Hope. For such a short word, it’s a really complicated idea, at least for me. The word hope doesn’t imply certainty, but in our everyday vernacular it often insinuates something like a pipe dream. “I hope I get this job.” or “We can only hope everyone will be all right.” Only — there it is, the word that dangles hope as a last-ditch effort. “There’s nothing else we can do but…hope.” Every good, solid, tangible option is exhausted. Hope is all that’s left.
Really? Should hope be relegated to a “Hail Mary” status?
While the idea of hope may not reside on a bedrock of certainty, positioning hope as a do-or-die play doesn’t seem like the best image at the core of faith either.
So, let’s revisit this picture of hope. What if our picture of hope were not an eleventh-hour fallback but a position to move towards or even to reside within? A destination filled with optimism and aspiration. If nothing else, this image moves hope from a fuzzy, intangible fallback position to a concrete destination. In 1 Peter 1:3, scripture says it best: “In His great mercy God has given us new birth into a Living Hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Peter has given us a new understanding of how to be present in hope. We may not be born into certainty, but by God’s mercy we are born into a place filled with possibility–a place that is literally alive with hope. For me that’s a meaningful picture of hope that I can stand on.
— J Hill
Minister for Missions
