Advent: Hope

What gives you hope in a normal Christmas season?

What gives you hope this Christmas season?

Christmas 2020 is Christmas in a pandemic.  Christmas 2020 will be many things, but normal isn't one of them.  As I last wrote, this Christmas we need Advent more than ever.  Advent draws us to the four candles of hope, love, joy and peace.  Today let's consider hope.

What gives you hope this Christmas and what is hope?

We often see the word 'hope' used in political campaigns and Christmas cards, but what is hope?  Simply writing 'hope' without a firm grasp of what is to be hoped in is the same as the often used word 'believe' by itself this time of year.  Believe in what?  Hope in what?  Hope for what?

If we're honest most of us place our hope this time of year in family.  We find hope, love, joy and peace in our holiday gatherings.  I often do, too.  There is something warm and hopeful about sitting near a Christmas tree with a hot drink in hand telling the same old stories with the people we love.  

"Christmas day is in our grasp

so long as we have hands to clasp." 

-Welcome Christmas

"Here we are as in olden days,

happy golden days of yore.

Faithful friends who are dear to us,

gather near to us once more.

Through the years,

we all will be together,

if the Fates allow." 

-Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

So, what if the "Fates" don't allow?  What if we don't have hands to clasp?  What then?  Is the hope gone?  Is the Christmas season pointless?

"My hope is built on nothing less,

than Jesus blood and righteousness.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,

but wholly lean on Jesus' name." 

-My Hope is Built on Nothing Less

Trusting in anything, even good things, outside of Jesus Himself will leave us hopeless at times.  The other sources of hope are wells that often work but that can't be guaranteed to work when we need them.  Only Jesus works all the time.  We must hope in the person and accomplishments of Jesus Christ this Advent and every day.

I don't like the idea of my other streams of hope being taken away.  The hope-filled streams of my extended family and my gathered local church are God-given streams.  Yet, in a pandemic we're being tested to see where our hope truly is.  Will we lean wholly on these other sweet frames or on Jesus' name?

In this time of semi-isolation I have been drawn to Psalm 42.  The psalmist is, for some reason, not allowed to be with others he loves.  The psalmist feels isolated and is tempted to feel hopeless; yet he preaches to his own soul a reason to have hope.

"As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
'Where is your God?'
These things I remember 
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise Him,
my Savior and my God."-Psalm 42:1-5

There is nothing wrong with deeply missing going out among the multitude for Christmas Eve service.  Desiring to be with family to celebrate Jesus' birth is not a sin at all.  Wanting to press the warm blanket of traditions against your face to be comforted is not wrong.  But none of that can be your source of hope.

"Put your hope in God" for you will yet praise Him.  This week sing or listen to songs that preach to your soul to not be downcast but instead to put its hope in God.  Read wonderful promises that God is certain to keep.  Find your hope in nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness today.