Welcome to Advent 2025! Each Sunday, we’ll explore the verses of Mary’s song in Luke 1:46-55 until we reach its crescendo on Christmas Eve. From 11/30 to 12/27, we’ll read biblical passages that prompt Mary’s praise and prepare us to enter the pageant of the birth of our Savior.
Advent Passage: Luke 2:21-40
Hope is our posture of waiting on the Lord because we trust in Him. Hope may seem like a futile emotion in a world intent on discouragement. But the hope we have in Jesus is not a feeling based on the opinions of the people around us. Rather, hope is an essential quality of our nature as Christians because it is grounded in the eternal and secure promises of God.
In Luke 2:36-38, the prophet Anna exemplifies the nature of such hope. Anna was a widow who devoted her entire life to living in the temple in Jerusalem, where she worshiped and hoped for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
When Jesus was about 40 days old, Mary and Joseph presented Him at the temple in Jerusalem. Because of her devotion to the temple, Anna met Jesus. She recognized who He was because she kept watch for the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel. Anna became one of the first apostles to proclaim the coming of Jesus by telling others about His birth.
Anna was prepared to meet Jesus because she placed her hope in the Lord. This Christmas, we will be tempted to set our hopes on many things: gifts, traditions, or friends and family. These parts of Christmas are all meaningful and wonderful, but they can also become fraught with unmet expectations and disappointments.
Therefore, let’s take some time to reset our hopes from our traditions to the unchanging promises of God. This way, we will join Anna to behold Jesus this Advent season. Don’t miss Him!
© 2025 Lori Myers Berry
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