Hope Awakening: The Introduction
Written by Jennifer Andes
Hope Awakening is a project six years in the making. Six. Years. God is so, so good.
Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. Presents dominated my thoughts as a young child; the older I get, the more I feel His presence. The weariness of the previous year slowly gives way to excitement and anticipation. Hope awakens, once again.
We all look for hope. We seek it. We desire it. We use the word “hope” interchangeably with “wish”: I hope my husband gets that job also means I wish my husband would get that job. But Biblical hope, the hope I’m referring to in this devotional, is altogether different. Holman’s Bible Dictionary defines hope as “trustful expectation, particularly in reference to the fulfillment of God’s promises” (pg. 162). The hope that awakens for me, every Christmas season, is this anticipation that God will fulfill a promise He made so very long ago.
Over 2,000 years ago, the weary world hoped for the Savior to appear. God’s people looked with trustful expectation for the fulfillment of God’s promise to send the Messiah, with the purpose of rescuing all humanity. Messianic prophecies fill the Old Testament, yet no one truly understood how the Savior would arrive. The book of Malachi ends with an instruction and a promise:
“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” Malachi 4:4-6, ESV
God then withdrew His guidance from the people. For the next 400 years, the Israelites would not hear from the Lord.
Sometimes it feels like that in today’s world, right? We know God is always with us, but He feels distant. Faced with trials and less than ideal circumstances, we wonder if He still cares. We look at a world full of division, hate, and loneliness and ask if He’s still in control. Our hearts and our minds don’t always sync. I imagine it was like this for the Israelites back then, too. Like us, they faced uncertainty. Felt abandoned. But also like us, they knew God would keep His promise. We may not always know this truth with our hearts, but we know with our minds. God is faithful.
The people waited. And waited. And waited some more.
Generations of people died without seeing the fulfillment of God’s promise.
And just when it seemed as though all was lost, hope awakened. God put His plan into action in a way no one expected, and the world would never be the same.
We know how this story ends. Advent is anticipation of the arrival of Christ. We know he came into the world, a babe born to die for our eternal salvation.
Here’s what I think we sometimes lose sight of: we live in perpetual Advent. We celebrate Advent during Christmas to celebrate our Savior’s birth. But we should also live the remaining 330ish days in anticipation of Christ’s return.
Hope awakened for the Israelites on a random, normal day at the temple. My prayer for the next forty days as we journey through God’s glorious plan is that He will awaken hope in you, once again. I pray we will all live with trustful expectation for Christ’s return. We see ordinary people being used by God in extraordinary ways throughout Christ’s birth story; may God use us, ordinary people, in extraordinary ways in the days, weeks, and years leading to Christ’s return.
All praise and glory be to God, forever and ever!
Reflection: Listen to O Holy Night today, in preparation for our devotional series. “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn; fall on your knees . . .”