Hope Made Real

Intro

This time of the year can mean different things to people. It can be a time for Santa to slide through the chimney and bring gifts to those that have been nice. It can be a time to gather with the family around lots of food and reminisce about that all that happened in the year. It can also be a time of sorrow because it was about this time in previous years that a loved one died, or a reminder of a strained relationship that was once full of love.

In the midst of all those different meanings of Christmas is a meaning of Christmas that stands tall with broad shoulders waiting to be embraced.

This time of the year is a reminder that hope is alive and it is made real in the birth of Jesus.

Hope as we culturally understand it and tend to experience it is a dangerous feeling. It can have you feeling the best only to leave you feeling the worst. It is an expectation of what isn’t and might not be. It is a look into a future that might be favorable to us only to leave disappointed.

Some people have a complicated relationship with hope because it often feels like it never lives up to its hype. A drug that seems bad for you but you just can’t stop taking it.

How are you and hope doing today?

I can’t promise you that all that you hope for will become a reality, but I can tell you that in the birth of Jesus all the hope that is borne out the promises of God will be realized. In the birth of Jesus, we find hope that is anchored not to the whims of our emotions but to the promises made by God.

This season should remind us that because Jesus was born, hope is not merely a wishful thinking, but a guaranteed reality of all that God has promised.

The song of Simeon that we find in Luke 2:25–32 gives us a picture of hope initiated and hope realized. We see in this song, hope made real in the person of Jesus.

Open your bible or bible app to Luke 2:25-32. We’ll read and ask for God’s blessing on the proclamation of his word.

Luke 2:25–32 CSB

There was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, looking forward to Israel’s consolation, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he saw the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him up in his arms, praised God, and said, Now, Master, you can dismiss your servant in peace, as you promised. For my eyes have seen your salvation. You have prepared it in the presence of all peoples— a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to your people Israel.

Hope Initiated

Luke begins by introducing us to Simeon before we hear of the praise he offers to God. Here’s a man who was looking forward to the consolation of Israel. He was looking forward to the day when Israel will be comforted by God, a day when Israel will experience lasting freedom and healing from the trauma of oppressive nation-states, from the tyrannical oppression of the sinful flesh that has led the nation to the disobedience of God’s commands. He was looking forward to when the nation would once again worship the one true God as they should.

We see in this two verse introduction two separate hopes. The first being that Simeon would see the Lord’s Messiah before he dies. And the second being that there will be a Messiah. It’s one thing to have hope that there will come a Messiah who would bring about comfort and change to Israel, It is another to have hope that your eyes will see that Messiah before you die.

Both hopes are borne out of God’s promise. God promised to the Old Testament saints that he will send a Messiah who would bring about their freedom. And in verse, God is promising Simeon he would not die until he sees the Lord’s Anointed one.

We don’t know when in Simeon’s life the promise was made, but when it was made, it initiated this hope that he held near and dear. We don’t know how long he waited for the realization of this hope, but we know he waited.

Hope often always involve patient endurance. It requires waiting even when you are tired of waiting. The waiting however, is not supported by wishful thinking, but rather by the promises of God.

Simeon waited because God promised and he trusted in God. This is the secret ingredient of a sustained hope. It is the promise made by God regarding the thing hoped for and the courage to trust that God will do it.

The promise isn’t only that his eyes would see the Lord’s Messiah but also that there will be the Lord’s Messiah. It is a promise that the consolation of Israel will soon be a reality. And from this promise is the hope that things will change, that Israel would be comforted, that whole world would find peace.

Hope is made possible because of God’s promise.

Hope Realized - 2:27-35

That hope was realized for Simeon when Jesus was born. That hope was no longer a future possibility for present reality.

On the very day that Simeon’s hope would be realized, Luke tells us in 2:27, that “Guided by the Spirit, he entered the temple.” He entered the temple at the same moment that Baby Jesus was in the temple with his Parents. That’s not luck, it’s not even merely right place, at the right time.

That’s what we call the Providence of God. It is God providing in a moment what the moment requires.

You see sometimes friends, we complicate how God is at work in us. We over-spiritualize what is is not necessary. We forget that God is already at work using the ordinary, the mundane to bring about his promises in our our lives.

Simeon was guided by the Spirit in to the Temple at the exact moment because the Spirit was at work in Simeon through the ordinary and mundane. Being guided by the Spirit is often apparent when we are living in obedience to God and treating people as we would want tom be treated. God uses our normative righteous behaviors for our good.

Simeon was a devout and righteous man who no doubt had a good reputation such that Mary and Joseph were comfortable with him holding their baby. Simeon was no stranger to the Temple, given he was a devout man, he most likely makes that trip multiple times a week. So, him being at the temple at the exact time was God using what was already a regular pattern in his life to make his hope a reality.

I don’t want you to miss that. The way you treat God and treat other people matters in how God works in and through you.

He uses the simple and mundane such as the way we make decisions. Now this isn’t from the text. This is bonus, this is a your pastor giving you some words of wisdom.

When we make wise decision we shouldn’t be surprised to see God use that for our good.

[wise decisions, commitments, on-time]

Simeon enters the temple as he normally does, but this day would be different.

He saw Jesus, picked him up and let out song of praise to God.

In this moment hope was realized. Promised of God was fulfilled. His eyes has seen the Lord’s Messiah and the Lord’s Messiah has arrived to provide consolation.

This consolation isn’t just for the nation of Israel but it is for all kinds of people. Whether you’re black or white, rich or poor, educated or not, old or young, Jesus was born to so you can be comforted. Comforted knowing that you don’t have to die in your sin, that you don’t have to be at odds with God, that you don’t have to spend eternity away from your creator.

And all who put their faith in this Jesus that has been born, like Simeon, can live a life filled with real hope. Hope that the promises of God to those whom he loves, to those who have believed on Jesus will be fulfilled.

Hope that you are not alone because God has promised to not leave nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5-6, Deuteronomy 31:6). Hope that you will never lack your basic necessities because he has promised to provide all your needs (Matthew 6:34). Hope that your pain and sorrow will one day cease because he has promised to one day return to make all things new (Revelation 21:3-4). Hope that in the present he is at work because he has promised you his Holy Spirit (John 14). Hope that even in your deepest pain, he is there with in it with you because he has promised to be close to the broken-hearted and crushed in spirit (Psalm 34, 2 Corinthians 1:4). Hope that all your sins are forgiven because he has promised to remove them as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

All this hope find their fulfillment through Jesus. And so we celebrate his birth knowing our lives are marked with hope.

Hope is initiated in our lives because he was born, and that hope will be realized because he was born.

As we wrap up, Let me encourage you to let this Christmas season be a reminder that hope is alive in Jesus. Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1, that Christian is our hope. He wrote to the Ephesian church that outside of Christ, they were without hope and without God. Because of Jesus, we get to be partakers in the promises of God. And because we are partakers in the promises of God, we can hope and we have hope

No matter your current circumstance, know that hope, real hope, true hope, biblical hope is not lost and is alive because Jesus was born.