December 21st - Hope

Yesterday morning on the way to work I was listening to Radio 4.   The show was called Soul Music and it was all about the Christmas Carol ' O Holy Night'    I only caught half of it but it was really
beautiful.  Testimonies from lots of people for whom it has been a significant song - plus some history about the writing of it ( did you know it was written during the height of the abolition of slavery movement - which makes the verse about ' the slave is our brother' pretty poignant)  Towards the end of the piece someone was talking about hope.  And they said this.

Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change.*

Isn't that just fantastic??

We talk a lot about Hope at this time of year - but I'm not sure that many of us have really got a handle on what it means. Maybe it's not possible to fully understand it this side of heaven.  But I'd like to try.

Jesus came into a situation which was dire and impossible and dreadful and hopeless.  That was the evidence.  The religious leaders looked at what they saw before them - a carpenter, a rebel, a friend of tax collectors and prostitutes and in the face of the evidence they just could not believe that He was who he said He was.   But the disciples saw the very same things and decided to stick with Jesus, follow Him, watch Him,, learn from Him and as they did so they saw the evidence change in front of their eyes.   There was a dawning realisation that everything they knew from the scriptures was actually being fulfilled in this man.   Not in the way they had been taught to expect.   But undeniably so.

Jesus is into defying expectations.   If you are disappointed with God then I can guarantee that it is not because He is a God of disappointment, but because your expectations of Him were faulty from the start.   That can be tough to accept  ( trust me; been there, done that, got the t shirt)  But the good news is if we stick with Jesus, keep following Him, keep trusting Him, keep refusing to listen to the voice of despair He will change the evidence so that Truth is revealed. 

Because He is Truth.   Truth sets us free

This is Hope.


* attributed to Jim Wallis of Sojurners.  Google him  :)