The weeks before Christmas produce frantic activity to get ready for Christmas Day. During Advent the level of spending for gifts, ornaments, decorations, cards, parties, huge meals, special food preparations and airplane, bus and car travel becomes the difference between economic failure and success for the whole year for many merchants. Our “To Do” list seems to double daily. Even a superficial inspection of that list will reveal many or all of the following: clean the house and get the guest room ready, put out the Christmas towels and aprons, buy the tree and decorate it, decorate the rest of the inside of the house, put up the outside decorations, address and mail Christmas cards, buy the gifts for out of town relatives and friends early and wrap and mail them, buy the rest of the gifts on our shopping list and wrap them, bake cookies, pies and cakes, wash the good silver and plates, buy the turkey and ham and start the stuffing, attend extra church services, arrange to go to 3 parties, give a party at our house, find time for 3 Christmas concerts (one at school, one at church and one in the town concert hall) and on and on. Does this sound familiar? At no other time of the year is the activity level so frenzied and the determination to get it all done so grim. We lose sleep and neglect other domestic responsibilities, but the Christmas preparation will get done.
And yet there is a joy in all this activity. We find ourselves humming a favorite Christmas song as we work, often late at night. As we go about our “To Do” list, those around us have bigger smiles, happier eyes and a cheerier disposition than at any other time of the year. And it is all contagious as we are swept along by the good cheer of the season. For a brief time the world seems transformed, as the lights are more brilliant, the colors more beautiful, the music more inspirational and the people much gayer and their spirits much lighter than at any other time of the year. We really need to pause a minute and ask ourselves, “What is it about that baby born over 2,000 years ago that touches our spirits and induces this transformation of the world year after year after year?”
God’s Love for you and for me came into the world on Christmas morning in a form we can see and touch and experience, a newborn baby. A baby who would grow up and show that love on a cross as he died for you and me. He showed us God’s love; divine love, all loves excelling. And as we come to experience and know that love, something even more wonderful emerges- Hope! Hope is absolutely essential to our well being. Without hope there is only despair and depression, but with hope there is the possibility of new beginnings. And the coming of the Christ Child reminds us anew each year of the hope of eternal life we have in him. We prepare for the coming of the baby Jesus with the hope we have in him, the hope of eternal life in fellowship with Him and with the Father, and the transformation of the world begins anew each year.
The power of hope is graphically illustrated in the experience of our POW’s returning from the concentration camps of Germany, Japan and Viet Nahm. They have told us over and over that the difference between life and death was most often hope, and hope alone. Those with hope maintained the will to live and many survived and those without hope lost the will to live and died.
Paul tells us in our scripture today in Romans 15:4 that all that was written before, that is the Old Testament, was written so that by the inspiration of scripture we might have hope. The entire Old Testament is filled with Jesus and God gave it to us so that we might have hope! For this reason we need to spend time reading the Old Testament. God even created the hope of new beginnings into the fabric of the universe. Each 60 minutes produces a new hour and each 24 hours produces a new day and each 365 days produces a new year and each 100 years produces a new century- the hope of new beginnings. God did this with good reason, as every hero of the Bible needed a new beginning; Adam and Eve after the Fall, Moses after he committed murder, David after his adultery with Bathsheba and the Disciples after Good Friday. After Good Friday the Disciples saw only the end and despair. But on Easter morning they found hope as the possibility of new beginnings rose with Jesus from the grave. And you and I also need the hope of new beginnings after our failures and shortcomings. We find that hope in the baby Jesus.
Paul goes on in verse 12 to tell us that the hope of the Gentiles, that is you and me, is in him, the baby born on Christmas. Then Paul tells us that the God of Hope by the Holy Spirit will fill us with joy and peace when we believe in Jesus so that we may abound in hope. We will not just have a little hope, but we will abound in hope. This is what transforms the world each Advent season as we are filled with joy and peace and abound in hope. Our preparations remind us anew of the hope we have in Jesus. And it is this hope in Jesus that leads God to end his Word to us with the last words of the Bible, Revelation 22:20 and 21, “Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” And when that is so, when we accept God’s Grace in Jesus, we abound in hope. During Advent prepare for the coming of the Christ Child with hope, and be filled with peace and joy!
Praise our awesome God!
Amen.