Weekly Devotion

November 25, 2022

The Way, the Truth, and the Life was in the manger,
causing angels to rejoice, Mary to wonder, shepherds to worship,
and us to have hope.

Hope Is a Person

The Christmas story clearly shows that the hope of the universe is a person. Hope was what the angels sang about. Hope lay in the manger. Hope caused Mary to wonder in her heart. It was hope the shepherds came to worship. Hope was presented with gifts from the Magi who had traveled so far. The Advent story is a hope story because it chronicles the coming to earth of the One who is hope, Jesus. For people born in sin and for a world damaged by sin there simply could not be any other source of hope. Good education would not solve the problem. Benevolent government had no power to solve the problem. More and better laws couldn’t penetrate to the source of the problem. People couldn’t help one another, and they surely couldn’t help themselves.

You see, the inescapable condition of sin infects every single human being and has scarred every aspect of the cosmos, which cried out for one thing and one thing alone: divine intervention. The only solution was a Savior, and the only suitable Savior with the wisdom, power, and righteousness to accomplish the task would be God himself. The One denied would come to rescue his deniers.

The One rejected would move to save his rejecters. The One who had been rebelled against countless times would come to redeem the rebels. The One who had been replaced in people’s hearts with an endless catalog of idols would invade the world he had made and rescue people from themselves. He would not come to set up an earthly kingdom and enforce his rule on the unwilling. He would not come to judge and condemn. He would not come demanding the service that was his rightful due. No, he came to serve, to suffer, and to die so that his kingdom would reign in the hearts of people. He came to seek and to save. He came to suffer and forgive. He came to rescue and restore. He came to call, draw, and love those who without his grace would continue to live for themselves. He came, and because he did, there is hope that sinners can be redeemed and the world can be renewed. It really is true:

hope is a person, and his name is Jesus

By Paul David Tripp (www.crossway.org/articles (November 29, 2020))  Submitted by Kathy Pruden