Hope is a positive, joyful anticipation, an expectation that something good is about to happen. However, in Christ Jesus the greatest event has already taken place. How do we understand hope in this context? Let me illustrate:
I remember the excitement of anticipating the last day of school, before the long summer holidays. We stayed in a small town called Phalaborwa, in the far northern part of South Africa. The climate was extremely hot and mostly dry.
My friends and I explored every nook and cranny of this little town. With no Internet, no entertainment centres, and televisions being a rather new and scarce commodity, we were responsible for inventing our own entertainment. This worked well for most of the year, but if an opportunity came to go somewhere else, we jumped at it.
And so the annual summer holiday was much anticipated. It not only represented a break from the routine of school, but also an escape from the very familiar and mundane environment.
My ‘hope’ was for a new environment, a break from boring routine, an adventure in a new and unpredictable place.
Often, the car would be packed and everything organised in such a way, that when that last school bell rang, the only thing left to do was drop the school bag at home and start the journey. The journey was at least a 12 hour trip by car. As the landscape and plant life changed the excitement grew. Who would see the sea first? It was always a bit of a battle to convince my dad to first stop at the beach for a swim, before unloading the car at my grandparents place.
The weeks of waiting, the anticipation … my hope was finally fulfilled when I caught that first wave.
But now a different kind of ’hope’ emerged. I no longer hoped to escape my environment and get to the sea … I was where I longed to be. But within this new environment, a new joyful anticipation grew. I anticipated the adventure of each day. This was a hope, not to escape my environment, but to explore the full content of it. My hope was, that the joy of exploring this beautiful place, would never end.
In Christ Jesus we have more than we could ever hope for. In Christ we have found what we’ve been looking for. Our hope is no longer to escape to a different place, or focused on a different time, for there is no better place than to be in Him and no better time than the fulness of time, which is available now.
In Christ our hope changes to a joyful anticipation to explore the full content of what we already have in Him. Our expectation is, that every day is another adventure of discovery.
God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” (Romans 8:14, 15 MSG)
This hope is not nervously looking at every world event and longing for a way out of here. No! This hope knows that there is not a place or a time where the success of what Jesus achieved, is not valid. This hope anticipates the manifestation of heaven on earth … through me! “… you have every reason to expect the Lord Jesus Christ to be made visible through you” (1 Cor 1:7 Breath of Life)
The mystery revealed is not Christ in the future, but Christ IN you, the hope of glory. (Col 1:27) Our hope is no longer linked to a future time, but to the person of Christ within us. He is inexhaustible, and my hope is that the joy of exploring the beauty of His person will never end.
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Thank you for sharing this. It is very timely in a discouraged moment. You have completely lifted me. Of course you have for you are pure love and the truth. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have been offline for a couple of weeks and am so glad to be here with you all.
Thank you for another great message. Your messages are indeed enlightening, and have given me a great new perspective on how I view my faith. They all, make sense, and it feels as though a guilt has been lifted off my shoulders.
Wow! Thanks for the reminder of the great Hope in Christ.