Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

Arguably, the best-known story in the Bible is the birth of Jesus. Why? Because in a biblically illiterate society, most people have seen Charlie Brown’s Christmas special that comes on TV each year. In it, Linus quotes a large portion of Luke 2’s account of the Jesus birth. Crazy, yet it’s all part of how God has chosen to reveal Himself.

It’s been more than 30 years since I saw Charlie Browns Christmas special, but I remember it’s simple theme: Charlie Brown is discouraged by how Christmas celebration panders to the materialistic spirit of selfish and entitlement-demanding people around him. He’s given up hope, when Linus recites the words of Luke 2. The show ends with hope being restored.

Hope is a fragile thing. When life disappoints us, our hope can be replaced by feelings of discouragement and hopelessness. Hopelessness turns into cynicism and pessimism, believing there is nothing in which we can confidently hope.

This was the situation when Jesus entered our world: Hopelessness. The believing community living in Jerusalem and its surrounding region lived under the oppressive political rule of a distant and out-of-touch government on one side, and the oppressive burden of the defeat-producing requirements of their spiritual leadership on the other side. Hundreds of years before this, they had been promised a deliverer who would fix their government and bring revival to their spiritual institution. But it hadn’t happened.

Into this hopelessness, Hope was born: Hope for God’s own presence and power in the daily lives of common, every-day believers. Hope that would dismiss the past and make us new creations. The hope of heaven—eternally praising God face to face.

The tragedy of that first Christmas was that very few recognized the hope that had arrived. Oddly, that hasn’t changed much in 2 thousand years. Even among Christians there is frequently more cynicism than hope…more defeat than victory…

To summarize the context of today’s verse, Hebrews tells us: Don’t lose hope (10:35), Jesus will intervene (v 38) so have faith (v39). Because faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we don’t yet see (11:1). This kind of hope/faith mixture is what pleases God (v.2)

Biblical hope has as its foundation faith in God.