Christmas Hope
Advent season begins this week, which means Christmas is coming! The most wonderful time of the year! Or, so they say. The four weeks of Advent anticipate the birth of Christ. “Advent” means “coming.” There is one month in the Advent calendar and 5 candles in the wreath, representing peace, love, joy, hope and the center candle, Christ. Looking back to the time just prior to Christ’s birth, there was great anticipation; it was a time of greatly heightened hope. God’s people shared a palpable hope for Messiah. Though as a nation they did not recognize or accept Him, He has fulfilled hope for peace, love, joy and He has brought hope in the midst of hopelessness for over 2.000 years. Hope is an undeniable Christmas theme!
Nonetheless, Christmas hope somehow gets counterfeited this time of year. Hope gets focused into things like a materialistic frenzy we call “Black Friday.” In previous years, maniacal crowds (who have curiously missed the fact that they could do their shopping online) some camping out overnight, risking physical injury, were fighting for the last latest technical gadget, TV, or toy they could have ordered on Amazon Prime for less and had delivered in two days, with free shipping.
Then there’s the little child whose every Christmas hope is centered on the latest tech toy, gadget, or cuddly gizmo that’s all the rage this Christmas. If he, or she, doesn’t get it, the kid will be an outcast; emotionally scarred for life. I remember requesting a drum set at about age 12. Just a small one would have sufficed. Since I only received a snare drum, my life’s path was no doubt rerouted and I remember my Christmas “hopes” that year feeling as though they were dashed. (However, I did end up playing snare drum in my middle school concert band. But the rock band—that hope fell by the wayside).
With what’s happening in the world today, ask the typical person on the street to express his or her “Christmas Hope” (if you could find one who didn’t insist on the PC “Holiday Hope”) and chances are he or she might say they want “Peace.” Of course, if pressed to explain, the person would likely talk about “world peace,” or, “less gun violence” and such peace is needed, as we know. But when asked how we attain such “peace,” the secular solutions would run the humanistic gamut of the typical legislative, to military, perhaps philosophical, or scientific fixes that the finite wisdom of man can conjure up.
Of course, each of these prescriptions for peace ignore the only true Hope: the Prince of Peace. It would be the same drill for solutions concerning the world’s need for joy, or love, or hope in general. All the secular mind can offer is something like the shallow lyrics of a John Lennon song, or self-medication, in an effort to chase down the illusive emotional versions of what were meant to be deep, abiding qualities of life, available only through the One Who is Love, the Prince of Peace; the One Who brought great joy to the world and gave hope that does not disappoint.
Yes, Christmas is a season of hope. We as Christians have an opportunity to help people redirect their hope away from the counterfeit to the King. He is the One Who came and is coming soon; we celebrate His Advent, when God took on flesh. We also look forward to His Second Advent. There is no shortage of hope in that!
Are you prepared to take the world’s circumstances and explain to someone this year why they should look to Jesus for hope, for peace, for love, for joy? ’Tis the season! It is the rare time of year that we actually have the world’s attention, albeit somewhat distracted by the wrong kinds of hope. But the bottom line is this: For the most part, they still celebrate Christmas! Look for opportunities to share the Hope born that first Christmas.
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful” —Hebrews 10:23