This past Sunday was the first Sunday of advent. The first candle is the light of prophecy and hope.
One of the most beautiful words in any language has got to be the word “hope”.
Consider the two phrases: I have no hope
For hope, people have endured great difficulty and unbelievable adversity – they have hung on- or they are continuing to hang on - because of a simple glimmer of light. For the lack of hope, otherwise healthy people have literally given up, withered and died.
I have sat with people who believe they have truly lost all hope. It may have been the end of a relationship, the loss of a business or a diagnosis. The loss of hope can make people do very desperate things. I have been equally desperate trying to find and re-kindle a small glimmer of hope in their lives. In truth, the only hope that I have been able to proffer at times is that God is, Jesus loves and, although this life is temporal, heaven is eternal.
People can certainly have hope that there is hope – and will try to grasp on to it, but it is like trying to hold water in your hands. When this happens hope is confused with wishful thinking. The kind we get when a fairy godmother appears in a movie and says “I grant you three wishes” – I want a million dollars, an in shape body, and --- um all my hair.
When we wish, we generally mean “I want this thing to happen magically without any effort or adverse consequences to me.” I wish had wings and could fly…. I wish he or she liked me…I wish I didn’t have to come to work today… I wish things were different. Christmas is coming, Sear’s tells us to create our wish list!
Certainly, not all wishes are frivolous. In fact many times people’s wishes are deep and frantic. I wish I did not have this condition or disease, I wish this did not happen to me, I wish things were different – in these kinds of wishes there is often a powerlessness, a despairing – a loss of hope.
Hope is different in that even in the midst of these seemly despairing experiences – hope breaks through. Hope’s greatest power is that it is grounded and rooted in something – or rather someone. As we light this candle, it is that someone that changes a wish to a real hope.
Hebrews 11 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible
What is it that you really hope for? The answers can be different than what I wish for? If you asked me what I wish for I might say, “I wish for a new motorcycle, or I wish that at 50 I could be as fast and as strong as at 25.” Ask me what I hope for, and my answers are different “I hope to be loved, to love. I hope for true friends. I hope that my children will know God. I hope that I remain faithful to my wife. I hope I remain steadfast in my faith to God.” But to have that hope, it must start from someone, and that someone is God who is the very creator of the universe.
I lose my wishes, if fact if they evaporate I’m okay, but if I lose my hope – I have lost everything. That’s makes Hebrews 11 so remarkable. Here we find the essence of this first candle. For us as followers of God – faith and hope are infinitely bonded together. You cannot say the one without the expression of the other. As we read through this passage, replace the word faith for the word hope, but think of them inseparably joined together as the trinity itself. One without the other is incomprehensible.
It is the last words of this chapter that I find most difficult and yet hopeful.
:39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
Our wishes are often in what we can see, whereas faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. I certainly do not know what it is you are facing at this moment. But I pray for you His hope. I pray that as you enter this season where we reflect on the coming of Christ as a babe into the world, that you experience as never before the incarnation of His presence in your life. May this bring a hope that surpass all wishes.
As I write this, news of our Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq filters in. These are people who are living the reality of Hebrews 11 like few of us can understand or believe we could endure. They are truly facing extreme persecution and are threatened with extinction. Intercede for them, pray that during these dark and difficult days - in the face of death - hope remains
Anyway, I was just thinking
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