One word can make all the difference.
It certainly did for me this past week…
Last week my older brother lost his battle with cancer. At just 40 years old, he was way too young. He fought hard and outlasted all of the predictions for stage 4 melanoma. He was courageous and positive. I am grateful he is no longer suffering, but I will miss him deeply. I will miss all the years we could have experienced together.
But as we talked often these past few months, we were confident that this life would not be the end. In a word, we had hope. Not wishful thinking mind you, but solid hope in a future reality.
And it is this one small, but exceedingly powerful word that sets Christianity apart from all world religions.
A Living Hope
No other religion offers genuine hope. But it’s at the heart of Christianity:
“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, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” — 1 Peter 1:3-7
Hope provides the ability to suffer well.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” — Romans 15:4
God’s Word gives us hope because we see how God has acted in the ordinary lives of men and women of faith in the past.
“Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 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.” — Hebrews 6:17-20
In the everyday circumstances of life our soul can wonder or want to shrink back, but we have an anchor of the soul to take hold of. Many times this anchor holds us.
Hope.
The Basis Of Our Christian Hope
The basis of our hope is the character of God and the reality of the resurrection. That is one of the lessons Easter teaches us. God does not lie and he has proven that this life is not all there is by raising Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.
Moreover, this life is not even our greatest good. Our greatest good is to know God and love him forever. My brother is now experiencing this in a way that I cannot yet. But one day we will share that experience. As will all who are a part of God’s forever family.
Islam does not offer hope because one could never be sure that one has a secure future and relationship with God.
Buddhism does not offer hope because desire is snuffed out along with your personal identity. You–quite literally–cease to be. Desire is then severed from hope itself and also your hope.
Only Christianity can offer genuine hope for the future.
I like how Gandalf puts it in the Lord of the Rings:
“End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it…White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”
I am sad and hopeful. I grieve and am confident. So even as we live in a world full of not the way it’s supposed to be…take heart. As J.I. Packer puts it, “Though the Christian life is regularly marked more by suffering than by triumph…our hope is sure and our mood should be one of unquenchable confidence: we are on the victory side.”
Christianity is true. Jesus is risen. Our hope is secure…no matter what comes our way.
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