Advent: Week 2

“Light and life to all He brings; risen with healing in His wings.”

You’ve been on a road trip for hours, you finally arrive at a rest stop, and jump out of the car to stretch - one of the most golden moments ever.

Or that first sip of tea or hot chocolate after coming inside on a cold and snowy day.

Or finally taking your shoes off and putting your feet up after a long shift at work. 

Ahh. 

Exhale. 

Finally you can breathe, stretch,  relax. 

Those moments kind of feel like new life was just breathed back into your bones, your blood starts circulating again, and feeling returns to your fingertips and toes. 

So imagine that early spring night in Bethlehem when a star shone over the place where a tiny baby lay in a hay-filled feeding trough.

The Saviour of the world had just been born. Light had come. Salvation had arrived.

A weary world - cold, dark, bleak, empty, and hungry - came to life that night. At last, there was hope. At last, there was peace.

The promise of hope was finally fufilled;

A promise of revival,

resuscitation,

renewal.

Life was breathed back into the streets of that town in Israel that night.

Life;

It’s good, isn’t it?

But sometimes it’s bittersweet, with the beauty of life comes the reality of human frailty - at times, there is brokenness, darkness, and emptiness. 

Life is fleeting - temporary, ephemeral. 

But this promise of hope and new life still stands. Not just for those who knew that tiny newborn as their Prince of Peace more than 2,000 years ago but for you and for me, for those who still do today.

If you are hurting,

if you are grieving, 

if you are lonely, 

if you are sick,

if you are tired, 

if you are waiting,

take shelter under His wings.

Take heart.

There is hope. Hope has come to bring light and life to all those who surrender their lives to Him. Hope was born, He had died, He is risen, and He will return to reign, declaring this word over His own:

Life.