Advent: hope

 It's the season of Advent, the time set aside for celebration and reflection as we count down to Christmas day. "Advent" means (from the American Heritage Dictionary) "The coming or arrival of something or someone that is important or worthy of note." As a tradition, the celebration of this season has been around for at least 1,500 years...but it's not something I grew up with in a Southern Baptist/Methodist family. This year, though, I feel drawn to focus in these days leading up to Christmas.

This first week, my focus is hope.

When we generally talk about hope, our meaning usually leans more toward wishing for something. We talk about something we would like to see happen, but something we're really not sure about...we hope for our team to win a game, we hope to get a certain gift, we hope to get to go on a vacation, we hope for a certain political outcome.

There's a secondary definition of hope, though--to have confidence or trust.

Many times in scripture we see the words, "the God of hope." We're told to "wait in hope for the Lord." That hope is not just a wish--the hope we are called to is a confidence and trust in the only One who is truly worthy of it.

As we wait for Christmas, we're reminded of Israel waiting...hoping for the Messiah. They weren't simply wishing for His arrival--God had promised, so they expected Him to stand by His word. They were confident that the Messiah would come to Israel.

We should learn from the hope exhibited by the Israelites, the simple belief that if God said it, it will be so.

At the same time, though, we should learn from the sad truth that so many missed the arrival of the Messiah for whom they were waiting so expectantly.

It's easy to let my hope in God get wrapped up in how I expect Him to answer. That was the case with many in Israel--they had hope that the Messiah would come, but it was tangled up with the expectation that the coming of the Messiah would look a certain way. Many overlooked the coming of Yeshua because He didn't come as a conquering warrior, liberating them in the physical realm from the rule of the Romans. He didn't establish His earthly kingdom and wipe out all the other rulers of the world in an instant.

Instead, He came as a baby. His birth wasn't celebrated by nations--it was welcomed by shepherds. He didn't grow up in a palace, but as the illegitimate son of a carpenter from a no-name town. He didn't marshal an army, but instead traveled the countryside with a group of 12 ordinary men. He didn't wear a gold crown and sit on a throne in Jerusalem, but instead wore a crown of thorns as He hung on a cross.

In my own life, there have been so many times that I've trusted God for my future. I've had that hope in Him... but I've expected Him to work in the way I thought things should work out. Through the years, though, I've learned one huge thing about how God works:

He will always work things out in His perfect timing and His perfect way, but it will seldom (if ever) look like I expect.

"My intentions are not always yours,
and I do not go about things as you do.
My thoughts and My ways are above and beyond you,
just as heaven is far from your reach here on earth.
For as rain and snow can’t go back once they’ve fallen,
but soak into the ground
And nourish the plants that grow,
providing seed to the farmer and bread for the hungry,
So it is when I declare something.
My word will go out and not return to Me empty,
But it will do what I wanted;
it will accomplish what I determined."
(Isaiah 55:8-11)

"I am the Eternal One.
I Am is My name.
My beauty is unique, a weighty splendor all My own.
And nothing else—no idols could possibly gain My praise.
Look here, what’s done is done and gone.
The now is new, and there’s hope in the not-yet.
    I will tell you what’s to come,
even before the events are brand-new."
(Isaiah 42:8-9)