Hope Springs Eternal
The English poet Alexander Pope is known for the line "hope springs eternal in the human breast." Whatever precise meaning he assigned to those words, the general interpretation is sound:
None of us can live without hope.
Hope is the belief that tomorrow will be better than today.
That an event of the past will somehow be corrected in the future.
The tragic accidental death of a loved one will bear fruit in the saving of other lives.
An injustice we have experienced will eventually be corrected.
A lost loved one will be seen again.
The illness we suffer today will find a cure one day.
Hope, or so it seems, is hard-wired into the human soul.
And one can see why.
The alternative to hope is despair. And despair - the conviction that present anguish will not find future resolution - is impossible for us to bear.
How can the resurrection of one man give hope?
But how can the resurrection of one man in history be the source of glorious hope?
For that is the radical claim of Christians: the resurrection of Jesus gives present living hope and future dying hope.
The reason is that Jesus was no ordinary man. He was the Son of God, both human and divine. A mystery statable but incomprehensible. But a mystery proven by his miracles, his words, his life, his death and his resurrection.
Whatever Jesus the God-Man does is of utmost import merely by virtue of who He was and who He is.
Present Living Hope
Present 'today' hope flows from Jesus like this. You and I are alienated from the God who made and loves us. Like beached whales who cannot survive without the sea, we cannot survive or thrive - not really, not fully - without God.
Jesus came into the world to put us right with God.
He did this by paying the penalty for our sins on Good Friday. Sins are the wrong thoughts, attitudes, words and actions we commit every day of our lives. Sin alienates us from the holiness of God. Through Jesus' death, in some mysterious and wonderful way, he paid the full penalty for our wrongdoing.
Being God he could pay for more than one person. For all who trust in him.
Jesus reconciles us to God!
And with God we experience new life in this present world. A Comforter in sorrow, a Friend in need, a community who love us.
But that's not all...
Future Dying Hope
Future dying hope is the certain knowledge that death will not be the end. That we will enjoy eternal life in a renewed world beyond the river we all must cross.
And this is where the rising of Jesus comes in.
His resurrection is the firstfruits of a harvest of innumerable resurrections to follow. Jesus promised that whoever believes in him will be raised to life after they die.
Christian hope is not Oxford dictionary hope "a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen."
Christian hope is not a "feeling of expectation" it is certainty of future and eternal joy.
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