Advent 2024 Week One Reading: Hope

First Speaker:

From the moment sin entered the world, from the moment that our evil choices broke our relationship with God, humanity has struggled to find meaning and purpose. We look around ourselves every day at the crooked and bent lifestyles of violence, greed, and hatred that are so prevalent in our world and it is difficult to figure out what can be done about any of it. 

Even King Solomon, one of the wisest and wealthiest people in history, said it like this:

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun and have found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

Second Speaker: 

Futility. Pursuing the wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened, what has been ruined can not be set right. So what are we to do if everything is hopeless? How do we spend our pointless lives?

The Israelites tried to follow the Law, to keep their covenant with God. Because of their sin, they were unable to and eventually God sent them into exile, just as He promised He would. Many good and moral people throughout history have tried to do the right thing, yet Solomon’s stark observation has always remained true: sin has made us crooked, and what is crooked cannot be straightened. 

First Speaker

Yet, throughout history, in spite of our sin and our refusal to return to relationship with Him, God’s constant promise has always been that He would not leave us hopeless. He promised that He would step in, He would make straight what was crooked. He would restore meaning and life to His people. 

Several thousand years ago, a young woman named Mary was in desperate circumstances. Her nation was enslaved, her people starving under the oppression of Rome. For centuries her people had cried out for salvation, for restoration, for hope, yet God had not yet fulfilled His promise. But to this young woman, hope finally came. An angel of God delivered the most thrilling news in the history of the world. Salvation had come through a baby, one that she herself would carry and raise. 

Hear now the promises of God, words spoken long before the first coming of our Savior Jesus Christ:

Here is my servant whom I have chosen,

my beloved in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him,

and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

He will not argue or shout,

and no one will hear his voice in the streets.

He will not break a bruised reed,

and he will not put out a smoldering wick,

until he has led justice to victory.

The nations will put their hope in his name.

Church, Jesus Christ is the hope of the world. He came to do the impossible and set the crooked straight, to defeat sin and death, to eternally take His place as the true King and Savior of the world. Even now we await his return with hope for the completion this amazing gospel story.