Hope keeps people going, yet it is not easy to discern exactly what that hope entails.  New years are filled with hope.  Perhaps this is the year bad habits will be shed.  Important milestones may be reached. Usually it is the confident desire that something desirable is going to happen.  A wish may come true.  An election year is filled with nebulous promises of hope to be realized should a particular candidate take office.

The absence of hope leads to despair.  When a situation is hopeless it appears beyond salvage.  When a patient is told there is no hope death is near.

Christian hope is never vague, obscure or nebulous.  It is always sure and certain anchored in Jesus Christ.  Advent teaches us to look beyond Jesus’ first coming Bethlehem to His second coming on the Last Day.  Christian hope radiates from the open tomb of Jesus Christ.  He lives; you live also.  In Baptism you were joined to both His death and resurrection.  When Jesus comes He will transform your lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself (Philippians 3:20).  Earthly hope ends with death.  Christian hope never dies for it transcends time and the grave.  Read more!