Advent 2009:: The Coming HOPE Thursday

Thursday Hope::

If you watch the television show 24, you know who Jack Bauer is. For those who don’t, Jack works for the U.S. government, and his job is basically to be awesome and kill bad guys. He finds himself in situations where death is certain and the safety of his family and country is in peril.

In one particular season, Jack volunteered to fly an airplane filled with nuclear devices that had to be destroyed. The plan was to crash the plane and detonate the devices in a secluded desert where no one would be hurt – that is, no one but Jack. So Jack takes off in the plane and is prepared for this suicide mission. How will Jack make it? There was no one else on the plane, and the plane had to go down or millions of people would die. Maybe Jack was going to die.

However, I had just read on some entertainment website that Kiefer Sutherland (the actor who plays Jack) had just signed on for three more seasons. So Jack could not die. He had to be around for three more seasons. So while I did not know how this subplot would end, I did know that it would end with Jack being alive.

This is the sort of hope that Jesus came to bring to this earth. There is death all around, and at times all looks hopeless. Jesus is a tiny baby in a dirty barn with poor teenage parents who are in a strange town. But, even as that tiny baby, Jesus is destined to live and teach about truth and be killed and then rise from the dead. This is hope.