Advent Sunday ~ Hope

Welcome the Season of Advent with me. Advent means 'coming' or arrival. A few years ago I wrote, with the help of my sister, four Advent readings, one for each Sunday before Christmas. I share with you now the first reading, for today, which is the Advent Sunday known as HOPE.

Scripture Reading: Daniel Chapters 1-3.

The first Sunday of Advent is Hope.

Hope is a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one’s life. Hope implies perseverance—believing that a positive outcome is possible even when there is some evidence to the contrary.

Today our scripture reading will tell of the hope found in 3 young men who faced certain death because they refused to bow down to a false god. While the outcome looked anything but positive, they clung to hope… a result of their faith in God.

The death of Christ looked anything but hopeful to the handful of disciples who stood at the foot of the cross in stunned disbelief that this could happen to the man they had come to know as the Son of God.

Yet, hope was reborn when Christ overcame death, a hope that continues to live on in each of us as we follow Christ.

As we light the first candle of Advent, we wait with expectancy, anticipation, longing, and most of all hope… the hope of eternal life offered in Jesus.

(Light the 1^st candle)

Prayer: God of Hope, we long for your return just as your chosen people longed for your arrival.  You have plans for us, plans for good, not for disaster, plans to give us a future and a hope.  No matter how hopeless things may seem here on earth, in you we have eternal hope.  We wait with expectancy for the unexpected.

Amen