Today I performed a funeral, which is a fairly common thing for me, but I don't recall ever having one quite this close to Christmas Day. I was reminded that even in our darkest hours, Christ comes to shine His light through our darkness. The only thing that can give us any kind of real hope when we lose someone we love is the knowledge that there is a world beyond this one, and therefore that death is truly not the end, thanks to the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hope can be an overused word from which we tend to strip away any real meaning (like faith and love, for that matter). But true hope is found only in the One who comes to defeat death, the One who gives us a real reason for hope, the One who gives us a life beyond this one. Christ is coming this Christmas to fill you with that hope; indeed, one of the major themes of Advent (yes, it's still Advent-it's not Christmas yet...) is the theme of hope - that we look forward to our deliverance, to our Savior, to the fulfillment of all our joy. But we do so precisely because we live now in the beautiful confidence and certainty of knowing that our Hope is indeed coming. Our hope is not in our own efforts or even in our trust in our fellow men; it is in the God who comes to us to defeat death itself, so that we can live forever.
This Christmas, where do you most need the hope that only Jesus can offer? Whether for yourself or for a loved one, for a past wound, for a present pain, or for a future fear, bring all of it to Jesus. Ask that He fill you with His hope, the only real kind of hope that there is. And this Christmas, live in the glorious freedom of knowing that Christ comes to defeat every source of darkness, even death itself.
Pax Vobiscum
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