Hope

22Dec08

1 Peter 1:3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

 

 As the year comes to a close, there are some who may be feeling a sense of hopelessness as we face this time of recession, and uncertainty in our country.  I know there are some whose hopes have been crushed, whose dreams have been unfulfilled – Bah Humbug!

 

 The apostles experienced the loss of hope and great uncertainty when Jesus died. Peter experienced additional shame and disgrace because of his denial of even knowing Jesus.

  

But it is just that kind of loss of hope and disappointment that the resurrection of Jesus is designed to relieve.  We need a little Easter hope at Christmas.  As a matter of fact, we should be living in that Easter hope all year round.  In this advent season, I want you to see that if Christianity is true at all, then Jesus is just as much able to meet us today and help us in the face of discouragement and hopelessness as he was in the first century.

         

In the midst of the Christmas rush take a moment and see that Jesus is doing exactly the same thing today as he did 2,000 years ago: he gives us a living hope in the face of discouragement and hopelessness.

 

When Jerome Groopman diagnosed patients with serious diseases, the Harvard Medical School professor discovered that all of them were “looking for a sense of genuine hope—and indeed, that hope was as important to them as anything he might prescribe as a physician.”

 

After writing a book called The Anatomy of Hope, Groopman was asked for his definition of hope. He replied: “Basically, I think hope is the ability to see a path to the future. You are facing dire circumstances, and you need to know everything that’s blocking or threatening you.  And then you see a path, or a potential path, to get to where you want to be.  Once you see that, there’s a tremendous emotional uplift that occurs.”

 

The doctor confessed, “I think hope has been, is, and always will be the heart of medicine and healing.  We could not live without hope.” Even with all the medical technology available to us now, “ we still come back to this profound human need to believe that there is a possibility to reach a future that is better than the one in the present.” In our day we speak of “hoping against hope” or “hoping for the best,” which implies that we are not very hopeful.

 

But this is not what “hope” means in the Bible.  “Hope” here in 1 Peter 1:3 does not imply a wishfulness but rather a dynamic confidence that does not end with this life but continues throughout eternity.

 

We must put our hope in God,  for it is He who holds the future. It is in Christ that we can experience a living hope this Christmas.

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