For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
Psalm 62:5
What is hope? How can we say Christ is Hope or that he represents God’s gift of hope to the world? What does it mean to say we have hope in Jesus? If I take the popular definition of the word, then hope is absolutely meaningless. When I was a kid, I would hope to get a certain present for Christmas, but I never had any certainity; if I knew I was getting it, I wouldn’t have to hope. But is that what Christian hope is?
Obviously it isn’t. Christian hope isn’t a desire lacking assurance; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Hope, for the Christian, is a strong and confident expectation. There may be room for doubt in the mind of the one who hopes, but for the One who offers hope, there is nothing but certainty.
Implied in this definition of hope are two things: first, futurity and second, invisibility. Whatever it is that we hope for (whether salvation, sanctification, resurrection, new creation, etc) is something we cannot see or something we have yet to receive. Paul writes of this in his letter to the Romans:
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Romans 8:24-25
When we speak of the hope of advent and Christmas, it is never with a mind toward the current definition. We must always hope with a biblical hope, knowing that God will do what he has promised. He will send light and save Israel. He will complete what he has begun.
Filed under: The Body of Christ | Tagged: Advent, Christianity, Church, Hope, Religion
