The Hope of the World

Christmas Eve 1865 was an unforgettable night for Phillips Brooks. Born on this day 30 years earlier, Brooks watched the sun set on the hills outside of Bethlehem. Later that night, he was overwhelmed as he participated in the service at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity.

In 1868, as he prepared for Christmas in his home church in Philadelphia, he remembered those vivid memories when he stood “in the old church in Bethlehem.” His mind was flooded with images of being “close to the spot where Jesus was born.”

He recalled how, during that unforgettable service, the whole church in Bethlehem was ringing with hymns of praise to God. How “again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the Wonderful Night of the Savior’s birth.”

Inspired by these memories, Brooks wrote a poem: “O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie! Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”

Brooks realized that the hope of the world was not in governments or armies. Not in pleasures or power, but in the Savior. “O holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.”

Today, do you have any fears or worries? Make sure that you place your hope in Jesus. And pray that God’s Spirit will move upon people this Christmas season as never before and draw them to Jesus. The world needs the hope that only comes through Him.