A Glimmer of Hope

Does hope carry much meaning for us today? Is it a real and tangible thing to grasp onto and look forward to? Or is hope the kind of thing reserved only for fairytales.? How important is it for us to place our hope in something? Do we really need it?
I guess the answer to that question needs to be placed within context. Hope looks so much different through the experience of an asylum seeker with no country and no identity, than it does through my own. While one child hopes for a new bike this Christmas, another hopes to live to see tomorrow. So what use is hope? Is it real? Is it beckoning something on to be realized in reality? While I could so casually hope for a particular gift for Christmas, another might invest all their faith and energy into the hope for life. What does that glimmer of hope look like?
Verity and I had the opportunity to attend a preview screening of ‘The Nativity Story’ on Wednesday night. I will say from the start, ‘what a fantastic film! Go and see it’. This movie will help you engage the Christmas story all over again with fresh new eyes. One very strong theme that came through the movie for me was the message of hope, hope for a generation who had nothing left except hope.
One of the many prophets of Israel, Jeremiah, is one who is responsible for instilling this hope in the people of Israel. He writes (among many things like this):
“”The days are coming”, declares the Lord, “When I will raise up to David a righteous branch, King who will reign wisely, and do what is right and just in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety…”” (Jer 23:5-6)
This was written in a time when the small nation of Judah was located in the middle of 3 big nations at war. They still dwelt under the shadow of the Babylonian super power. In the years leading up to the revelation of prophecies such as Jeremiah’s, the people of Israel lived under the extremely tough and oppressive rule of Caesar.
Yet into this world God broke through, a glimmer of hope in the form of a baby born in the humblest of places to the humblest of parents. Those who were alerted to his birth were not the prominent and the powerful but the helpless and near hopeless.
There are millions in our world today who hold on to hope in a million different ways. What will this hope look like to them. As followers of Jesus 2000 years after his birth, we celebrate the glimmer of hope that has broken into our lives. We don’t have blind hope, we hold onto a hope which has already been and is still yet to be. We have received a special and unique gift.
Christmas is about giving. You have received a glimmer of hope in Jesus, now in turn share that glimmer of hope with those you encounter in your week. Lord knows, there are a million reasons why you should.

Shalom
Mark