Day 2 - Hope in Christ

Child of Hope:
An Advent Devotional

Monday, December 1, 2008
Hope in Christ

If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be more pitied than all men.
I Corinthians 15:19

The Israelites hoped for the coming of the Lord’s Messiah. For centuries they looked forward to an end to the oppression under which they lived, and to the shame of being ruled by foreign powers. They longed for the coming of the One who would set them free, the Advent of the Son of Man, God’s Anointed. They hoped for freedom, for a return to David’s Kingdom, when other princes had brought tribute to Zion. During long, dark years, they lived in hope.

When He came, they didn’t notice Him. They expected a conquering hero mounted on a charger. What they got was a baby. Hope was fulfilled, not on the battlefields of Armaggedon, but in a manger, in Bethlehem. The Messiah, the Christ, came to usher in the Kingdom of God; but it was not a kingdom of this world. His enemies were not the enemies of Israel: the Greeks who corrupted or the Romans who raped the land. His enemies were those attitudes of heart that divided the people from the God who had made them. Christ came to reconcile sinners to a holy God, to bring righteousness where, before, there had been only alienation and despair.

Christ still comes, today. Wherever human hearts grow heavy under the oppression of sin, Christ comes to bring healing. The salvation He offers is not from the sword of Caesar, but from the far more deadly evil that threatens to send us to an eternity without God. One day, at His Second Advent, Christ will reign upon the earth; but that is not our only hope. We may be encouraged today because He has given us a hope that is longer than our years – a hope of heaven, which is our home.

Prayer for the Day
Lord Christ,
You won, for us,
such a victory over sin and death that,
despite the darkness of the hour,
we can always see the sunshine of Your grace.
Give us hope for today, and for a tomorrow that will never end. For Your love’s sake.
Amen.