The Quick-Fix of Christmas
Recently, the publisher of a Christian publishing house told me that they do not use the word hope in book titles. They’ve found, in their market research, that hope as a topic doesn’t resonate well, because their target audience wants immediate and tangible benefit. He wasn’t necessarily saying this is good, just telling me what they’ve found in their research.
This made me think. My book does not just have hope in the title. The concept of hope is on every page. The entirety of it points to one reality—that we can live with mighty hope in the middle of life’s storms. In other words, my book doesn’t offer easy solutions or a quick fix to life’s problems. I’ve always seen this as a strong point. To promise the opposite would be disingenuous, because life’s problems often don’t allow for quick fixes.
Yet, I found myself confronted with the reality that many people so badly want that quick fix that the idea of hope has become unappealing. Why settle for hope when maybe you can have the solution now? This question resonates with so much of American culture and American Christianity. We want our answers, and we want them now. We do not like uncertainty or unknowns. We do not like waiting. Give us the five-step plans and the guaranteed methods. We want our solution so badly that we will keep trying new quick-fix plans even when the old ones didn’t work. (If you don’t believe me, consider how many quick-fix diet plans and get-rich-quick strategies exist.)
Despite all this, the good news of Jesus is inherently a message defined by hope. We can’t escape that. Jesus proclaims to us, in nearly the same breath, “The Kingdom is here!” and, “The Kingdom is coming!” We receive the gift of his new creation life in us, yet we still groan in our mortal bodies for eternity, when we will become perfect (see 2 Cor. 5:2–4, 17). We have the mind of Christ, yet we must also renew our minds to reflect his (see 1 Cor. 2:16; Rom. 12:2). We see as in a mirror dimly, but one day we will see him face to face (see 1 Cor. 13:12).
Christmas is not a quick fix. Jesus’ birth didn’t fix everything. Neither did his death and resurrection. In his coming, he laid the necessary foundation. He made it possible for us to find him, to find forgiveness in him, to live in him, to become like him. And then he commissioned us to finish what he started—in hope of the day when his kingdom will cover the earth as the water covers the sea (see 2 Cor. 5:19–21; Isa. 11:9).
So often in life, we long for that quick fix, because the pain of what we are facing feels unbearable. We want a solution, an escape, a Christmas miracle. Yet the miracle of Christmas is not an escape from the pain, but the hope of Jesus with us and in us (see Col. 1:27). The hope that, no matter what happens between now and forever, Jesus’ love and power burn in our hearts, and he will not only get us through, but he will teach us to overcome, and he will make us mighty.
To purchase Amy’s book, The Way Back to Hope, CLICK HERE!
Subscribe to Amy’s mailing list to receive a FREE downloadable study guide for The Way Back to Hope and be the first to know when she posts a new blog.