People are desperate for hope. Yet no matter how hard we look for it, we never seem to find it. Products do not provide it. Politicians fail to fulfill it. When some boisterous Gamestop fans can upend the stock market, there is clearly no hope to be found in riches (cf. 1 Tim. 6:17). When a newly discovered disease kills nearly 3 million people worldwide in a matter of months, what can we do except grieve (cf. 1 Thes. 4:13)? In times like these, the lives of many could be described as “having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). The lives of many – but not Christians.
Throughout the New Testament, hope is positioned alongside faith and love as the Christian’s defining characteristics (cf. Gal. 5:5-6, 1 Cor. 13:13, 1 Thes. 5:8). The apostles proclaimed “Christ Jesus our hope” (1 Tim. 1:1). Yet, Jesus is not the “King of Wishful Thinking.” The hope He calls us to is about more than seeing the bright side in a situation (cf. Eph. 1:18, 4:4). “For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom. 8:24-25). And what are we waiting for? “Our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Ti. 2:13). As the Apostle Paul boldly declared before his opponents, “It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial” (Acts 23:6). He described his entire ministry with all its sufferings in terms of his “hope in the promise made by God…that God raises the dead” (Acts 26:6-8).
That hope begins long before we die. The Apostle Peter said we are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3). This living hope “is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). As we repent and are baptized in Christ’s name for the forgiveness of our sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit we receive causes even our sufferings to produce hope in us (cf. Acts 2:38, Rom. 5:3-5). While we eagerly await “the redemption of our bodies”, the Spirit helps us conform to the image of Christ, making “all things work together for good” – even the tough stuff (Rom. 8:23-30). That reality guarantees our hope: if Christ can change us like He has now, then we really can look forward to the mortal in us being “swallowed up by life” when He appears and we become like Him (2 Cor. 5:4-5, cf. 1 Jn. 3:1-3).
In this way, Christ gives us something the world so desperately needs: genuine, steadfast hope. Rejoice in it (Rom. 12:12). Hold fast to it (Heb. 10:23). Live so that people have a reason to ask about it (1 Pet. 3:15). Then let us share it.
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