Hope

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the beginning of the Christian year for many denominations. It’s a time of reflection ad of anticipation built on the history of salvation fro the earliest times, and culminating in the birth of Jesus the Christ.

While different churches agree that the four Sundays before Christmas represent Love, Joy Hope, and Peace, they don’t all agree on the order or the scriptures associated with each of these, and so I will freely assign each to a Sunday in Advent.

Hope for the Hebrew slaves in Egypt began the day that Moses took off his sandals in front of a burning bush on a mountain side.

Hope began for a Hebrew woman named Hannah when she knelt in a tabernacle and asked God for the favor of a son: “And she made a vow, saying, ‘Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life. . . ‘” (Samuel 1:11). Hannah’s misery was relieved when she stood up, though the answer to her prayer was yet to be realized. The Spirit of God had endowed her with Hope.

Hope is a priceless essential quality in all our relationships, and especially in relating to our God. It was Hope that motivated Hannah to make her request, Hope in a God she knew only in stories and rituals, but His Spirit had given her Hope. Her prayer put in motion the great changes that would come to Israel when her son Samuel grew and led Israel. It was he who ushered in the Golden Age of Israel by anointing Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David.

What a powerful force the simple unexpected seed of Hope became in Hannah and in Moses and in all who respond to God’s Spirit in their lives.

Even the high priest failed to recognize the Spirit of God in a praying woman, but the glimmer of Hope had entered Hannah, and she kept the promise when her baby was born. One Hopeful, faithful woman was used by God to help prepare the advent of His own son. There would come others who would call Israel and all humankind back to a Hope that looks forward to salvation. Advent carries the spirit of Hope.

Love in Him,

Prue