Advent DAY 4 Hope is A Happening

I Peter 1:20-21 (Common English Bible) ²⁰ Christ was chosen before the creation of the world, but was only revealed at the end of time. This was done for you, ²¹ who through Christ are faithful to the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So now, your faith and hope should rest in God.

During those years before the first Christmas, a deadening despair settled over the people of Israel. The Scriptures would read of the promise of the Prophets: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will  rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6 NASB). But the words did not help. They rolled over the backs of the people burdened and oppressed by life’s problems and difficulties. And the people settled into their rut of hopelessness. As we begin looking forward to Christmas now, I wonder if an air of hopelessness hangs heavy over our lives? “Don’t worry, it may not happen,” but it does. “Don’t worry, your problems will take care of themselves,” but they don’t. “Cheer up. Things could get worse,” and they do.

Hope can begin happening to us when we realize that as Christians we are not spared the trials, problems, difficulties, and sufferings of life. Despite all we may know, somehow we may still build up the expectation that when we become a Christian everything will take a turn for the better. But God never promised that. As long as we live with the false hope that we will not experience the problems and difficulties of life we cannot know the true hope we have in God. The difference is how we face those problems and difficulties knowing that God is with us.

Christianity offers no Pollyanna hope to life’s problems and difficulties, but Christmas is the invasion into our lives of the clean, pure air of hope. Let us breathe deeply of that air as we hear again the words of Simon Peter: Christ was chosen before the creation of the world, but was only revealed at the end of time. This was done for you, who through Christ are faithful to the God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So now, your faith and hope should rest in God.

Our hope is in God alone, not in what happens or does not happen to us. The hope Christianity offers is that in whatever happens or does not happen, God is still with us. Life may get better or it may get worse, but regardless, God is still with us, offering us all the resources of His life. God offers Himself to us only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Never did life seem more hopeless than on that dark day when Jesus died. But, when He arose, with Him new hope arose. Hope is received in the same way it has been offered. Hope will happen to us when we die to our hopelessness and God raises up new hope within us and new Light is seen where there had been darkness.  

From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope December 2, 1973

© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles