I have a difficult time feeling a thrill of hope. Do you? When the world is heavy a thrill of hope is the last thing on my mind. But the anticipation of Christ’s birth? The fulfillment of prophecies would cause a thrill of hope. Something centuries in the making was about to come true and that is thrilling, but it happened so quietly.
Have you ever waited for something for so long and the actual happening of it was about to happen? Maybe waiting for your child to be born. Maybe a new business being birthed and all of your hard work are about to come to fruition. Maybe a big project at work is wrapping up. Maybe the college finish line is on the horizon. I know that gave me a thrill of hope. Knowing I’d be done and I accomplished something.
I struggled with hope for a long time. (If I’m honest, I still do on a regular basis.) Hope seemed to be something that was far off and in a certain circumstance and not in a Person. I mention in the book, about how our daughter Tullie was on oxygen for 3 years and I was putting a lot of hope in the oxygen exiting our home. I kept telling myself, “Once this oxygen leaves, things will be better.” No oxygen meant fewer appointments. No oxygen meant fewer things to carry. No oxygen meant more mobility. So, of course, no oxygen meant I could be hopeful for better things to come.
I realize it sounds silly. Placing hope in an object to make things in life feel better, but we do that often. We place our hope in people or objects that can’t fully fulfill the voids in our hearts.
The hope of a Savior coming to redeem the whole world is one to send a thrill throughout the entire body because we NEED a Savior. And the Savior has come. The prophecies have been fulfilled and Jesus has lived perfectly, died a sinner’s death and conquered death so we could have life anew and eternity with him, so why is it we still struggle with hope when Jesus has fulfilled the promises of old?
Because we live in the already and the not yet. We live among gross darkness. We live with pain and suffering. We live with death. We live with sin. When we are in Christ when we have acknowledged that he is our Savior we are no longer slaves to sin and death, but we are still living in its effects.
This is why we need Christmas. This is why we need to reminded that Jesus came for us as a little baby. He suffered from birth to his death on the cross. He knows we need him. He knows that only he can understand our grief and suffering because he has suffered what we are suffering. He knows.
“A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices…” Christ’s birth gives us a thrill of hope and we can rejoice although we are weary because the hope has been granted and his grace sustains till we are Home.