Abound in Hope – Advent Devotion

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” – Romans 15:13

Abound in hope.

Abound is a verb.  It’s ACTIVE.  It’s meaning in Middle English and Latin is overflowing.  Abundant, overflowing HOPE.

It’s hard to feel that hope, when the Covid numbers are creeping up, some of us are experiencing loss of job or sickness, and some of us are walking through the valley of the shadow of death and are absorbed with grief.  

There are three things in this verse that point to what we need if we are going to abound in hope.  It says 1. God is the one who fills us with all joy.  2.  God is the one who fills us with all peace.  3. And this may be the most important one – we have hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

A woman, who was seen on video, arrived at the Holy Jesus Child Church in Richmond Hill, Queens, on Monday with a newborn, who was left behind in an empty manger scene.

For a few moments, the sight could have been confused for a miraculous arrival ahead of the Christmas season: A newborn baby, hours old and full term, appeared within a nativity scene at a Queens church on Monday.

But the story of how the baby got onto the stage inside the Holy Jesus Child Church in the Richmond Hill neighborhood was much more earthly, the police said: A woman, seen on video, had arrived with the boy wrapped in a towel, his umbilical cord still attached, and departed without him.

On Tuesday afternoon, detectives were seeking to speak with the woman, who was believed to be the child’s mother. …

The parish priest, the Rev. Christopher Ryan Heanue, 28, said he could think of no better place to leave a baby. He said that rather than seeing the mother’s actions as sad, he found them inspirational. “I think it’s beautiful,” Father Heanue said. “A church is a home for those in need, and she felt, in this stable — a place where Jesus will find his home — a home for her child.”

We find our hope in Jesus.  The One who came to set the captives free and those captives are each of us.  We are captive to the sin and fear that shackles us but Jesus in his perfect love and sacrifice gives us the grace and mercy to set us free.  Even when our belief falters, the Holy Spirit intercedes and gives us the Holy Spirit power to give us the joy, peace, and most importantly the hope, that even when it may seem like the darkness has taken over, hope springs forth from sometimes unlikely places – like 2 teenagers and a baby born in a stable…HOPE is born…and his name is Jesus.