Photo by Ron Smith on Unsplash
Dear Saints,
Waiting … it’s been a long year. I’ve heard from many of you, “I can’t wait for 2020 to end!” We say that because we’re also “hoping” 2021 is better than 2020. A definition of “hope” is “a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.” And there are some reasons for a hope-filled 2021 – three vaccines are on the way, the market continues climbing, and we’re all more experienced dealing with the things that happened in 2020. So, we hope 2021 will be better. While oftentimes our “hopes” come to fruition, oftentimes they also fizzle and fade.
According to the church calendar, it’s Advent and the church’s new year is here! It’s Advent, the church season of waiting and hoping. But, as Christians, our hope is different than the hope expressed by the world around us. We do in fact hope 2021 is better. We do in fact hope that vaccines will make COVID a thing of the past so we can resume something resembling the “old normal” we long for. There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of hopes. But, as I stated, our hope is also different … we have a hope that is firmly grounded in the reality of God’s promises found in His Word.
As we enter this Advent season of waiting – we do wait, “Not lacking any spiritual gift, as (we) wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain (us) to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1:7b-8)
As we wait hopefully, God promises two things. He promises to sustain us, to strengthen us through spiritual gifts that enable us to see through the fog of our current troubles to the day of Christ’s return. We wait hopefully knowing – for certain – that on account of Jesus, we will be guiltless when He returns. And guiltless, He will bring us with Him into His eternal kingdom where we will dwell forever without any fear of anything which fizzles and fades on us here in this life.
Waiting Hopefully,
Pastor Jim