Anticipation
Advent is a season of anticipation. Traditionally the 4 Sundays prior to Christmas and Christmas Eve, it represents a time of waiting for the coming Messiah as we anticipate the return of Jesus. Each Sunday we will light a new candle to represent an important part of the Christmas story. Today the candle is the HOPE candle. I think it is perhaps the best candle to explain why this time of waiting, this time of anticipation, was seen, and continues to be seen, as a season of hope.
Just last week our neighbors lost their 17-year-old foster
son to a senseless act of violence. Terry Bosley was shot in the face while
walking only a block from his house. This event, like the many that have come
before it, turned our community upside down. Shock, anger, fear, uncertainty,
and sadness were shared among friends, family, and neighbors as the news
spread.
What was different about this shooting? Was it just the
breaking point for a community that has experienced violence time and time
again? Was it that this was the first shooting that was outside of the usual
high crime area? Perhaps it was just that so many people knew Terry, his
family, his foster parents, and they were all hurting because of their loss.
People Need Hope
People that are hurting need to know that there is something
better. They need to know that there is a hope for tomorrow. When everything is
going well, people often don’t see a need for God. It is during those difficult
times that they finally turn to God for help.
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to
us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains: it is His megaphone to
rouse a deaf world. - C. S. Lewis
Our hope is based on the Promise of God. Since the first few
moments after Adam and Eve first sinned, God promised that there would come One
who would defeat sin; One who would strike the head of Satan. Throughout the
Old Testament and the first few chapters of the Gospels, prophets shared about
this great Promise.
Isaiah was sent by God to share his prophecies in a time
when hope was needed. He proclaimed the message of God. It was a time when the
people no longer had a passion for the possible. They needed to have a passion
for the Promise. Through Isaiah, God was shouting to His people, “I have not
forgotten you. I still love you. I am sending you the Messiah, the Promised
One. My Only Son who will save you.”
God Promised Us Hope
14 Therefore
the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and
bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14, ESV)
9 For unto us a
child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his
shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God,
The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6, KJV)
Isaiah is seen by many as the primary Messianic prophet in
the Old Testament. Many of his prophecies are the ones we go back to when
looking at the Christmas story. Isaiah lived about 700 years before Jesus was
born. But prophecies about the coming Messiah had been made for thousands of
years before Jesus was born. In fact, the first prophecy about Jesus was made
by God just moments after Adam and Eve first sinned. In Genesis 3:15, God told
Satan that the seed of Eve will strike his head. God let him know that there
will be a descendent of Eve’s that Satan will try to defeat (strike the heel),
but that it will in fact be Satan that will be defeated (strike the head).
This first prophecy sets up the hope of the Bible. It gives
us our first glance at the Promise of God. Even as God was about to enact
punishment on Adam and Eve, He begins by proclaiming that He already has a plan
to save them from their sin. This was not some spontaneous plan. This was God’s
plan from the very foundations of the world. God is omniscient (all-knowing)
and knew long before the fall of Adam and Eve that they would sin. Even in
their weakness, God showed that He was in control, that He had a plan, and that
He would make a way for Adam and Eve and for all their descendants to return to
God.
Why is this a season of hope? Because it was through the
birth of Jesus Christ that God’s plan became a reality. We live in a world that
desperately needs hope. They need to know that there is something better than
what they can see with their own eyes.
We live in a world filled with hatred and greed. Where lives
are cut short because of guns and violence. We live in a world filled with such
selfishness that people will stampede over others just for the chance to get
that special toy at Christmas. We live in a world that is divided by political
parties, racial barriers, socio-economic boundaries, cultural differences,
nationalities, and even religious denominations.
We live in a messed-up world. People need to see that there
is hope for them. We need to know that there is something better. We need a
passion for the Promise because they see no possibility for a better life than
what is around them day after day. We need to know that one day every knee will
bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of lords and King of
kings. We need to know that the Kingdom of God will include a vast number from every
nation, tribe, race, and language.
We need to know that Our
Hope is in Jesus.
5 Make
your own attitude that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing
in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God as
something to be used for His own advantage. 7 Instead He
emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave,
taking on the likeness of men. And
when He had come as a man in His external form, 8 He
humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of
death—
even to death on a cross. 9 For
this reason God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name
that is above every name, 10 so that at
the name of Jesus every knee will bow—of those who are in
heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11, HCSB)
We do not need to exist in a world living without hope. We
can be a people that live in the light. It doesn’t matter what you have done,
Jesus loves you and came to save you. The worst that you have done is nothing compared to the best
that Christ has done for you. He gave His life for you.
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