Jesus Christ,
our hope and lasting peace​

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I went to Rome for a few days in October. It was a great time; the weather was fantastic, as was the food. We saw the new Pope, visited the last Pope’s tomb, and watched hundreds of people wandering through the Holy Doors that had been opened to mark the Jubilee Year of Hope. I was a little cynical watching people walk through the doors and touch them, wondering what that was all about.

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When I was a child, I loved Disney films. One of my favourites was Pinocchio, the story of the wooden puppet who becomes a little boy. It’s a lovely story about hopes and dreams. As I was reflecting, I began to realise that without hopes and dreams we die within. Without hopes and dreams the future becomes boring and mundane. Without hopes and dreams there is no potential, no possibility.

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As this came to mind during that glorious sunshine in Rome, I realised that what people were doing going through the doors and touching them with reverence and awe was committing themselves to a rekindling of hope in their lives and, of course, a rekindling of hope in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the hope of the world.

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God has a hope for humanity: a hope that we will discover again how much we are loved, that we will know freedom and peace deep within. God chose to do something to make that dream a reality; God became one of us so that we might know how much we’re loved and how much freedom and peace is offered to us.

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Our God came in Jesus to fulfil our deepest hope, but God won’t always come in the way we expect. Our hope for deep peace won’t always be fulfilled in the way we want it to be or think we want it to be. But will you live with the uncertainty of a God who comes to fulfil your deepest hope that you probably can’t even name yourself? Will you live with a God who breaks into your life in ways so amazing that often we can’t recognise them? Can you live with a God who writes straight with crooked lines? Will you live with a God who responds to your needs in messy, uncertain ways?

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We have just celebrated the season of Advent and Christmas and now we begin a new year. We’ll all be filled with hopes and dreams for 2026. My plea is that we learn to open our hearts to the hope of the world and let God be God in our lives.