Tuesday, December 2, 2008

A Message of Hope

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. My Sunday School class did the Advent reading. A first for us. Usually it is a married couple or a family. I found such enjoyment sharing in this portion of our worship service with my church family.

The message in our Advent reading was one of HOPE.

"So we stop and look around and come to grips with the fact that much of this life consists of waiting. Nothing satisfies fully and completely because it is not meant to; every joy and pleasure is meant to be only a preview for the whole and complete joy that we will know on that day when we finally see him face to face. We wait - eagerly - expectantly - hopefully."

We are merely passing through in this life we live on earth. As believers, we find hope in knowing that one day we will meet our King.

Our King lived a perfect life on this earth for about 33 years. Something that had never been done before him and something that no one can repeat. One would think that such a person would come from a very impressive and 'perfect' lineage. Not the case. In Matthew 1 is Jesus' genealogy. It's filled with what our world calls the less desireables. There are men and women in His family tree that are liars, cheaters, those who committed adultry, murderers, prostitutes, and those who violated others. Not the kind of family history that you want to write home about.

Yet from those who were less than perfect came the perfect One. That One who brought hope to all the earth. This didn't occur by chance. God controls the flow of history. He knew that each person in Jesus' family tree would play a vital role in the history of the world.

Since hearing our sermon on Sunday I've been feeling less than excited about buying Christmas gifts. Not because I don't enjoy giving but because it really isn't all that important. The season isn't about the gifts, the decorations, the parties, etc. We've all been given the best gift possible if only we choose to accept it. The gift from above...a little baby who arrived in less than perfect conditions and then lived a perfect life only to be the sacrifice on our behalf.

May God bless you and yours during this holiday season. May you find hope.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you I needed this so much.

Anonymous said...

isn't that comment awesome! I so agree with you. I have yet to buy a single present yet I'm not stressed at all because truly the presents just don't seem so important this year - time together time focused on the reason seems so much more important. Good for you for writing this.