Hope that carries!
«Hope dies last» is a common saying. The Bible also speaks of hope. But this Christian hope is very concrete. It is a trust in the trustworthiness of God. It has its foundation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This resurrection hope gives a perspective for the moment, but also for an uncertain future. Such hope moves and motivates. Such hope gives meaning to life.
As already warned in a sermon almost six months ago, I will only bring examples from my son. He is now 7 weeks old and thriving. He is gaining weight well and we are happy that this is the case. But towards the end of the pregnancy it wasn’t quite like that. The closer the due date came, the more we feared that our baby would put on more and more weight and that all the cute clothes we had already bought would no longer fit him. In the end, we were happy that our boy was born almost on time and that his weight and size were also within the average range. From the beginning, our son had long black hair. After the first bath it stood up and yes, this is not extra, but natural. During pregnancy we hoped for a baby as hearty and pretty as possible and yes I know all parents think their baby is the most beautiful thing. But for us it’s true…;-) While our hopes during pregnancy were still very superficial, the word hope still accompanies us. Hopefully we have enough nappies with us. Hopefully we can interpret our son’s signs correctly and give him the right thing. Hopefully I remember to put a cloth over my shoulders when I hold him upright so that everything doesn’t get dirty when he vomits. Hopefully I will be a good father. What are your hopes?
Christian hope is more concrete than thought!
Hope is something that accompanies us. Hope carries us through difficult times, hope drives us on. Every time I am at the airport and travelling, I hope that today is the moment when I finally get a free business class upgrade. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet, but as we all know, hope dies last. For followers of Jesus Christ, hope is also something important and drives life. But what kind of hope is this? In order to trace this Christian hope, we want to dive together into a verse written in the Letter to the Hebrews. «So what is faith? It is the confidence that what we hope will come true and the conviction that what is not seen exists». (Hebrews 11:1 NLB). At first glance, faith as such is mentioned here. But here faith and hope are closely related. But what is the difference? Faith is a trust in the trustworthiness of God as described to us in the Bible. Faith can be marked off against above and below by hope. Faith stops where I see something. No hope is needed there. Hope only comes into play when I look into the future, into the unknown. But faith is more than «I think it will rain today». Faith is a firm conviction based on a solid foundation. Christian faith has its foundation in Jesus Christ. While faith looks to God and trusts Him in all things, hope looks to the future and trusts God in it. Faith is a trust with regard to all things, hope is a trust with regard to the future.
But this does not tell us what constitutes biblical hope. Colloquially, hope is understood as hope, confidence in the future. It is a confidence, perhaps even an optimism about what the future will bring. This hope is rather vague, it is not guaranteed that things will turn out the way I hope. It can also turn out just differently than I had hoped. In the New Testament, the word «elpis» always appears where the German translation says hope. This is not wrong, because «elpis» also includes this meaning. But it also means expectation and prospect. When we expect something or have a prospect of something, this is more concrete. It is certain that something is coming. Even if perhaps the concrete realisation looks different. Yes I can hope for a long time to get a business class upgrade, but when my wife was pregnant, yes she was in joyful expectation. So when hope is written in the Bible, it is not vague, but it is an expectation that has its fulfilment in the future. This expectation, in turn, is strongly connected to the question of meaning. Christian hope is meaningful because it has its foundation in Jesus Christ. Vaclav Havel, a Czech writer and the first president of the Czech Republic, described hope as follows: «Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something has meaning, no matter how it turns out.» (Vaclav Havel).
Christian hope is resurrection hope!
Although Christian hope is a hope that looks confidently into the future, it has its origins in the past. Certainly more than 25 times, the teaser for our annual theme Creatio – Hope and Responsibility ran before the sermon. The first, perhaps more sombre part is dedicated to man’s responsibility for God’s creation and therefore, in part, where this is unfortunately not perceived. But the second part follows promptly. After the wave comes God’s answer: Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. A new beginning. Jesus has accomplished it. His death shakes the earth. His resurrection is the beginning of a new creation. Christian hope lies in this answer of the teaser.
