One of my good friends tweeted a verse from the Bible about hope. The verse is about how Christians find joy in hope. I was reminded of that verse in Hebrews, that we Christians have a very certain hope. This hope is certain in two ways. It is certain in that, unlike most hopes, it will actually come to pass. It is also certain in the sense that it is very precise, very specific. The Christian hope is very specific--it is a hope attested to in scripture, a hope founded upon the ultimate mission of God. The problem with proof-texting is that we often wrench verses out-of-context and apply them to our lives. We do the same thing with those scriptures regarding hope. It is our tendency as Christian--for a variety of reasons--to place our hopes in this life. One reason we do this is because we don't have a very accurate grasp of what "heaven" will be like, what "heaven" itself entails--and we imagine that heaven will be boring, though few of us will admit this for fear of being judged as unspiritual, and so we want this life to last as long as possible and we want to make the best of it. Another reason is that we've been conditioned by the health-and-wealth gospel to believe that God's ultimate goal in our lives is to give us our dreams on a silver platter. This simply isn't the case; if you want to believe that God will bring all your dreams to fulfillment, go ahead and believe that; but eventually you'll either have to stick your head in the sand like the ostrich and blind yourself to the reality of the world around you, or you'll have to stand tall and face it for what it is. Another reason we put our hopes in this life is because it is our human nature; it is an element of self-glorification and self-worship. So we "hope in God" that He will give us all that we've ever wanted--whether that be fame and fortune, a successful career, or something as seemingly simple as a spouse and kids and a house with a white-picket fence. Ultimately, the placing of hope in this life is flawed because, as Christians, this world in its current state is not our home and any effort to make it our home will thus be flawed because of its nature; placing hope in this life--and subsequently hoping that God will bring it to pass--is more a sign of self-devotion than devotion to God.
The question then begins, "What are we to hope for?" We're not to hope that all of our dreams will become a reality in this existence. We are not to hope that one day God will give us all that we've truly wanted and all that we've really desired. Such a hope doesn't create an alternate reality but creates a temporary illusion, more akin to a dreamlike state or the musings of a drunk. We are to hope in God's ultimate future--that one day, He will remake the cosmos and remake our bodies and everything will be right again. And with this hope--this certain hope--we wait. Not a passive waiting but an active waiting. A waiting that has at its core going forth into the ruined world and spreading the kingdom through the proclamation of Jesus' lordship and resurrection, proclaiming the kingdom through signs and symbols (beauty, justice, celebration); a waiting that involves suffering and yet actively standing in the face of the spoiled world and knowing that this will not always be so.
The question then begins, "What are we to hope for?" We're not to hope that all of our dreams will become a reality in this existence. We are not to hope that one day God will give us all that we've truly wanted and all that we've really desired. Such a hope doesn't create an alternate reality but creates a temporary illusion, more akin to a dreamlike state or the musings of a drunk. We are to hope in God's ultimate future--that one day, He will remake the cosmos and remake our bodies and everything will be right again. And with this hope--this certain hope--we wait. Not a passive waiting but an active waiting. A waiting that has at its core going forth into the ruined world and spreading the kingdom through the proclamation of Jesus' lordship and resurrection, proclaiming the kingdom through signs and symbols (beauty, justice, celebration); a waiting that involves suffering and yet actively standing in the face of the spoiled world and knowing that this will not always be so.
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