holidays or the New Year and whatever comes after that.
Because we have hope.
True, everlasting, living hope in Christ.
We can expect great things from Him because he has fulfilled every promise he’s ever made.
He said he would come to be born as a baby in a little town called Bethlem and he was.
He said he would come back as a King and make an end to sin and suffering and he will!
Do you truly believe that?
HE WILL COME AGAIN.
HE WILL FULFILL HIS PROMISES TO YOU.
HE WILL RESTORE OUR BROKEN WORLD.
Our hope isn’t a flickering flame in a dark and windy storm. And it’s not up to you to keep it burning. Hope is a wildfire, ignited by the holiness of God, that will one day burn down the forests of this world diseased with sin and death.
It may not look like it when you read the news, but darkness doesn’t have a chance. In the end- only hope will remain.
So don’t let the pandemic drag you down!
Don’t let your heart grow heavy!
Celebrate the Saviors birth and ardently desire his return!
Our hope is certain. Our hope is sure. Our hope is safe.
For our hope is HIM.
“Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years, are met in thee tonight.”
