Hope Springs Eternal

Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection are the climactic events of all four gospel accounts. It is therefore fitting that our earliest recorded summary of the gospel would include these key events: "For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

This summary, passed down to Paul (and through him, to us), is not simply good news of great importance. It is good news of "first importance". The earliest Christian tradition viewed Jesus' atoning death and triumphant resurrection as the keys to understanding the Christian faith. These events hold deep meaning for us. The cross and empty tomb shape our faith, inform our liturgy, and guide our actions.

Most importantly, the climactic act - the resurrection - gives us hope for the future. Real hope! Hope that is more than wishful thinking and stronger than mere optimism. Resurrection hope abides in the darkest times: even under the weight of a cross; even under the shadow of death. It endures because it is hope that is rooted in God's redemptive actions through Christ on behalf of the world.

It is this hope - the hope of resurrection - that carries us in the way of the cross. As bearers of the gospel we are God's Easter people. We are people of the cross and people of the resurrection. The resurrection points us back to the way of the cross which God vindicates. Thus we believe - we have faith - that this is the way to live. And the only reason we can embrace the way of the cross is because of the hope of the resurrection. Without the hope of resurrection, the cross would be too heavy for any of us to bear. If we lose this hope, we will lose faith.

The hope of the resurrection applies not only to our future, but it touches us in the present. Most tend to focus on the comfort resurrection offers by pointing to how it validates the existence of an afterlife. This is true, but there is so much more. In Paul's longest extended discussion of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), Paul seeks to uncover the meaning that Jesus' resurrection gives to this life and to this world - to our faith right now! The final application of his teaching makes this clear: "Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58). Whatever else the hope of resurrection accomplishes, it is certainly meant to inspire faithful works of love in this lifetime - works that echo into eternity, for nothing good is ever lost because of resurrection.

Jesus is Our Future

How does Paul connect Jesus' resurrection to our present situation? The majority of Jews adhered to a belief in the general resurrection of the dead at the end of the age immediately followed by God's righteous judgment. But Jesus' resurrection threw a wrench in their timeline. The event that the Jews envisioned at the end of the age had occurred in the middle of human history - and not to all people, but to one person. But what God has done for one, God will do for all, for the resurrection of Jesus is the first-fruit of a greater harvest to come.

Therefore, in the resurrected humanity of the glorified Christ, we see a glimpse of our future, humanity's future, and by extension, the world's future. Characteristically, John puts it simply yet profoundly:

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. ... Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (1 John 3:1-2)

This future is our hope, for Christ is our future. This is the truth Paul desperately tries to weave into our minds: All shall be made alive in Christ. Christ is the first-fruits - a guarantee of a much greater harvest to come. When Christ returns in glory at the end of the age, the dead in Christ shall rise. What God has done for one, God will do for all. Nothing and no one shall be ultimately lost. Nothing and no one will be ultimately forgotten. Our faith and our faithful deeds will carry on into the future. They do not pass away with us. They remain and will be remembered and rewarded by God.

It is this hope that must carry us or we will eventually stumble in our faith. Sometimes it is very easy to give ourselves to others, to walk by faith. Other times, the darkness seems to overwhelm us. The sheer abundance of suffering can be stifling. We begin to wonder if any of our efforts really matter at all. In order to have the courage to remain faithful in a dark, depressing, despairing world, we must maintain our hope in the resurrection. We need hope to stand firm in faith! For faith without hope - that is, faith without a future - is dead. Faith cannot stand on its own for long. It needs the mutual support of hope, and love.

The Necessity of Hope

There are three theological virtues that stand or fall together: faith, hope, and love. We are saved by faith, saved in hope, saved for love. Faith grounds us in the past promises of God, hope claims the future fulfillment of God's promises, and love faithfully acts in the present.

For our present study, we focus on hope. Hope is the way the future impacts the present. It is the means by which we apprehend and grab hold of God's promised future - a future best described as resurrection.  

Whether religious or not, we all hope for something. Our imagined future impacts our present, for we plan and act in accordance with the future we aspire to. That is, our future hopes drive us into the present. We study hard in school in hope of graduating. If we knew we could never possibly graduate, we would despair of studying. We study an instrument in hope of becoming proficient. We exercise in hope of becoming more healthy, fit, and trim. We support our orphans in India in hope of offering them a better life.

Hope drives us to act in the present. But we also know how dashed hopes can take the wind out of our sails. The "three strikes and you're out" rule seems to apply to most of us. If we cannot achieve our desire after three good efforts, we lose hope - we give up. And no matter how high our tolerance level, when all hope is lost, we despair. We shut down. Actions no longer have any meaning. Nothing matters. Everything becomes futile. Optimism and wishful thinking offer no relief.

But resurrection hope can still shine through even here. How? In Jesus, we have been given a vision of God's glorious future painted against the darkest, gloomiest backdrop possible - the backdrop of the cross. Betrayed, beaten, and bloodied, the holy and innocent Jesus stands unjustly accused of political rebellion and is sentenced to crucifixion. God's chosen One, God's holy Son is tortured, buried, forgotten. All seems lost. Hope is shattered. The movie's over. Fade to black.

