Advent Week - Hope

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   Advent season has begun, and you've undoubtedly started hanging Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music. The first week of Advent focuses on the theme of hope. Perhaps for you, the season is less about being hopeful and more about feeling hopeless. Hope may seem more like trying to grasp at a whisp of smoke. You know it's there, but there is no way you can wrap you hand, let alone your head, around it. Hope, many people believe, is simply wishful thinking. Yet this is not the biblical understanding of hope.

   Paul writes in Romans 5:1-5, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us."

   The Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms defines biblical hope as "more than a simple wish; it entails certainty based on God's demonstration of faithfulness to people in the history of salvation as recorded in the Scriptures and as experienced by the church." For us, hope is a thing that is certain because we have placed our hope in the God who keeps His promises, and the ultimate promise kept is that He sent His Son to be born as a man to redeem us from our sins. While the world places their hope on things that will go away, a hope that is sure to disappoint, let us remember and proclaim the hope that does not disappoint, one that enables us to endure whatever difficulties may come. Our Savior has been born, and this is the ultimate reason for hope.