Advent: Hope

The Roman Empire stood at its peak of power, built on conquest and maintained through heavy taxation. Caesar Augustus was hailed as the divine savior who brought peace to the world. Yet beneath this veneer of prosperity, life for most people was marked by oppression, poverty, and uncertainty. For women, foreigners, and the poor, each day brought its own struggles for survival.

Into this world, a child would be born who would also be called the Prince of Peace—a direct challenge to Caesar's claim. But before we get to the manger, before we sing about silent nights and calm brightness, we need to understand that the Christmas story unfolds in a context of political upheaval and desperate longing.

For over 700 years, the Jewish people had been waiting for a promised Messiah. Hundreds of prophecies spoke of his coming. Generation after generation heard about this deliverer who would overthrow oppression and establish God's kingdom on earth.

Think about that timeframe. Seven hundred years. If someone made you a promise in kindergarten and you were still waiting in fourth grade, you'd probably give up hope. But this was centuries of waiting, hoping, believing that somehow, someday, the Messiah would come.

The Woman Who Never Stopped Waiting

In Luke chapter 2, we meet a woman named Anna. She appears for just a few verses, yet her story carries profound weight. Anna was a prophet, the daughter of Penuel from the tribe of Asher. She had been married for seven years before becoming a widow, and by the time we encounter her, she's 84 years old.

In that culture, widows lost everything. They had no social standing, no financial security, no voice. Yet Anna didn't disappear into obscurity. Instead, she made the temple her home, worshiping night and day, fasting and praying.

At 84, she could have retired from spiritual vigilance. No one would have blamed her for taking a break. But something kept drawing her back—an anticipatory hope that refused to die.

What Draws You Back?

Hope isn't just wishful thinking about Amazon packages arriving on time. True hope is the anticipated outcome of what we're waiting for. It's what keeps us returning to the source of our expectation.

For Anna, hope in the coming Messiah kept drawing her back to worship, fasting, and prayer. These weren't empty religious rituals; they were lifelines connecting her to the promise she believed in.

This raises an important question for all of us: What do we turn to when life becomes stressful? When circumstances don't add up, when disappointments pile up, when fear creeps in—where do we go?

Some of us turn to work, believing that if we can just maintain our income and position, we'll have control. Others seek solace in relationships, anchoring their identity to another person. Still others numb themselves with substances or distractions, anything to create a temporary sense of peace.

But Anna shows us a different way. When life was hard—and life was undoubtedly hard for an elderly widow in first-century Jerusalem—she turned toward God, not away from him.

The Danger of Drifting

An anchor serves one simple but crucial purpose: it keeps you in place. Without an anchor, a boat drifts wherever the current takes it.

The same is true for our souls. Without something solid to hold onto, we drift. A disappointing comment, an unexpected setback, a question we can't answer—these things can cause us to untie our anchor and float away.

This is especially common in spiritual life. Someone experiences disappointment in church. They encounter difficult questions in college. They face suffering that doesn't fit their theology. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, they begin to drift.

We might call it "figuring out our own way" or "deconstructing our faith." But often, we've simply lost our anchor. And when life's next storm hits—a bad medical report, a lost job, a broken relationship—we find ourselves completely adrift, searching desperately for anything to hold onto.

The problem is that we'll anchor ourselves to something. Our souls crave stability. So we grab onto whatever seems solid in the moment—a career, a romance, physical fitness, intellectual achievement. These things aren't bad, but they make terrible anchors. They simply cannot hold the weight of a human soul.

The Only Anchor That Holds

Anna understood something profound: the coming Messiah would be hope embodied. He would be near to the brokenhearted, the mender of broken lives, the Prince of Peace who brings everlasting life.

When Jesus finally arrived at the temple as an infant, Anna was there. After decades of waiting, worshiping, fasting, and praying, she came face to face with the fulfillment of her hope.

Consider the significance of her name. Anna means "grace." Her father's name, Penuel, means "the face of God." Grace, the daughter of the face of God, was meeting the physical embodiment of grace—the one who perfectly revealed the face of God to humanity.

The text tells us she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. We don't know exactly what she said, but imagine the joy, the vindication, the overwhelming sense of "it was all worth it."

Hope for Today

We live in our own uncertain times. We wait for healing, for clarity, for peace in our homes and hearts. We carry burdens that feel too heavy, face questions without easy answers, and wonder if things will ever be okay.

The message of Advent—the season of waiting and anticipation—is that what we're waiting for has already come. Hope has a name and a face: Jesus.

His first sermon included an invitation that still stands: "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Not more burden. Not more striving. Rest.

This Christmas season doesn't have to be another race from one gathering to the next. It can be an opportunity to pause and recalibrate. To ask ourselves: What am I really hoping in? What is my soul anchored to?

Like Anna, we can choose to turn our faces back toward God, to worship, to pray, to draw ourselves closer to the only anchor that truly holds. Because when everything else fails, when the fog rolls in and we can't see which way is up, we can trust that Emmanuel—God with us—will give us rest.

Hope has come. His name is Jesus. And he's more than enough.