Discovering Christmas (2): Hope in Despair

‘Immanuel’

‘How could she?!’ Joseph thought with a broken heart, crying alone in his room. ‘What shall I do now?’ The wife he loved so dearly was pregnant—but not by him! Although engaged, they hadn’t been married and intimate yet. Joseph was heartbroken. All of his plans of a happy marriage and a beautiful family life were shattered into a thousand pieces. Despair gripped him; hope seemed lost.

But Joseph loved Mary—he loved her so much that he sought a way to spare her from public shame and the legal consequences. He sought to send her away secretly in order to protect her and the unborn child. It was the noble thing to do. Joseph was a good man.

‘Joseph!’ called the angel that appeared to him in a dream, instructing him to marry the love of his life and thus protect her and the child. ‘Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife!’ the angel said. For that Child was not another man’s, the angel reassured him; it was conceived of the Spirit of God! This special Child should be called ‘Saviour’ (Hebrew: Yeshua) and it had been foretold in the holy Scriptures. He was a sign from God; He was ‘God with us’ (Hebrew: Immenu’El)—God, the hope of the world, would come to His creation in a unique and special way…

The Light of Hope

Christmas is about hope! We don’t have to despair. The hope of the world was born among us. The Christmas message is one of ‘God with us,’ that God has not abandoned us or given up on us, no matter how bad things might look. He comes into our despair and gives us hope. Christmas is about hope in despair. Christ is the Light of the world who brings light into our darkness. He was born in humble circumstances, because He comes into our circumstances to bring light and hope.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12

We all need hope, but we also know the bitter experiences in life of ‘hope deferred’—it ‘makes the heart sick’; yet a ‘desire fulfilled is a tree of life’! (Proverbs 13:12) We cannot live without hope and the fulfilment of good things. Life brings many situations our way that might make us bitter and resentful. But such a reaction makes things only worse, never better. Forgiveness is the way to peace and freedom; trust in God is the way to fulfilment and happiness. We receive what comes from His hand and trust Him when things don’t work out the way we hoped. We trust in God and don’t rely solely on our understanding (Proverbs 3:5–6).

When the angel appeared to the Child’s mother—the young virgin who would carry that special Child—he announced that He would be called the Son of the Most High, inherit David’s throne and have a Kingdom without end (Luke 1:32–33). When the parents presented the Child at the Temple, a prophet declared that He was God’s salvation (Hebrew: yeshuah) and light to all peoples (2:30–32). The angel had also appeared to the Child’s father, and announced that His name would be Yeshua, which is the original Hebrew name of Jesus, and means ‘Yahweh is salvation’ (from Yehoshua [Joshua]). The reason for this specific name was that ‘He will save His people from their sins’ (Matthew 1:21, emphasis added). Jesus the Saviour comes to save us from what is destructive and what keeps us in darkness. He comes to remove what stands between God and us, and He gives us hope—eternal hope! He is the Light of the world that illuminates our darkness and sets us free to live in the light of love, peace and freedom. The Saviour gives us hope and saves us from despair.

There is much to despair over in this world, but God has not abandoned us. The injustice everywhere makes sensitive people struggle, and we need a hope to hold onto. And the birth of the Messiah is that very hope. Matthew wrote how His birth was in fulfilment of prophecy with a special message attached to it:

Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,’ which translated means, ‘God with us.’ Matthew 1:22–23

Jesus was referred to as ‘Immanuel,’ not as a name He was called by, but as a prophetic description: ‘God with us.’ It meant that with His incarnation (becoming a human being), God gave us the hope of being with us—no matter what we are facing. It also means that God didn’t just give us a few commandments and now looks down from Heaven to see if we keep them. It means that He comes into the midst of our darkness and despair to give us light and hope! Yeshua is God’s salvation. He came to deal with sin by dying on the cross, and in that salvation, God is with us. He doesn’t leave us alone in our struggles, but comes right into them and shows the way out. God is with us (Immanuel) as Saviour (Yeshua)! Christmas is about God’s reassurance that God is with us. He hasn’t abandoned us.

God is faithful

God is faithful; He can be trusted. Jesus’ birth is the fulfilment of prophecy and it proves God’s word to be reliable and trustworthy. There is great hope in the reassurance of faithfulness. God is faithful—no matter what. Christ is the light of hope in the midst of despair. He is ‘God with us’ in the midst of our darkness and struggle. Those who believe in Christ can follow the Light of the world—Jesus the Messiah—and must no longer walk in darkness; the light of life can be in us (John 8:12).

This is good news. Christ is born—the hope of the world! We are born-again to a ‘living hope’ (1 Peter 1:3) and the ‘God of hope’ gives us joy and peace by believing in the Messiah, so that we can abound in hope and not despair (Romans 15:13). He is light in our darkness and our hope in despair.

Trust in God. The Saviour was born!