We Talk A Lot About Hope

By Sharon Betts

  

We talk a lot about hope. 

We hope the weather will be good for our family vacation. We hope that our favorite team will win the Super Bowl—or at least make it to the big game! We hope that we get just what we want for Christmas.

But for many of us, hope lacks a sense of certainty. It is more like a wish—something that we want to happen but have no way of knowing that it ultimately will. So we keep our fingers crossed and “hope” that everything will go the way we want it to.

The reality is that often life doesn’t turn out the way we hoped it would. Hope is a fragile commodity. When life is disappointing, our optimism is replaced by feelings of discouragement and hopelessness. Before long we run the risk of becoming cynics who believe that there is nothing in which we can confidently hope.

This was the landscape of life when Jesus entered the world. The prevailing mood of Israel was anything but hope. The once proud nation was now a puppet state of the pagan Roman Empire. The common person lived under the defeating burden of the exaggerated requirements of the religious establishment. Centuries before, they had been promised a deliverer who would restore Israel to its former glory, but it had never happened.

Into this sense of cynical hopelessness, true Hope was born. But the tragedy of that first Christmas was that very few realized the hope that had been introduced. Hope for the forgiveness of sins. Hope for a bright future—forever. Hope for God’s presence and power in daily living. Hope that would enable us to forget the past and set our sights on stuff that doesn’t disappoint. A hope that, because of Jesus, is a certainty and not just another wish to be dashed on the rocks of reality.

I love the honesty of the psalmist who said, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?” We’ve all been there. But let’s not stop there. Keep reading! “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God” (Psalm 42:5). Rejoice that Jesus came to give you something better than the disappointments of life on planet earth. And when by faith you embrace Him and all that He promised, you can have a hope that is no longer a fingers-crossed wish that you harbor in your heart, but rather a confident, courageous optimism that is rooted in the certainty of His Word.

Pin your hopes on Jesus this Christmas—you won’t be disappointed!

                                                                                                         

Time for Exaltation

View image | gettyimages.com

December 6, 2015 
Reflection by Tuesday Rupp

Every December, my mother would pull out her album of Handel’s Messiah, taking the big black discs out of their paper sleeves, checking the grooves for signs of dust or scratches, and carefully placing them under the phonograph needle. I loved the series of recitatives and arias the tenor sings at the beginning: “Comfort ye, my people/The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness/Ev’ry valley shall be exalted.” The last aria in particular was filled with such jubilation. “Every valley shall be exalted/and every mountain and hill made low.” The tenor’s fast-turning notes of the word “exalted” becoming a kind of glossolalia, a musical speaking in tongues. Invariably I would dance around the living room, trying to imitate the leaps and flourishes in the music (without making the record skip!)

Our faith is truly one of great hope in darkness. Cynthia Bourgeult writes that “Among worldwide religions, Christianity is surely one of those most urgently and irrevocably set upon the total transformation of the human person.” I find that to be reason indeed for celebration.

There are many fine recordings of Handel’s Messiah. For today’s musical meditation I chose a rendition that speaks to the spirit of the original with new language. Both joyfully speak of the transforming power of Christ (and both make me want to dance).