Hope
Read Genesis 3:14-19
The brokenness of our world is inescapable-and a lot of times, it feels overwhelming. Whether you're an adult or a kid, there are lots of things-both hard and scary things-happening in our world that you've heard about. Though we hate seeing and hearing about these things, we know why they exist. Remember what we read yesterday? Sin entered into the world in Genesis 3, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon.
The effects of sin aren't just big, global things- they're personal, too. With the arrival of sin came sickness, death, sadness, fear-all of the things most of us wish we could avoid. And like we saw in today's reading, it also meant that things like having children and even our work would be harder than we'd like them to be. with childbirth comes pain, with our jobs or school come boredom, anxiety, and exhaustion, and even our relationships with friends and family often prove difficult. All of these things have been affected by the fall.
But the season of Advent breaks into our broken world and turns our hearts toward a better reality-that the present darkness we so often feel has been defeated in Jesus Christ. Advent turns us- the body of Christ-away from despair and toward hope. In the same verses we read today that show us how and why sin seems to touch every aspect of our lives, we also see that we have cause for great hope. Even when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, He made them a promise-a Savior is coming. God allowed sin to enter the world, but He always had a plan to rescue His children.
When the weight of sin in our world feels overwhelming, let us be reminded that we are a people whose hearts should be broken by the darkness and brokenness that surrounds us, but we are not without hope.