Hope: The work of God within us

Our world is replete with empty hopes

I grew up in a world where hope prevailed.  I lived in hope, setting off each Saturday with hope beating in my heart.  I was sure my beloved tigers were going to win.  But it was an empty hope.  They rarely won, and their normal place was at the bottom of the ladder.  I hoped in vain.

Of course, what I was calling ‘hope” was not genuine hope at all.  It was little more than a wish, a wish that had little or no chance of being fulfilled.  But wishes are like that.  We talk about hoping for all kinds of things but what we call hope turns out to be little more than one of these empty wishes.  Unreliable expectations of something good come our way with little certainty that those fantasies will be fulfilled. 

Hope is: Something God does to us

The Christian faith boasts of a great hope a hope that sits at the very heart of our identity as disciples of Christ.  We believe God became man, and we believe this God-man lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death in the place of his people, rose from the dead with an incorruptible body, ascended into heaven, and is going to return the way he left, returning to judge the world and to usher in his kingdom. Meanwhile, he shares his Father’s throne and reigns in glory.  Therein is our hope.

That is the sure and certain hope that God alone can guarantee.  It is this hope that galvanises the baptised into collaborating with the Risen Christ in continuing the mission given to him by His Father.  It is a transforming hope.  An empowering hope, a gift of grace that reassures the faithful that even as they go through the valley of death, they need fear no evil (Psalm 23:4).  This is quite a claim, but is one that sits at the heart of our Christian existence.  But is it reasonable to ask whether this is nothing more than wishful thinking?   Does hope really work?  How do we know the promises of God are true, that they are reliable?  The answer: Because it all proceeds from God.

A Three-Dimensional Hope

The Bible uses the word “hope” in a very different way from the way it is commonly used in English. In general usage, “hope” is more akin to a “wish” or a “dream.” In the scriptures, “hope” refers to an “expectation”—a present and future certainty. There is no doubt with hope, no wondering whether the things hoped for will or will not come about.  In summary, wishing is about things we do not yet have, while hope is already ours.

Part of the power of Christian hope is that it is three-dimensional. First, it is oriented toward the future. Second, it is grounded in the past. Third, it is sustained in the present.

Oriented Toward the Future

Isaiah 40 is a clear example of how biblical hope works. Isaiah preaches a message of hope for God’s people Israel.  The nation had been torn apart by invading nations, their capital city Jerusalem torn down and populated by Gentiles. It would have been difficult for the Hebrew people, under those circumstances, to believe they had a future.  Surely God had abandoned them?  The land covenanted to them by God, the land of milk and honey that was theirs as a gift from the same Almighty God was gone. They had no future. 

  The biblical storyline picks up this prophecy in Matthew 3, showing us how Israel’s hope and our hope come together in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ…  In those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

 As Isaiah 40 alludes, there is not only a coming King.  With that heavenly king there is also a coming kingdom.  This is the core truth of the Christian faith: Life together with God’s people, under God’s reign, enjoying God’s rule and blessing through Christ the King.  That is the substance of hope. 

Exiled as they are in a distant land, in Babylon, there would have been little thought of a future beyond their chains.  This was even worse than their time in Egypt.  The mighty Babylonians had swept nation after nation before it and what was left of Israel was broken, with a useless army, and a king in chains.  Where could they go from there?  All they had to sustain them was their hope in a God they knew was faithful, even in the face of the faithlessness of their people.

Grounded in the Past

Our future hope is grounded in what has already happened the past. God has shown us a track record in faithfulness.  His promises were fulfilled, and whatever God has said came to fruition.  This is the way St Paul expresses these realities: Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ…and we boast in the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1–2). Our hope is reliable because it is founded in God himself rather than in anything we might do.  It relies not on the self but on God.

God has been faithful to his promises by sending Christ. He promised a messiah, promised them a Kingdom, promised them a whole new creation and that is precisely what he did for them.  Christ’s birth addressed the problem of our alienation from God due to sin.   The first Adam’s sin brought death, while the second Adam (Jesus) brought life. 

The coming of Christ is divine initiative.  What was separated by sin has been reunited by grace. It is something God has done.  He came to us, and in so doing we are united in the Godhead.  There is now nothing that can separate us from God’s love… Romans 8:38-39    For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Thus, united with God in Christ, we have hope.

Christ’s death on the cross addressed the problem of our sin. He has cancelled the debt we owed, took our sins on himself and thus set us free.  That is the gift and meaning of the Resurrection (Col. 2:14). His resurrection addressed the problem of our decaying bodies and our broken world.  Our eternal fate is no longer the grave.  His resurrection is a preview of the resurrection promised to all God’s faithful people.  This new and eternal life is the fruit of the Kingdom of God (Romans 8:19–21). Our future hope is grounded in what Christ has already done for us in history: he came, he died, and he rose. He is the firstborn from the dead and we inherit that same gift of life beyond the grave. 

Sustained in the Present

Because of all of this divine activity, we believe and are confident that the hope we have today is grounded in Christ’s past work.  Even more exciting is the reality that the same hope is also sustained in the present.  Paul writes,  Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us (Romans 5:5).  The hope that we have is sustained and enlivened through God’s present faithfulness.  The Holy Spirit is constantly at work creating new faith where it doesn’t exist and strengthening the faith of those who believe.

The kingdom of God is constantly breaking into our present world through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who makes us a new creation, who transforms us into the living images of Christ.   He brings us to faith in Christ and forms us into citizens of the heavenly Kingdom: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Hope Without Shame

We may experience great despair and hopelessness in life, but it is hope that gives us the courage to keep persevering in faithfulness. We hope and are not put to shame by a God who is unable to fulfil his promises.  As we look to the past—knowing that God has pardoned us through Christ’s work on the cross, that he is preparing a way for Christ’s second coming by his Holy Spirit, and that he is making all things new that we may dwell with him in his coming kingdom—we are filled with the courage we need to keep moving forward in the present, looking to the future glory that awaits.

May we praise God for his grace and hold fast to the hope we have been given in Christ. May God so fill us with divine grace that we become faithful witnesses to the world of the goodness and transforming power of Almighty God.   We pray that what God has promised in the past, will bear lasting fruit in this lifetime and in the world to come.  Amen.

Bishop Michael Hough April 2025