Well, it is that time of year. Lights are being hung on rooftops, trees being brought into living rooms, socks being hung by chimneys, presents being wrapped, a feeling of busyness and excitement fills the air of the town as people prepare for the big day. Christmas is coming! With Christmas comes Advent, the time of year where we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming celebration of the birth of Jesus. This week we will be lighting the candle of Hope.
Hope seems so simple. We hope for good weather. We hope that our family members will like the Christmas presents we’ve bought for them. We hope that the calories in the Christmas treats don’t count. When we use the term hope we use it as wishful thinking. We want the weather to be good but we don’t know if it will be. We want our family to like the presents but maybe they won’t. We don’t want those calories to count, but they will. We use the term hope as an almost passive term where we long for one thing but ultimately expect another. Yesterday when I was walking my dog I was listening to Christmas music and a song came on that reminded me of the hope we have because of Christmas morning.
The song that came on was, “Mary Did You Know?” This is a song that I love but that also drives me crazy. Something I struggle with is unanswerable questions. I am curious by nature and will dig deep to find the answers and when I come up empty I get frustrated. This song (if you haven’t heard it, Pentatonix has a great version you can listen to here) asks a lot of unanswerable questions. The premise is, did Mary know that her son, Jesus, was going to be as incredible as He is? Did she know that her son was going to save the world? These are unanswerable questions for us. We don’t get to ask Mary if she knew and this is why the song drives me crazy, but the reason that I love this song is because we know! We as Christians, know that the baby boy we celebrate every Christmas is the same boy who walked on water, who made the blind see, who calmed the storm, who brought the dead to life, and who died on the cross to save us from our sins. We know who Jesus is and because we know, we can have hope! I don’t mean the simple wishful thinking hope. I mean real, expectant hope. Hope with assurance of what is to come. John 14:2-3 says, “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”
Jesus has promised that He will return again and we can expectantly hope for the day that He does because we know He will. We know Jesus. We know that He doesn’t break promises. We know that He can do the impossible. We know that he loves us so much that He will come back for us. This is the hope that I think of at Christmas time. The fact that because we already know the story of how Jesus came we can hope with assurance knowing He’s coming back again!
Now it’s your turn, I want to know, what do you think of when you think of Hope at Christmas time? Share in the comments below.
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