“May the God of all hope, fill you with
all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that by the power of the Holy Spirit
you may abound in hope.” (Romans 15:13, ESV)
They had waited for centuries. They had
endured battered and broken hopes in each generation. In the famines that seemed like curses, occupations
where tyrants smashed the notions of hope and where their own unrighteousness
chased them away from daring to hope.
Yet deep in their hearts, they clung desperately in their faith somehow
believing in the mighty God of the remembered past would come now in their time
as a Messiah.
They had waited for centuries. They had
endured separation from the hope of a Messiah pushed aside because they were not
a covenanted people. They were reminded again
and again, each and every time they wanted to worship the Living God as they
stood excluded and isolated in their separated place apart from the others gathered
to hear of the promised Messiah.
When Jesus came as the Messiah to the
Promised and Covenanted, He also came to all.
He came fulfilling all promises of hope by bringing hope to all
people. To the waiting … He brought
rejoicing. To the broken … He brought
wholeness. To the outcast … He brought
inclusion. To the separated … He brought
unity. To the hopeless … He brought hope.
Jesus was hope fulfilled then and He is hope fulfilled now.
There is a universal unity in the need
for hope and Jesus Christ brings hope that unites the need and the fulfillment. He was and is, and is to come … the Messiah
for all and for all time. All hope rests
on Him and in Him.
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and
recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The
eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
(Luke 4:18-21, NIV)
Suggested Bible Reading ... Romans 15
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