Hope. Santa brings the good little boys and girls presents or so the saying goes. But Santa doesn't bring hope.
The first week of Advent is all about Hope. It's also the time of the year that you hear so many children asking for things to be put on their "Santa list". I must confess that in the past I have been partial to having the boys add things to their "Christmas Lists" when we go out to the store, even in May and June. But at this time of the year it becomes an epidemic for so many parents. So many of us have fallen into the trap of thinking and believing that everything we need in this season of giving is under the tree. We even tell ourselves, "I just love giving gifts" or "it's about the joy of giving". And we should, we should love giving. But it's when our giving of things gets in the way of latching on to hope that we find ourselves in the darkness needing someone to light a candle.
The candle of hope that my family lit last night is a reflection of a greater light breaking through the darkness of a broken and depraved world. The light of Christ Jesus in the form of a baby broke through the darkness of the hearts of man and brought shepherds to their knees and angels to song and the constellations to his doorstep.
The hope of Job who cried "where then is my hope - who can see any hope for me?" (Job 17:15) is in a manger surrounded by the lowly and the outcasts. Our hope is born into the filth and mire. Born to be the hope of mankind. A child who came into this world not just for the good little boys and girls, but for everyone. He comes for the lowly and the outcast, for the hurting and anguishing just like Job, just like each and every one of us that struggle through our days and nights longing for the one thing that only this baby Jesus can bring.
We all need and long for hope.
Santa doesn't bring hope, Jesus brings hope. He brings light into a dark world and makes bright a reality of life with God that is the only way to fulfill that deep seeded need for hope that each person is so desperate for.
This Advent season receive the gift of hope and share it. It is the most costly of gifts, it is the most precious of gifts. It is Jesus.