But Jesus arose! And his resurrection unveils unique hope - hope of "first importance". Hope when all hope is lost. Hope against hope itself. For the profound meaning of Christ's resurrection transcends a mere affirmation of an afterlife. In Christ's resurrection, we discover...

• Death is not the ultimate power in this cosmos. Life reigns!
• Justice is ultimately vindicated by God. The unjustly condemned One is vindicated.
• Life is not ultimately meaningless. God's creation has a telos, a goal, a purpose.

This hope in Jesus points to God's redemptive purpose which is no less than the complete restoration and renewal of all things in Christ. One eschatological picture of this climactic renewal is the glory of the new heavens and new earth - world purged of sin and death and restored to eternal glory through death and resurrection of Christ!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away." (Revelation 21:1-5)

This is only an image, and it points to a deep and profound reality. We can no more imagine the glories of resurrection than an infant in the womb can imagine the world beyond it. But simply because we cannot imagine it does not mean it is not true. We must allow our religious imagination to expand to its largest dimensions, for this is our hope! We believe tht no amount of death, suffering, or injustice can thwart God's redemptive purpose.

A World Without Hope

But in order to fully appreciate this hope, we must be aware that there are other visions of the future. One clear alternative is the polar opposite:

• Death reigns. It is the final and ultimate power in this cosmos, entirely obliterating all that precedes it
• No ultimate justice. The impersonal universe is blind to such matters. Survival is the only law, and even it succumbs to death's final trump.
• No ultimate meaning. Small pockets of meaning may be created for a few brief moments, but this is merely an illusion to keep one's sanity by refusing to see the truth that there really is no "meaning."
• No restoration. All is lost. Nothing remains in the end.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell honestly and painfully describes "the night of nothingness." "There is darkness without and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness, anywhere; only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."

Richard Dawkins urges us to abandon any search for ultimate meaning. In Unweaving the Rainbow, he writes, "Presumably there is indeed no purpose in the ultimate fate of the cosmos, but do any of us really tie our life's hopes to the ultimate fate of the cosmos anyway? Of course we don't; not if we are sane." Adam Phillips comments, "it is as if, in a sense, he is telling us that in order to be sane we shouldn't worry about what the world is really like."[1]

Far more honest is Bertrand Russell's conclusion. If there is no telos - no purpose, goal, or end - then there is no hope. The only sincere and appropriate response is despair.

That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins--all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built...

Human history is "a tale told by a madman, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." And Sartre is correct: "Man is a useless passion." The only reasonable course of action is to live for the moment, grab the gusto while you can, and rage against the coming eternal night that obliterates all that came before it.

Nothing lasts. Everything dies. Nothing ultimately matters. Everything is lost and forgotten. Death, not God, is the greatest power, wiping out all in its grasp. There is no ultimate good - no summon bonum. History is just one damn thing after another. Hope really is little more than wishful thinking - naïve, ignorant optimism which eventually buckles before the harsh grim reality of unyielding death.

There is no reason to think that this is not true... apart from the resurrection!

The Hope of Resurrection

This is why the meaning of the resurrection should not be reduced to an affirmation of an afterlife. Resurrection is not simply about life after death. It is about God's goal for the universe, God's divine plan enacted in Jesus for the restoration and renewal of all things.

Nothing will ultimately be lost. No one will be forgotten. This is the hope that drives us forward in faith to do deeds of love in the present - deeds committed to the restoration and renewal of all things. We have seen the future in Christ. We know that history has meaning because it culminates in divine glory - the glory of a renewed creation and a redeemed humanity.

This hope is a theological virtue. It is hope with an object. It is not empty optimism, mere wishful thinking. Too often, these expressions of hope are simply denials of reality, ignorance or indifference. Empty optimism cannot stand before cold reality. Wishful thinking cannot stand before cold hard truth. Both see what they want to see and cancel out all else. In contrast, resurrection hope has its eyes wide open. It is hope that can stand in a cancer ward, in a nursing home, on the battlefield, in a cemetery - even on the cold, lonely heights of Calvary. It sees the suffering and yet believes in God's future. It sees the cross - and without denying it - embraces resurrection.

Resurrection hope remains steadfast even when things are not going well. It drives us to action, even in the darkest times. It does not dwell in the moment, but clings to God's promise of a better future - a future secured by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, guaranteed by Jesus' resurrection, and sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit. We act in hope, knowing that no good deed is done in vain, that all our efforts will bear eternal fruit.

Unlike shallow optimism and wishful thinking, resurrection hope is a virtue because it calls for the best from us. We must have great faith, great strength, and great courage to hope against hope. Not everyone can stare evil, injustice, sin, and death in the face and still proclaim that hope remains. Only those who've embraced the meaning of the resurrection for the future and for the present can move with such boldness. And when they tire, the exhortation remains: "Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (1 Corinthians 15:58).

 

Benediction: Keep the faith once delivered to the saints. Hold fast to the hope of resurrection - hope that shines eternal and will not fade away - that you may continue to perform works of love to the end of your days. Your works will be remembered and rewarded by the Lord of Life - the One who goes before you, and stands with you, and will never leave you.

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© Richard J. Vincent, 2009