Hoping for a Chance

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). (Matt. 1:21-23)

Earlier this year, the Mega Millions lottery reached a jackpot of over a billion dollars as people everywhere lined up for tickets. After 29 consecutive drawings without a winner, one Chicago couple with the lucky numbers finally stepped forward to claim their prize. They decided to take the lump sum payment of $780.5 million.

A MarketWatch article interviewed one of the lottery officials who said, “The reason this lottery got so big – the third largest in US history – was because people need hope. In a time of inflation and economic stress, the fantasy of becoming super rich is driving more than half of American adults to play the lottery.”

By the way, the chances of winning that lottery were about one shot in 302 million! Regardless of whether you play the lottery or not, like that official said, its clear that people are hungry for hope.

Someone has said that “Hope is the one thing stronger than fear, because a single ray of light can pierce through the deepest darkness.” Hope is faith in the future tense, a passion for what might be possible.

Hope is also a core attribute of the advent season. As you read thru the Christmas story in the Gospels, hope percolates upward, piercing the darkness, danger and death finally culminating in the birth of the Christ child. The Christmas narrative teaches us that hope isn’t an abstract principle, hope is a person!  

The angelic announcement in Joseph’s dream helped him connect the surreal events happing in his life to the ancient prophecies about the coming Messiah. Specifically, Matthew cites Isaiah 7:14, which at that time was a 700-year-old oracle predicting the virgin birth. Malachi was the last OT prophet to speak to the Israelites some 400 years prior to Joe’s dream. It has been 700 years since Isaiah gave his prediction and 400 of those years were complete silence from heaven, so it’s safe to say the Jewish people had given up hope that God’s word was ever going to be fulfilled. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” Century after century rolled by without the slightest whisper from God.

God’s promise of the virgin-born Savior wasn’t just on life support, it was practically dead! But here’s the good news of Christmas – when hope in God’s promise was at an all-time low that’s exactly when Christ entered this world. Joseph learned that God is not just a great promise maker, but that he’s a great promise keeper! In fact, this is just one promise out of 300 specific prophecies made in the OT about the first coming of Christ and all were fulfilled right down to the minutest detail!

Talk about odds! Did you know you’ve got a better chance of winning the Mega Millions lottery multiple times than of one man fulfilling hundreds of ancient prophecies? The mathematician Peter Stoner calculated that the chances of one man fulfilling just 48 of these prophecies was one shot in 10 to the 157^th power. That’s a 1 followed by 157 afterward, a number so unfathomable we can’t understand it.

Stoner remarks that physicists tell us there’s about 10 to the 80^th power atoms in the entire universe. So by these numbers you have better shot of hitting a target the size of an atom from across the other end of the universe than you do of fulfilling the Messianic prophecies by chance. The fact that Jesus did all this and more is further proof that He is undoubtedly the unique Son of God.

For those that know Jesus Christ, they are more blessed than a lottery winner. They know the Creator who came to a cradle and went to a cross. Only Jesus can give you a hope beyond this world.