Hope

This week begins the season of Advent on the church calendar. My favorite thing about Advent is all the light. I love Christmas lights and candles and reflecting on the idea that Jesus is the light of the world. One of Jesus’ main messages was that He, the light of the world, had come to stamp out darkness. Every time I light a candle or look at my Christmas tree lit, I try to reflect on how His light brings hope.

The first candle in a traditional advent wreath is the candle of Hope. 1 Corinthians 3:12 says, “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold…”

The context of that verse is Paul’s discussion about how when Moses and the Israelites in the OT approached God, they had to do so with veiled faces. The had to view the glory of God through a veil because Christ had not yet come to remove that veil from their eyes and their hearts so they could see God clearly and approach Him boldly. With Christ’s coming, that veil was torn. Because of Christ, we now have clear access to God and we can approach him boldly. Because of Jesus and his coming to earth, we have hope and that hope allows us to be very bold.

We can be bold in our prayers. We can be bold in our love and service of others. We can be bold as we parent and go to school and work. We can be bold in every aspect of our daily lives because the light of the world came down, reached into the darkness, tore the veil and delivered hope to the human heart.