By the Way: Hopeful expectation

By Rev. Roland Weisbrot on December 7, 2024.

As of this past Sunday, the Church has entered the season of Advent. This marks the “new year” of the liturgical calendar which essentially follows the life and ministry of Jesus.

The focus of Advent is something along the lines of hopeful expectation. You see, Advent encourages Christians to do two things: first, to look back at the incarnation, the birth of Christ, and celebrate the fulfillment of God’s promises to send a Messiah, a Saviour, into the world; second, to look forward to the return of Christ as King, to eagerly await the Last Day when all things will be made right and sin, death, and the Devil will be no more.

Consequently, this makes Advent a season of hope. Now this is not a vain hope or a manufactured hope, but real hope. A hope that is inspired by faith and the faithfulness of God to the promises He has made to us.

I therefore encourage you, my fellow Christians, and those with sympathy toward Christ, to be agents of hope in a world and culture that seems increasingly hopeless. Jesus told His followers to be ‘”the light of the world”‘, and there are few better ways of doing that than spreading hope (Matthew 5:14a, NIV).

What Advent also teaches is patience, to wait for God to act and to have hope and faith that He will rescue His people.

As people of faith, we must keep the flame of hope alive, we must fan it by reminding ourselves of the many promises God has already made and kept by reading the Bible which tells the story of salvation history and culminates in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

So, this Advent, may hope abound in our hearts, our homes, our churches, and our communities, for ‘”the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned”‘ and that light is Christ (Matthew 4:16, NIV), the One “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8, NIV).

Rev. Roland Weisbrot is lead pastor at Victory Lutheran Church

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