Jesus: The Message of Hope

Christmas Character Series

John 1:1-18

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201%3A1-18&version=NIV;NLT

 

 

This headline appeared in the Columbus Dispatch on Christmas Eve morning. Initially, I thought how cool that on Christmas Eve they printed a story about Jesus. Instead, it was an article about the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo 8 space mission that circled the moon.

 

Here is how the journalist introduced the story.

“At the end of a violent, turbulent 1968 in which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F Kennedy were assassinated, protesters and police battled outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and American troops were mired in the war in Vietnam, there came a semblance of peace from 230,000 miles away.”

 

That “semblance of peace” was issued on December 24, 1968, as the astronauts looked out the window of their spacecraft, and saw the earth in a way that no human had ever seen before. As a message of hope, they quoted a passage from Genesis 1. However, I think the following verses would have been better.

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.         NIV

 

This is the best message of hope possible. It is the message of God becoming man; of the word made flesh; of God with us. In The Message, it is paraphrased this way:

 

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and blood,
                        and moved into the neighborhood.          MSG

 

Thank goodness we don’t depend on the Columbus Dispatch, or any other temporal source, for lasting hope. But we can depend on the Living God, who sent His one and only Son into our world to seek us out and bring us love, joy, peace and hope.

 

May you experience “The Message of Hope” throughout the coming year.

 

 

 

 

The Hope of the 60’s

Revelation 22

 

The 60’s generation thought we were the hope of the future. We thought we were going to correct all the mistakes that our parents had made; that politicians had made; that the establishment had made.

 

Then came the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy. It was a tumultuous time with the Viet Nam war, demonstrations and Woodstock.  Yet, we thought we were the hope of the future.

 

What keeps you going when you fail to meet your own expectations; your own hopes; your own dreams? What keeps getting you up in the morning after life knocks you

down? What keeps you trying when circumstances seem hopeless?

 

When John wrote the book of Revelation, circumstances did seem hopeless. Emperor worship was being enforced. Christians were facing greater and greater hostility, even to the point of martyrdom. John himself had been exiled to Patmos, which was a penal colony, probably for his missionary activities.

 

God’s Covenant of Hope always seems to include fruitfulness. He started in the Garden of Eden; continued with the promise of a land filled with milk and honey; and concludes with the promise of the restoration of Eden. See if you can visualize this idyllic garden that John describes.

 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. NIV

 

"No longer will there be a curse”… In the 60’s, we thought we would put an end to the curse. We were wrong. Only the Living God can do that. Through the promises of Revelation 22, He gives us hope. Not only is it hope for us as believers, but also for us to share with others in a world without hope.

 

 

 

(If God has spoken to you, or touched your heart through this devotional, please feel free to share it with others.)