Advent Reflections. | Ramblings about faith, hope and love

This Sunday is the first of the advent season. Growing up in the Pentecostal church, this is a tradition that I was unfamiliar with until Steve and I were married and I began to attend the Baptist church where he was a youth pastor. It was there that I found the Christmas season come alive and to learn to reflect each Sunday on how we can celebrate Christ in more meaningful ways.

This first Sunday we look to hope.  What hope can an infant bring? We are hopeful when any baby is expected.  How much more hopeful should we be when it is the coming Messiah?

The advent season is a beautiful time of reflection as we look to the coming of the birth of Christ, the one who is responsible for the forgiveness of our sins. Without the advent season, my life would be much more difficult. Christ’s journey from the stable in Bethlehem to the cross on Golgatha means I can live with hope.

It is this hope that sustains me through the darkness, through my trials. Hope that gives me courage to face each day with the faith; that nothing is in vain.  There is a purpose. I have a purpose, a calling, a life filled with love that knows no limits. In Christ my hope is found, we can strive for it in all sorts of places but the ultimate source is found in a tiny infant, born in a stable to a young woman and man who were ordinary people like you and I. God chose them for a purpose, they were gifted for a reason.

Hope is a gift that must be received with grace and gratitude; to be valued and treasured. Hope is also a gift that needs to be extended to others. We can share our hope with others and introduce them to this infant in the stable in whom a key to the salvation of the world is placed; our giver and sustainer of life. The living hope of the world, in the flesh.

I hope that as this advent season continues that you will reflect on the Hope that Christ brings or can bring to your life. That you will look to the most absurd place, a stable, to find the most profound person to have ever walked the earth; look to Jesus for your hope.