11/30/24 - 12/6/24: Advent Readings:
Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 1:26-38; Isaiah 7:10-14; Matthew 1:18-25.
First Sunday of Advent - HOPE
I am an avid sports fan, so I know what it means to hope. Every time my team plays, I watch, hoping my team wins the game. But anyone who has watched sports knows that the outcome of a game is never certain. On any given day, the team that should not win, on paper, may find a way to win.
This is much different from the hope described by the prophet Micah when he says, “But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.” There seems to be a confidence here that I do not have when cheering for my team to win. To understand the difference, we must understand what is being hoped in. My wishful optimism is in a team that has failed me in the past and will fail me in the future. But Micah’s confidence is in a God that cannot fail, the God who always keeps His promises, and the God who never changes.
Biblical hope can be defined as “the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future” and is a central theme in the Christmas narrative. You see, Mary, Joseph, and the Jews of their time had a confident hope in a coming Messiah based on the past prophecies from the prophets, and that first Christmas, their hope was born as a baby in a manger; the Messiah had come. They thought that the Messiah would free them from Roman oppression and restore Israel to the days of King David. Praise be to God that His plans were so much bigger than that; this Messiah came to free people from the oppression of sin!
For you and me, our hope this Christmas comes from the truth that this Messiah was born to die for your sins and my sins and then to be raised to life by God the Father. For those who have been adopted into the family of God, our hope is in Jesus; He has saved us from our sin, and one day, we will reside in His presence. This is not a hope in which we do not know, for certain, the outcome (like the teams I root for); this is a “know so” hope, a future reality.
No matter where life finds you this Christmas, I pray that you choose to remember all that God has done for you and choose to remember the truth about His unchanging character, knowing, for certain, that God loves you, He has a plan for you (which is better than yours), and one day He will wipe every tear from your eyes as you enter into His presence forever. This Christmas, we hold fast to a “know so” hope, fully confident that our God will keep His promises to us. In a world full of hopelessness, I am so thankful for the hope I have in Jesus!
Written by Josh Ness
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