Light the Hope candle
Sing: O Come, O Come Emmanuel
The first candle of Advent is called the Hope candle. According to the NIV translation, there are 180 verses with the word HOPE. Interestingly enough, the word “hope” is not found in the OT until the book of Ruth. Then it is found once. Psalms contains the word hope 33 times, Job 22 times, and Romans 10 times. Hope is either used as a noun- I have hope. Or as a verb- I am hoping, I hope to etc.
What does hope mean to you?
The first word I thought of was expectation. If I have hope, I have a wanted expectation.
The second word I thought of was possibility. If I have hope, I am thinking that something might happen. There is a possibility of something good happening.
When we don’t have hope, what do we have? What is the opposite of hope? If something is hopeless, there is no possibility. There is no expectation that what we had desired will come to pass.
Our 20 year old cat named Reepicheep, recently passed away. His health took a turn for the worse. We had hope for a long time that he would bounce back. We hoped that the Lord would heal him as He had healed him, many times before! Then when he stopped eating and drinking, we lost hope. We did not expect him to recover. We knew the possibility of him making another miraculous recovery was not going to happen. We knew it was time to say goodbye. But even now, we are not without hope. We now hope that we will see him again when Jesus remakes the earth. We hope to see Reepicheep again. We expect that possibility to happen.
We have an even greater hope. We hope in the reality of heaven for each of us. When hope grows from expectations and possibilities and becomes larger, it is no longer hope, but faith.
Faith is found in the Bible 458 times, starting with Genesis 5. Enoch walked faithfully with God.
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Faith is confident hope. Assured hope.
The NLV translation says, “Now faith is being sure we will get what we hope for. It is being sure of what we cannot see.”
This reminds me of the song we just sang, O Come, O Come Emmanuel. We sang:
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears
Rejoice! rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, o Israel.
Israel didn’t just hope that the Messiah would come, they had faith. Isaiah 7:14 says, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."
We are living on the other side of that hope that Israel had. We live after the Messiah was sent. We no longer are looking with hope for the Messiah to come, we now experience the Messiah with us. Emmanuel means 'God with us'. If we have faith in Jesus, He is Emmanuel God with us. He lives inside of us. He dwells in our bodily temples. But like Israel, our hope, our FAITH, is in His return. We too are waiting in expectation. We are waiting for His return when we will be with Him, not just in spirit, but in body.
This Christmas time, we rejoice in the hope we have. We rejoice that He is the God who is with us because He came to earth to be born in human form. Like the lyrics to O Holy Night, our weary world is waiting- not for Him to be born, but for His return.
Sing: O Holy Night
Prayer: Thank you Jesus for coming to earth as a little baby. Thank you for enduring life as a human being. Thank you for being Emmanuel, God who is with us. We look forward with hope to celebrating your birthday, and we look with mature hope, with faith, to your return to take us home with you someday. Thank you for faith that moves beyond hope, to a place of trust and belief. Thank you that we can place our hopes in You, help us to place all of our hopes and cares into Your hands. Please help us to keep our minds focused on You this Christmas season. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
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