The Hope of the World

Christmas Eve in 1865 was an unforgettable night for Phillips Brooks, who was 30 years old at the time. That night, he watched the sun set on the hills outside of Bethlehem and was later overwhelmed as he participated in the service at the Church of the Nativity.

As he prepared for Christmas in his church in Philadelphia three years later, he remembered “standing in the old church in Bethlehem,” and his memory flooded with those images of being “close to the spot where Jesus was born.”

He recalled how the whole church in Bethlehem was ringing hour after hour with splendid hymns of praise to God, and 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 you place your hope in Jesus. And pray that God’s Spirit will move upon all people this Christmas season as never before, drawing them to Jesus. The world needs the hope that only comes through Him.