I don’t like goodbyes. Well I’m not sorry to see some things go, but you know what I mean. Looking back on 2018, we said goodbye to some notable people. Sometimes when people pass it feels like a season coming to a close.

Let’s remember some who died in 2018. Barbara Bush died in April, followed by her husband George H.W. Bush in November. They were married 73 years, the longest married couple in presidential history. He was the last WWII hero to serve as President.

Roy Clark, the country music star, died at age 85. One of his hits was a lament about wasted youth. “So many songs in me that won’t be sung. The time has come for me to pay for yesterday, when I was young.” If you don’t like modern country music or if you share his lament, you felt it when Clark left the stage.

Billy Graham lived to be 99. He emerged as an evangelist in 1949, and in his lifetime would share the good news of Jesus Christ to more people than anyone in history. He began with trains and tents and ended with electronic media and satellite communications. May God in his Providence raise up another, but we know there will be only one Billy Graham.

There are others whose passing marks the end of an era: Aretha Franklin (singer), Stephen Hawking (scientist), Willie McCovey (athlete), Tom Wolfe (author). But none of these affect you as much as your own personal losses this year. It marks the passing of time when you lose someone who lived a long life. It’s a tragedy when someone dies too young.

The Bible says that believers do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thes. 4:13). By faith in Jesus Christ, and because of his Resurrection from the dead, we have the hope of eternity. The passing of a legend or loss of a loved one, the end of an era or the changing of a season only remind us of that hope.

Hope to the Christian carries no uncertainty. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). The Spanish verb “esperar” helps us here. It means to hope, wait, or expect. We have considered the evidence, and are simply waiting, expecting for our hope to be realized.

Christ Jesus is your hope that there’s more to life that what you see. He is your hope for this life, not just the next. A great mystery is revealed, “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). This hope is for today. It is for the New Year. It is the grace to face whatever uncertainties, challenges, or goodbyes 2019 may bring. This hope you have is the anchor of your soul. You cannot live without hope.

Charles Dickens created Ebenezer Scrooge in his “ghostly little book” published in 1843. It was the first of his five holiday tales.

Because of his childhood, Dickens carried a burden for the less fortunate. This theme emerges in much of his work, including A Christmas Carol. He only lightly alludes to the Nativity story when Nephew Fred says, “I have always thought of Christmas time – apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving charitable, pleasant time.” Even though he doesn’t recite the gospel, the story certainly follows Christian themes.

For all his “Bah! Humbug!” Scrooge knew love. His little sister Fan’s hugs and kisses when she fetched him from boarding school, and Nephew Fred’s resolute “Merry Christmas!” wish to his uncle are evidence enough. His first boss Fezziwig had a love of life Scrooge found contagious. It was love that rescued him from the icy cold that gripped his heart. The Christian counterpart is that “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:4-5).

Scrooge was “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner” per his creator. And we are per ours. “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way” (Isa. 53:6). Yet Scrooge was not without hope. His deceased partner Marley came back to warn him, “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business!” Upon seeing his name on the tombstone, Scrooge exclaims, “Hear me! I am not the man I was. Why show me this, if I am past all hope!” As it was with Scrooge, our hope was realized on Christmas morning. “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21).

Scrooge repents of what he had done and of who he was. His joie de vivre was that of Zacchaeus, immediate and tangible. Scrooge generously tipped for the prized goose he sent to poor Bob Cratchit. He made a generous contribution to the men he had insulted as they collected for the poor. He went to church. He restored his relationship with nephew Fred and wife. He gave Cratchit a raise. “And to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.” Indeed the Bible says, “Faith, if it has no works, is dead” (Jas. 2:17).

Keeping Christmas means love, hope, repentance, restoration, new life, all wonderful themes made possible by the coming of Christ in the little town of Bethlehem. May it be truly said of all of us that we keep Christmas well, “and so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”