Lenten Word 19:Hope

Hope came in the form of a huge catalog, delivered free in those days, to almost every home in November. It was the Sears catalog and a huge section of it was devoted to toys. Now, to a child awaiting the arrival of Christmas, this was solid ammunition for hope! That catalog would always end up on the floor and as many of us five children in the house that could would flip the page and claim the toy on each page that we wanted. It had to be fast because our belief was that if we were not the first to claim it, it would not be ours. Looking back, we got toys, never from Sears, as far as I know, because our town did not have one, but we got what blessed us.

The writer of Hebrews defines hope in this way, hope comes from faith, faith in God and the certainty of God's unfailing power. Set in the verse it reads, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hope raised to the level of assurance, blessed with conviction is faith.

Our Lenten Journey is solidly about hope. Hope that we can and will rise above that which has had us down for too long. We can see beyond the darkness, beyond the pain and beyond the shame, that light which shines bright as our deliverance from sin and the bondage and consequences of sin. So be it.

PRAYER: God of hope, bless our faith and give us vision beyond what our eyes can see. In Christ Jesus we pray, amen.