Hope

Faith and hope. Not only are they names of people we may all know, they are interesting concepts
Beginning with the advent season, we’ve been studying faith, hope and love.
In my mind, at least, hope is the more difficult concept to define. Hope can be anything from a blip on a heart monitor screen, a single gasp of breath, or a meaningless phrase.
Perhaps one of the best ways to capture the concept is to think about it’s opposite—no hope, or lost hope. That we can grasp almost without illustration.
Unfortunately there are many.
That’s what a woman by the name of Naomi was facing—no hope.
Her fantastic family faced a bit of a bump in the road. They needed to relocate because of a famine. I suppose that today it would be to find a new job. No problem, with a husband and not one, but two sons, they can face anything.
Major crisis, her husband Elimelech dies. In an unfamiliar land, she’s now a widow. Time goes by and her two sons, get married and begin to pick up their lives.
With daughters in law in the household, happiness returns. Soon it becomes a decade, with her sons and their husbands, Mahlon and Chilion, life is returning to a new normal—with one empty chair.
Except the unthinkable, and most unlikely scenario unfolds. No cause is given but the sons die.
The three together, yet alone, decide to return to Naomi’s home. Naomi stops them and begs them to stay behind in their own land. This is where Naomi is at the point of true hopelessness.
Life, a family with all the potential in the world, security, and confidence to handle anything was at her disposal. She had not only plan A, but plan B, and C.
Really, if there ever was a scenario of hopelessness, this is it. One empty chair is heart wrenching enough, but not many have two and even fewer have three.
What is hope? What is that single little blip on the heart monitor screen? Her name is Ruth. Read the rest of the biblical book of Ruth. Ruth returns with her declaring that memorable line, "Where you go I will go, where you stay I will stay…".
Then into Ruth’s life steps a close family relative called a redeemer.
Just as the Redeemer of all Jesus, wants to step into your life and mine.
Naomi hadn’t read the New Testament, or even the rest of her book. She didn’t know the reality that God had not only NOT abandoned her, but that she would be the great-great-grandmother to King David. And then they all ultimately in the line of Christ.
We need to remember that God’s purposes are not only for our moment in time, but also generational. And we need to see the people God has placed around us to go with us. That’s hope.