One of the things that I dislike after Christmas and New Year is taking the decorations down. It can feel sad, like you are leaving joy and celebration behind. I walked into the church after the Christmas break knowing that I would need to help take the decorations down and was faced by the light of hope in the foyer. But something didn't look right, some of the sellotape that attached the light rope to the wires had become damp and come undone... hope was unravelling! It made me stop and think.
How easy when you leave behind the warmth and festivities of Christmas, where we have celebrated "A Thrill of Hope" brought to us in the birth of Jesus - can that hope begin to unravel. As we are faced with the distress and despair of the world with its politics, conflicts, problems, suffering and challenges; how can that hope remain and what does that hope look like now - in the ordinary and everyday. I think hope unravels when we get distracted from what we are supposed to have hope in, we lose our stickiness and come undone.
We don't have hope in a celebration, we have a hope in what the celebration celebrates. And that is true and present every day of the year. Jesus was born for us every day. But we can so easily be drawn into hoping for another celebration rather than the hope that we have celebrated.
We don't have hope in an idea or worldview that will just fix things or make the world and all its politics, conflicts, problems, suffering and challenges go away. We don't have hope in a person who is powerful and happens to hold the right political office or leadership position. Nor do we have hope in a grand ideology that promises to usher in a perfect world. These things can often capture our attention and, for a time, seem like they hold the solution. But when we pin our hope on such things, we set ourselves up for disappointment. The world will be messy, and human systems—no matter how well-intentioned—will never fully satisfy the longing in our hearts for true peace, justice, and renewal.
Our hope is not in the powers of this world, but in the One who overcame the world. Jesus himself said in Matthew 11:28-30, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
This is the kind of hope that doesn't unravel when the tinsel is packed away, when world events seem overwhelming, or when personal struggles threaten to consume us. It’s a hope grounded in the person of Jesus Christ, who offers us rest for our weary souls and a simple invitation to follow Him.
We don’t need to get caught up in solving the world’s problems or wait for the "perfect" leader to fix it all. We are called to fix our eyes on Jesus and follow Him in the everyday and ordinary - though he may lead us into the extraordinary. This is the hope we celebrated at Christmas - the hope of Emmanuel, God with us. It’s a hope that calls us to trust in Him, even when the world feels chaotic and heavy.
So as we take down the decorations and return to the ordinary rhythms of life, do not let hope unravel. Simply follow Jesus, step by step, trusting in His promise of rest and peace for our souls. Hope isn’t found in the temporary or the fleeting; it’s found in the eternal truth of who Jesus is - and who we are in Him - loved. That truth doesn’t change, no matter the season and it is a hope that is still thrilling.