Hope
Hope is a powerful word isn’t it. I think it’s one of those words that instantly conjures up an emotional reaction along with it, a sort of buzzword that can be used in all kinds of speeches or advertising to evoke an emotional response. I’m thinking of the red white and blue popart image of Barack Obama, with four letters emblazoned on to the bottom – HOPE. ¹
Or the 2019 Britain’s got talent finalist, a masked magician whose message was “It was always about hope, and never giving up.” ²
Hope speaks to our generation and to our society. Something about the need for hope resonates with us. But what is hope really? Well I think hope is a belief in a positive future that is not yet a present reality. Sometimes that’s hope in something concrete, like hope that we can go on summer holidays this year. Other times that’s hope in something a bit more vague, like a better life, or a fairer world. But in any case, hope is a belief in a positive future that is not yet a present reality.
There’s a verse in the Bible that talks about how we don’t see hope, it says “Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” (Romans 8:24-25)
I don’t know what you’re hoping for, what’s your thing that you do not yet have, that you’re waiting for patiently. The hope that these verses speak of is a hope of being in a relationship with God, adopted as His sons and daughters, forever. That’s what I’m hoping for. And it’s what everyone who knows and loves Jesus is hoping for too. Of course, there are plenty of other things that we’re hoping for, but this is the one eternal thing – being with God in His new creation. And this hope is available to all. Why not open up the rest of the passage where these verses are from, it’s Romans chapter 8, and find out more about this hope.
I’ll leave you with the words of one of my favourite bands, Panic at the Disco – “Got to have high, high hopes for a living.”³ Wherever you are, I hope you can have hope this morning.
¹https://ncsgraphicsguy2.wordpress.com/category/modernism/
²https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4L1Q-3pps0
³https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPXIgEAGe4U
Matt Gurtler 12/2/21