Advent Meditation: Hope

As we begin the season of Advent and focus on the meaning of the season, we start with the word of hope that God offers to us. I talked this week about how we as a culture may be afraid to hope. We would rather not hope than face disappointment in this life. But in the same token if we go through our life without hope then what is that we have to offer this world as followers of Jesus? So how are we bringing hope?

As good American consumers we tend to look at hope as something that we need to be given. Even when we are a part of the church, many believe that the purpose of church is for someone else to give them hope. This isn’t surprising, because even the disciples believed that Jesus was the dispenser of hope. Prior to the feeding of the multitudes, his disciples said to Jesus, we have all these people here and they need something to eat. Jesus response was “you give them something.” And so they fed the people with 5 loaves and 2 fish and all ate their fill.

Hope is not something to be consumed, hope is something to be lived, and as followers of Jesus we are called to live that hope. This time of year many people will live that hope by ringing bells, writing checks, donating food, clothes, toys and other items. That is bringing hope through how we live, but what happens later? We go back to our seeming world of hopelessness and strive ourselves for someone to give hope. But if we live as followers of Jesus, we live hope in our lives each and every day. Our hope is in the God who emptied Gods self in the form of the baby, lived and taught among us but also gave us a commission, to go and make disciples of all people, but also a promise that he is with us until the end of the age.

As we celebrate his coming into our world again, let us remember that we are the bearers of hope, we are the givers of hope because we have already received the hope that was given to us in the babe who would be the hope of the world. Let us show the world that hope is alive and is within all of us.