Follow the Star

We are in the Advent season. This year, our church family is using the theme “Follow the Star.” So, off and on in December, I will be pondering a few thoughts.

Today, I think about Hope that Shines in the Darkness

Let’s look at these three big words backwards …

Darkness – a world that is messy and wounded and fractured and broken.
Darkness – an uncertainty of what tomorrow holds, unable to see where your journey is taking you.
Darkness – constant conflict, broken relationships, dashed dreams, lost loves.
Darkness – confusion, chaos, being overwhelmed

Shines – a verb that indicates action something the light does
Shines – ongoing, in this case – never ending – continues to shine
Shines – like the sun, giving off warmth, light, life

Hope – in this case, our hope is a person (Jesus) (Psalm 131:3)
Hope – in the hope of the world, it is a fulfillment of a promise (Isaiah 7.14)
Hope – in this case, Hope results in rejoicing and peace and power (Romans 5:1-2, 5; 15:13)
Hope – in this case, it anchors us in the dark world (Hebrews 6:19-20)

Hope Shines in the Darkness. It seems more than coincidental that Jesus came in a darkness …
– confusion of people traveling everywhere
– a betrothal rocked by scandal
– a baby being born in the middle of the night in a town far from home
– born in a manger, in a grotto, not around calmness and cleanliness
– born to a people enslaved by Rome, under the murderous dictatorship of Herod
– born to God’s people who haven’t heard from God through a prophet for over 400 years

And the darker the night, the brighter the hope shines … even the smallest hope shines bright in a dark world.

He brings Hope. He embodies Hope. He is Hope.

And we have a job. We are to also share that hope to a world that still is in darkness.

This season, we can be excited about hope, but we are also supposed to be lights that leads others to follow the star … leading others to Jesus, the Hope of the world.