Hope Has a Name

As Christmas ends, the church calendar gives us a gift: it slows us down. Instead of rushing into goals, plans, and self-improvement, we linger with the incarnation—because Scripture refuses to let us move on too quickly. Before we ask what we should change, God tells us who has come. Christian hope is not optimism, strategy, or resolve. Our hope is a Person.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus is revealed as “the true light” and the One whose light “shines in the darkness” (John 1:9, 5, ESV). The darkness is real—sin, fear, and suffering are not imaginary—but the darkness is not ultimate. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God does not save from a distance; He comes near. And because the Light does not negotiate with the darkness, we are invited to release our addiction to control and trust the One who has already entered what we cannot manage.

Colossians widens the lens. Jesus is not merely comfort for our private lives; He is the center of all reality—the image of the invisible God, the One through whom all things were created and in whom all things hold together (Colossians 1:15–17). This reign, however, is cruciform. God makes peace not through domination, but “by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20). The cross is not an interruption to God’s plan; it reveals the way God wins.

Hebrews presses hope into our fears about the year ahead. Jesus shared our flesh and blood so that “through death he might destroy” the devil and “deliver” those enslaved by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). Christian hope doesn’t depend on forecasting outcomes or securing stability—it depends on following Jesus.

As we enter a new year, we do so as a people following Jesus as a family for Sonoma County—trusting His presence, embracing His cross-shaped way, and bearing witness to a hope the darkness cannot overcome.