The Candle of Hope

Our Scripture reading was a little different today. As they will be this Advent season. Instead of a short devotional moment at the beginning of service, we’ll be learning more abut the themes of advent and what each of these candles mean.

Hope, Peace, Love, Joy, and the Christ Candles all have a very special meaning to this time of year and we are going to learn just a little more about them.

What does Advent Mean?

If you came here today not knowing what advent means, that’s okay. You’re not being graded. But, it’s not a hard thing to define if you’ve ever been through an advent season. It simply means:

Advent: A time of preparation and reflection on the coming of Christ, both in Nativity and second coming.

It’s a time where we gather to celebrate and honor Jesus’ first coming and acknowledge that we know he will return.

We’ve celebrated advent with the candles since about 1839 when a German pastor made a wreath out of an old cartwheel to help children countdown for Christmas. The tradition spread and today millions of churches light these candles each year to count down the remembrance of Jesus’ first coming and the anticipation of his second.

The Candle of Hope

Let’s look first at the Candle of Hope. It was just lit this morning and it will burn the longest of all the candles. That tells me that hope has been around the longest and is steady forever. When did hope first arrive on the scene, it was around 6,000 years ago and the first sin had just happened.

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Right after the first sin occured, God didn’t waste anytime. He had said that sin would lead to their death and it did. Prior to sin there was no death and after sin man and animals would now die. That sounds pretty hopeless. So, almost right away God says, “One day a human being will come and defeat sin once and for all. And this verse in Genesis is a promise to satan, not Adam or Eve. The one who deceived Adam and Eve to sin thought he won.

God showed Adam and Eve, and all of us, there is hope and that hope wouldn’t come for 4,000 years.

I am not by any means a fan of politics. It’s not that I don’t care or don’t have opinions. It really boils down to, the government is not my Savior, God is, so why give too much of my life to following politics?

But, every four years, I got my politic hat on. I read polls, I watch debates, okay I only watch the highlights. I vote and I encourage others to vote. And on that first Tuesday in November, I was pulling out my phone, watching those electoral votes go up. And when it was time for bed, I couldn’t sleep well. I had to keep checking. And once a winner was announced I was out. It wouldn’t have mattered to my body who won. I would have easily fallen asleep.

All this being said, I would have been a horrible Adam, “Is it time, God?” “Now?” “How about next Tuesday, I can right it down for you.” I’m impatient with certain things and God said, “One day, at some point, I’m going to send someone to save you.” I would have been born bald.

And of course some of you know my stance on the end times and consider me pretty mellow on the subject. That’s because God has given us a job to do until he returns. And That job is to communicate that Hope to others.

Which leads us to our second passage of Hope

Jeremiah 33:14–16 (ESV)

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

This is from the Book of Jeremiah and is speaking of Jesus’ second coming, not his first. The Book of Jeremiah was written sometime between 626 and 580 BC. God’s People have been hitting refresh on their Facebook feeds for about 3500 years now and they haven’t even gotten the first hope yet.

This passage does actually speak to both the 1st coming and the second. It speaks of a righteous Branch for David’s household, DONE. Jesus came, he’s of the line of David. But Israel has not seen true peace since the time of Solomon. Even now, having their country back in their hands they are still waiting and HOPING for what God has promised.

MOst Jewish people today don’t recognize Jesus as their Messiah, their Savior. Imagine waiting for election day and hoping your candidate wins, but then for some reason or another, you don’t find out that your guy won until his last day in office four years later.

That woulds be intense, think of everything the Jewish people of today are missing out on. Jesus is their savior. That hope is complete. They don’t have to wait anymore. He is there. Is his Kingdom physically here yet, nope. But he is sitting on the throne and that is good enough for me. Jesus is my savior, he is the righteousness Jeremiah speaks of and there was only about 400 years left to wait.

Luke 1:30–33 (ESV)

And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Hope completed. God’s people had waited a LONG time for this all to happen.

Just look at some of the things that happen when the Savior is announced. He will be called Jesus. THat’s Yeshua in Hebrew, Joshua in English. ANd it means God Saves. The Messiah is “God Saves”

The Angel also says that Jesus will be great. A lot of people paid attention while he was on earth. And even today people are still talking about him and hanging out in little white buildings to learn more about him?

He is by and far, the most studied, read about, and written about man in all of human history.

Jesus is also called the Son of the MOST High. He is God’s son, and since God can never be less than he is, that also means Jesus is fully God

It is also said that Jesus will be given the throne of David and that he will reign forever. While that has yet to physicall occur here on earth. He has been given the throne of David and he does rule. It’s just like the losers in any election. “Not my King.” Just because someone says Jesus isn’t their Messiah, their Savior, doesn’t mean he isn’t. Jesus is the King, and one day everyone will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is true. Until then, We share our Hope.

Because, and this is the greatest news of all. Jesus’ kingdom will never end. There won’t be polls every four years to see if there is a better Messiah. We won’t have debates on how he does his ruling.

Jesus, when he returns, is coming to stay. If the people under Solomon’s reign though things were peaceful, they was no fighting but Israel was not free of problems. Just wait until they Jesus’s kingdom.

Hope is a funny thing. It’s an arrow pointing to something greater. It’s so great that the hope began in Genesis 3 right after Adam and Eve thought all was lost and satan thought all was won. The funny thing about arrows is that to find out where they lead, you have to follow them. We’ve spent the year reading through the Bible and I hope for those who have joined us that you saw those arrows through scripture.

The final thing about hope you really need to know. Yes, it’s been around a long time. About 6,000 year. And I don’t know how much long it will be around. You see, Hope is not eternal. Hope came first in Genesis 3. It is again shown in Jeremiah 33 and many other places. It culminates in Luke 1 and 2. It continues on to today and for an unknown time into the future, but it is not forever.

Many of you know this verse, it may have even been part of your wedding.

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

We see these three things and are reminded that Love is the one that is the greatest. And we will talk about Love on week 4 of advent, but what happens to HOPE.

If you hope for a new TV for Christmas and you get it, do you still hope for the TV? nope. Your Hope goes away. We have many candles to burn this season and I think I know why the Hope candle is first.

By the end of Advent it is a very short candle. In fact, if my sermons are too long, the hope candle might not make it. If it worked out perfectly, right when the Christ candle is lit the hope candle will go out. Because with Jesus, we won’t need hope anymore. When we arrive in heaven. We will know it is all true, we won’t need faith. All our life we hope for Jesus, when we are in his presence, we won’t need Hope anymore. Peace, Joy, Love and Christ are all eternal. Only

Hope Will End

I hope you still see the arrows in your prayer life and in your work life. He is still pointing the way and I really HOPE we follow

Let’s Pray