Weekly Greeting - December 13, 2024
Greetings friends,
Last week our Advent theme was hope. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul prays that the Christians in Rome will be filled with hope:
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
---Romans 15:13
Hope is an important part of our faith. Frederick Buechner has said that for Christians, hope is ultimately hope in Christ. It is the hope that Jesus really is what for centuries the church has been claiming that he is. Christian hope is the hope that despite the fact that death and sin are still very much with us, Jesus somehow conquered them and that through his power and the power of the Holy Spirit we stand a chance of conquering them too.
Author Jan Richardson has said, “Hope asks us to resist going numb when the world within us or beyond us is falling apart. In the height of despair, in the deepest darkness, hope calls us to open our hearts, our eyes, our hands, that we might engage the world when it breaks our hearts. Hope goes with us, step by step, providing the sustenance we most need.”
“Hope,” writes W. Paul Jones in Trumpet at Full Moon, “is the simple trust that God has not forgotten the recipe for manna.”
As we move through this season of Advent, let us dare to hope that sin and death really is conquered by the gift of God’s Son. May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing.
Happy Advent!
Blessings,
Craig __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This week is the third week of Advent, the week of Joy. The theme of our worship service is Take Me Back to Bethlehem—A Music Celebration, narrated by Lindsay Luckett and Bryce Smyth. Music will be led by the Bethlehem Choir, a special children’s choir, the Bethlehem Bells and others. Invite a friend and prepare to celebrate the coming of our Savior. O come let us adore Him!