{"id":38558,"date":"2025-12-19T22:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=38558"},"modified":"2025-12-16T21:03:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:03:52","slug":"251220-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/251220-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"When Hope Was Born"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-38560 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251220_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251220_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251220_1-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When Christ was born, so was our hope. This is why I love Christmas. The event invites us to believe the wildest of promises: He did away with every barrier, fence, sin, bent, debt, and grave. Anything that might keep us from him was demolished. He only awaits our word to walk through the door.\u00a0Invite him in, escort him to the seat of honor, and pull out his chair. Clear the table; clear the calendar. Call the kids and neighbors. Christmas is here. Christ is here.<\/p>\n<p>One request from you, and God will do again what he did then: scatter the night with everlasting light. He\u2019ll be born in you. Let \u201cSilent Night\u201d be sung. Every heart can be a manger. Every day can be a Christmas. The Christmas miracle\u2014a yearlong celebration!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_Nacdpqkovykp3qmKY48--a1853N9-3mNYosk0oal5UdQh_LKwpx-f5cIslljmbQfSYRYw9LlQkVFYT-RW3ieJ1p7a18zKqPCmIqd63Vs_Gp=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/maxlucado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bob-1-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"Because of Bethlehem\" width=\"100\" height=\"152.284263959\" border=\"0\" data-bit=\"iit\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Read more\u00a0<a title=\"Because of Bethlehem\" href=\"https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=bed511e434184985961d50fcb&amp;id=7190eac6d9&amp;e=0716428f80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u%3Dbed511e434184985961d50fcb%26id%3D7190eac6d9%26e%3D0716428f80&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1764831712501000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0X2mSZTzNlEyEqAQWc5pdB\"><em>Because of Bethlehem<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Christ was born, so was our hope. This is why I love Christmas. The event invites us to believe the wildest of promises: He did away with every barrier, fence, sin, bent, debt, and grave. Anything that might keep us from him was demolished. He only awaits our word to walk through the door. Invite him in, escort him to the seat of honor, and pull out his chair. Clear the table; clear the calendar. Call the kids and neighbors. Christmas is here. Christ is here.<\/p>\n<p>One request from you, and God will do again what he did then: scatter the night with everlasting light. He\u2019ll be born in you. Let \u201cSilent Night\u201d be sung. Every heart can be a manger. Every day can be a Christmas. The Christmas miracle\u2014a yearlong celebration!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38561,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38558\/revisions\/38561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}