Hope Has a Name
When my wife was pregnant with our first child, it didn’t seem that much changed at first. After we got over the initial excitement of the positive (and surprising) test, life continued on without the reality sinking in that everything was going to be different for us for the rest of our lives.
All of that changed one day when an ultrasound technician gave us the words, “It’s a girl!” That in and of itself isn’t what ushered in the change. It was that this was the moment that the idea of having a child became more than an idea.
“Mariclaire Isabelle,” my wife answered when the technician asked if we had a name. “She’ll be named Mariclaire Isabelle Arnold.”
Named after a ballerina my wife adored in her childhood (pronounced Mary-Claire) and my grandmother’s name Isabelle, suddenly this new life growing inside my wife’s womb was personified.
She had a name.
The story of Christmas reminds me of this reality – the power of the name. For generations prophets had foretold the coming of the Messiah with many different names.
Everlasting Father.
Mighty God.
Prince of Peace.
Wonderful Counselor.
He had been described as the Light in Darkness. The one who shatters the rod of the oppressor. The king whose rule and reign has no end.
But finally, in Matthew 1:21 and Luke 1:31 for the first time we see the name Jesus. Joseph and Mary each separately received this name while Mary was still pregnant and in similar settings as that moment my wife and I had in a doctor’s office, waiting to know what this new baby would be like and when the day of his birth would come. Except their experience wasn’t with an ultrasound technician, but with an angel.
And suddenly, the hope that the world had longed and waited for was no longer only a prophecy. No longer was the Prince of Peace coming in the future. Hope was on its way in a matter of months.
Hope had a name!
The word hope may best be understood as “confident expectation.” With the birth of Jesus, humanity indeed had, and now has the ability to live with, a confident expectation that Immanuel isn’t merely a concept to imagine but is truly “God with us.” Those walking in darkness can have the confident expectation of living in the light that overcomes the darkest of nights. Captives can have a confident expectation that freedom is at hand and slavery to sin is no more.
Because hope has a name. His name is Jesus!
This hope is why we, the Church, exist. It is our fuel and our lifeline. It is why my prayer for each and every one of you in the coming weeks of this Christmas season is that you will experience the personified hope that Christmas brings. And that in the coming year, we will take that hope even farther and wider to a world that so desperately needs to realize this hope rather than only imagining what it must be like.
That is the opportunity we have before us. Because hope has a name!
