Is it the Christmas season yet? I love Christmas music and the celebration of Christmas, but I don’t like when it all starts before Thanksgiving or even Halloween. That has a lot to do with the stores and commercial needs during the holidays. This past Sunday as we celebrated the first Sunday of Advent, the pastor was talking about Christmas and relayed the fact that it really isn’t Christmas until Christmas Day. We have entered the season of “Advent” meaning “arrival” as we are preparing for the arrival of our Savior Jesus Christ. We celebrate his birth on December 25, but we await his second advent as well.

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and we lit the candle of hope. Like the prophets of the Old Testament, we hope for the Messiah, looking for him to save us from the sin of the World (Isaiah 9:6-7). We anticipate our Savior’s arrival! This candle is also known as the prophetic candle and sheds light on the fulfillment of the prophesies that declared the coming of the Messiah, even revealing the location and time of his birth. The candle of hope does not disappoint as the fulfillment of these prophesies about Jesus’ birth show us the power and presence of God in the plan of salvation. This hope translates into our time, as we see prophesies being fulfilled about the second coming, even during these days where evil abounds and our world seems to be turning away from God. We rest in the promises and hope for the imminent return of Christ.

Hope is important and the biblical sense of hope is different than the world’s interpretation. For the world, hope is wishful thinking. If we hope something will happen, we have no certainty but merely wish for it to take place. A biblical sense of hope is very different. Hope based on the Bible exists as a secure assurance, a trusted place in a trustworthy God. God has not failed us in the past, so when he proclaims he will do something in the future we have a true sense of hope that he will fulfill that claim.