The Hope of Israel

Hope. What a beautiful word. Dictionary.com offers the synonyms of longing, aspiration, and expectancy. Yes, and it’s so much more when we’re talking about the hope we have in Yahweh. It’s something we’re waiting for with confidence that it will be accomplished.

Would it be irreverent to say that God has a flair for the dramatic?

• He provided a ram when Abraham’s hand was raised to kill Isaac. (Genesis 22)
• He whittled Gideon’s forces down to 300 men before he defeated Midian’s army. (Judges 7)
• He used a shepherd boy to single handedly defeat a giant.(1 Samuel 17)
• He let the Judeans sweat with the Assyrian army encamped around Jerusalem then killed 185,000 enemy soldiers in one night. (2 King 19, Isaiah 37)
• He led his people into captivity for 70 years then moved on King Cyrus’s heart to let them go home. (2 Chronicles 36)
• He let Rome bring an end to Israel then restored the nation after nearly 2,000 years.

Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children. – Isaiah 66:8

After Hitler wiped out two-thirds of the Jewish population in the Holocaust, God restored his people’s homeland. On May 14, 1948, the modern state of Israel was born. In one day.

And it doesn’t stop there. How many times since 1948 has Israel been on the brink of extinction? And yet, the Hope of Israel sustains them. One incident stands out to me. During the Gaza war a few years ago, a large rocket was launched from Gaza, heading for Tel Aviv. The Iron Dome was deployed. It missed. Again. It missed. Again. It missed. At this point, there was no time for further action.

But a mighty wind suddenly blew from the east and blew the rocket out to sea.

God blew a rocket out to sea the way we scatter dandelion puffs.

What can God do with just a breath?

• He spoke the universe into existence.
• He breathed life into Adam.
• Jesus knocked over the Roman soldiers who came to arrest him

⁴ Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” ⁵ They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. ⁶ When Jesu  said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground. – John 18:4-6

Can you imagine? Big ol’ burly soldiers knocked on their keisters by a quiet, “I am.” You know those soldiers felt a little off-kilter after that.

And he’s not done.

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. – 2 Thessalonians 2:8

Jesus will kill the man of lawlessness with a breath. “Poof. You’re done.” We talk about the Battle of Armageddon. It’s not a battle. It’s a breath.

The Hope of Israel is the Hope of all of us.

This year-long series is inspired by Ann Spangler’s Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks