Hope for a Weary World (Merry Christmas)

For as many years as I have listened to my favorite Christmas song, O Holy Night, I heard one of the lines more clearly than ever before this year.  I'm always intrigued when this happens, how we can listen to something hundreds of times and then all of a sudden hear it a different way.  Maybe it was because I was listening to John Legend belt it out :)  but it was truly like hearing it for the first time:

And in His name, all OPPRESSION shall CEASE...

After a year of news screens plastered with injustice, I cling to this promise of a new world someday.  It's something I can't imagine, as it is so far from our current reality, and that makes it even more mysterious and praiseworthy.    

A thrill of HOPE... 

                     the WEARY WORLD rejoices...

To you and your loved ones, 

may this season be a season of deepened HOPE and JOY 

in the promises of a redeemed world!