Jesus is the hope of Christmas!
His birth fulfills Old Testament prophecies, reminding us of God's faithfulness to redeem. This hope sustains believers and points to His return. In Jesus, we are freed from guilt, regret, and heartache.
Genesis 1-2 describes humans as God’s vice-regents over all creation, a point reiterated in Psalm 8. The author of Hebrews recites Psalm 8 in Heb. 2:6-8, noting, “we do not yet see everything under our feet.” Why? The Fall has occurred, allowing sin and death to take their toll.
But what do we see? “We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9). By Christ’s identification with us and by his death, he becomes the first human being to be crowned with such glory and honor, as he brings many sons—a new humanity—to glory. Both the one who makes human beings holy—Jesus himself—and the human beings who are made holy are of the same family. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (Heb. 2:11).
Since we have flesh and blood, he shared in our humanity (Heb. 2:14). His humanity was not intrinsically his, but something he had to take on (the eternal Word “became flesh,” John 1:14). He did this so that by his death (something he could never have experienced if he had not taken on flesh and blood) “he might destroy him who holds the power of death … and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14, 15).
Jesus did not take on the nature of angels (Heb. 2:16) He became a human being with a human ancestry, ancestry of Abraham (Heb. 2:16). He was to serve as mediator between God and human beings, “he had to be made like his brothers in every way” (Heb. 2:17). He already was like God in every way.
What is entirely “fitting” for Jesus is that God should make the author (Jesus) of our salvation “perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10).
Notice how "hope" occurs in Hebrews:
3:6 But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.
6:11-12 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit what has been promised.
6:18-20 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
7:18-19 The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
10:23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
11:1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.
The Son became a man to suffer death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone (Heb. 2:9). Through his identification with us and by his death, he becomes the first human being to be crowned with such glory and honor, as he brings many sons to glory. Since Jesus Christ is God Himself, who became a human being and died for our sins, Jesus is the Hope of Christmas.