Thinking about Hope (revised from 20 December 2014)

Romans 15:13 reads: "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

"Hope" is a slippery concept.

We hope for a certain outcome, yet anxiety often colors that hope. Even from the time God promised a Savior in Genesis 3, generations hoped yet did not see that hope fulfilled. And when God chose to be silent for 400 years, perhaps anxiety overcame hope in the hearts of many. But hope remained in the hearts of those who believed--hope against hope perhaps. Then God did more than break the silence.

God became Incarnate, Immanuel, "God with us."

Never a sinner like us but in all other ways like us, experiencing the joys and the sorrows and the hopes.

But because of not being like us, He could be what no one else could be, fulfill a hope no one else could.

Because He was fully God and fully man and fully without sin, He could be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the One in whom and through whom God and man could be reconciled.

And so, having lived a sinless life, Christ died a sinner's death for all who would have from all time believed and been reconciled to the Father through Him.

Hope fulfilled.

Let us adore Him!