Jesus Christ brought restoration. He died so that the way to the heavenly Father became free for us humans. What began disastrously in the Garden of Eden, with human beings themselves wanting to be like God, was reversed through Jesus Christ. It is the beginning of a new creation. For Jesus Christ not only died on the cross, but he also rose from the dead. On the plausibility of this resurrection, Matthias gave a sermon at Easter entitled «Easter – more than a spiritual thought». It is essential for Christian hope that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. On the third day after the death of Jesus Christ, when a few women came to the tomb, they were asked a question by the angels present there. «Why do you seek the living among the dead?» (Luke 24:5b NLB) Jesus Christ is Lord over death. We humans were created in the image of God. God desires a relationship with each individual. All who call themselves followers of Jesus express that they follow Jesus Christ, that they have faith in him. Followers of Christ have the hope, indeed the firm confidence and expectation that they too will one day rise from the dead and spend eternity with him in heaven. Not only is there a floating spirit of mine there, but I as Cédric Brügger will be there. With body, mind, body and soul.
Although Christian hope is based on the hope of resurrection in the future, it is not limited to that. For it is a hope of being with God before and after death! Followers of Jesus do not know what tomorrow holds for them, but they know who holds tomorrow in his hand.
Christian hope, however, is not only closely related to faith, but also to love (1 Corinthians 13:13). This hope can be described as follows in the words of the Apostle Paul from the Letter to the Romans. «I am convinced: Nothing can separate us from his love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor powers, neither our fears in the present nor our worries about the future, not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. And were we high above the heavens or were we in the deepest depths of the ocean, nothing and no one in all creation can separate us from the love of God that appeared in Christ Jesus our Lord.» (Romans 8:38–39 NLB).
Christian hope is moving hope!
Christian hope is resurrection hope! The opposite of this hope is not hopelessness. It is rather a waiting into emptiness. Or to put it even more drastically, it is a life into emptiness. Such a life is not only uncertain, but also empty of meaning. Followers of Jesus have to ask themselves again and again: Do you live out your faith and discipleship as if Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Or is your discipleship more like that of a deceased idol? Does the angels» request to the women at the tomb apply to you? Why do you seek the living among the dead? (Luke 24:5b) Following Jesus Christ is accompanied by a moving hope, not a dead hope.
After Jesus rose from the dead, he met many people. Among them were two disciples who were on their way to Emaus. They were walking and suddenly Jesus Christ came to them, but they did not recognise him. They were talking to each other and Jesus was very close to them. He spent time with them and explained the Bible to them. Only at the very end of the encounter did they realise that the man who had spent the day with them was Jesus Christ the Risen One. Their reaction is characteristic of an encounter with the divine. «They said to one another, «Wasn’t it strangely warm to our hearts when he spoke to us on the way and interpreted the Scriptures to us?» » (Luke 24:32 NLB). The encounter with Jesus Christ touches and does not leave us cold. Although Jesus Christ is no longer physically among us, we can encounter him. Perhaps we do so as the two disciples did. In the moment itself we feel that something is different, but only in retrospect do we realise that God met us in that moment.
Christian faith stands in this tension of seeing and hoping. There are good reasons to believe in Jesus Christ, but at some point it becomes just that, a belief. Because faith is about things that are not seen. Where seeing begins, believing ends. But along with faith, a hope, a firm expectation sets in. This hope gives meaning to one’s life. But this is not only for the future, but also in the here and now. What this hope can do is shown in a text from Isaiah 61. If we read in the New Testament, we see how Jesus Christ accomplished these things. But also today we see Jesus Christ accomplishing exactly these things in people who choose to live as followers for him. Jesus Christ himself claims these verses to accomplish exactly this (Luke 4). «The Spirit of the Lord God rests upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to proclaim that the captives will be set free and the bound will be set free. He has sent me to proclaim a year of grace from the Lord and a day of vengeance from our God, and to comfort all who mourn.» (Isaiah 61:1–2 NLB).
Christian hope is a concrete, moving resurrection hope. It is a trust in the trustworthiness of God. It has its foundation in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This resurrection hope gives a perspective for the moment, but also for an uncertain future. Such hope moves and motivates. Such hope gives meaning to life. How would it be if today in the bistro, for example, you did not first talk about the holidays, the weather, yesterday’s football match or politics, but first talked about what gives your life hope? And thus also what gives your life meaning?
Possible questions for the small group
Read Bible text: Hebrews 11:1; Luke 24
- What hope do you have for your life? What do you wish for most?
- How would you describe Christian hope? How does it differ from the colloquial term «hope»?
- How plausible is the resurrection of Jesus Christ for you? Where do you have questions? How do you respond to this act of his?
- How would you describe the hope of resurrection?
- Do you know the difference between hopelessness and waiting into emptiness?
- How do you encounter God? How do you experience him?
