Would You Have Dared Expect This?

Humans were made to be expectant creatures. God designed us to be hopeful. There's a growing body of scientific knowledge indicating the benefits of hope, and it’s called The Optimism bias. People who expect good things have slightly better outcomes in many areas of life, from lower stress to even a slightly better response to some cancer treatment.  Being hopeful seems to provide a survival benefit. It’s good for us. So much so that a Psycho-analyst recently published an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining how kids benefit from hoping in a God, in an afterlife. But don't worry, she writes, there’s a simple solution for parents who are atheists. How can they give their kids hope?  Lie to them.  Give them something to hope in even if you don't believe it, they need it for their health.

As Christians this really shouldn't be surprising. Hope is a virtue alongside faith and love, and like all virtues, it’s good for us. Even people who deny God and do nothing out of love for Him will get residual benefits when they follow God's design. If you try to obey the 10 commandments, things will generally go better for you. Stop lying, stealing, and coveting your neighbors stuff and this world will be less burdensome. It’s not magic. Hope works the same way. There's nothing magical about being optimistic or hopeful that does something to the universe, it's just that God designed the human machine to run on hope because God designed humans to look towards a glorious future... with Him.

Our need for hope should be a clue to everyone about the meaning of the universe, but God doesn’t simply want our small or fake hope. He wants it to be based on truth, based on Him.

As Christians we know that for our hope to be realized it must be rooted in the one true God.

The decedents of Abraham also knew this, so they expected Yahweh to be their help. When God delivered his people over and over again from slavery and their enemies he was teaching them to Hope in Him alone. Their hope reached its climax in the 1st century while Israel was anticipated their long awaited Savior to come and free them again. This time from Rome. It was good for them to expect God’s Messiah to come, but they failed in one major way.

Their hope was too small. The prophets spoke of the great salvation that was coming through the Messiah, but few, if any, realized how hopeful God intended them to be.

We are about to sing the Christmas hymn "Come, thou long expected Jesus".  It is a song filled with expressions of what Jesus Christ accomplished, and a lot of these lyrics are scripture references straight from the Old Testament, because the salvation Jesus brought was predicted in the Bible, but they missed it, partly because his salvation was almost too good to be true. Israel expected the Messiah to help them... but not this much. And I can relate.

Here are some lyrics:

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free

(Yes, free from Rome, from government oppression, poverty…)

from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee 

(Wait, fears and sins? You mean the good King won’t just free us from bad kings, but free us from fear itself?  Could he release from the worst slavery of all, our enslavement to sin?)

Israel's strength and consolation

(Yes, the good king who comes will give us strength, he'll strengthen our armies, our walls, our nation, and this will bring rest and comfort.)

hope of all the earth thou art;
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

(Wait, so the Messiah isn't just coming for Israel, but for all the earth? God, do you so love the world?     And he won’t just help our physical situation, but He himself will be our desire and our joy? So, the ultimate desire of the little girl in Africa, the old man in china and the Jew in Israel will literally be walking around the earth?  How is that possible? What kind of Savior is this?! Who would’ve dared to expect this?)

Born thy people to deliver,

(Yep, deliverance, I’m tracking... we’ve got government oppression we need forceful deliverer. That’s how these things work.)

born a child and yet a King,
born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.

(Reign IN us? I understand how Kings rule, they rule OVER us... not inside us.  Having a good king rule over us brings great joy, but having a good King rule in me? I have no category for that. In my heart? Christ in me? What kind of glorious hope is this? Where exactly is this kingdom being brought? This kingdom is going places I didn’t expect.)

I can related to the 1st century Jews, and how so many missed that Jesus was the Messiah because the salvation he brought was almost beyond their capacity to expect.

My own hopes for my life were far too small, until I met Jesus Christ. This is one reason I believe the gospel of Jesus, no human would dare invent him. No optimist would go this far or this deep, and we don’t have enough hope inside of us to invent this great of salvation. This gospel story, that we would receive new hearts, is straight from the heart of God.

This reminds us of our need to repent:

Father in heaven, Your people have had a track record of not hoping in you enough. They hoped for a powerful ruler, not a poor peasant baby. They expected a conquering king, not for the Messiah to die on a cross. And we still expect you to merely change our external circumstance without expecting you to do the greater work, the miraculous work of changing our hearts.

Forgive us for not hoping in you enough.

In this moment we ask you to continue to change our hearts as we confess our sins to you

——————

“Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus” (Lyrics)

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel's strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.