"For in this HOPE, we were saved. But HOPE that is seen is no HOPE at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we HOPE for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."
Romans 8:24-25
HOPE comes in many ways. When you are five, you HOPE you will begin to lose your baby teeth soon. When you are 15, you HOPE the pretty girl who sits across the classroom from you will accept your ask for a date. When you are a young married couple expecting your first baby, you HOPE that the baby will be healthy. When you are older, you HOPE that the results of the medical tests will be positive.
But what about the HOPE of mankind? Mankind has created its own gods to hopefully give it the answers to our most intimate questions. And it has all been woefully inadequate. Throughout the Old Testament, the Jewish people longed and waited for the promised Messiah. And then, God answered their longing. He sent his Son—the incarnation of the long-held HOPE.
I have seen and experienced some manifestations of our HOPE for answers. On Christmas Eve,1965, I was at a ski resort in Kitzbuhel, Austria. It was there that this Baptist preacher’s kid from Oklahoma attended his first Midnight Mass in the local Catholic Church. The church was filled to overflowing; it was stiflingly hot. And it was the first time I had seen someone become overcome by the emotion of the moment and the hot room. A couple of people passed out and had to be passed hand-by-hand over the heads of the worshippers. They were celebrating the birth of the Messenger from Heaven and the fulfillment of our search for HOPE.
As I left the church after the service and was walking back to my hotel, I heard a small band playing “Silent Night” from a hillside nearby. As the music wafted over the valley, it brought many sensations to me. I was studying abroad that year, and the warm memories of spending Christmas with my family overwhelmed me. I was homesick, but every time homesickness began to hit me, I remembered how blessed I was to experience the year abroad.
Christmas, as it was originally observed, is our collective celebration of the answer God sent to us with the birth of Jesus. God Incarnate. The Divine Creator of the Universe came to live and work among us. Just the thought of that fact makes my heart and soul bubble over with joy. We have almost destroyed the original concept of Christmas with our commercialization and secularizing the observance. But the simple image of a Manger holding God Himself is enough to encourage us to “Go, tell it on the Mountain.”
Let us always hold the truth of this HOPE in our hearts and demonstrate it in our daily lives. So that everyone we encounter will know of the HOPE we hold within us.
David Hopper
Comentarios