Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:13)
The New Testament is full of the language of hope. Christian faith is unrelentingly forward-looking. We are waiting for the return of Jesus, the redemption of our bodies, the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells. The day is coming when all things will be brought under the feet of Jesus, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. Of course, the great events of the past by which our salvation has been secured, the cross and resurrection of Jesus the incarnate Son, remain in focus. As one great theologian wrote, we spend our lives circling the cross and wondering at God’s love, mercy and grace. Yet the end to which all things are headed is even more glorious.
The hope that shines from the New Testament stands in stark contrast to the loss of hope in our community and the world more generally. Our newspapers or news feeds are full of dire predictions, not only about the economy but about Western society as a whole. Some have sought parallels between our current moment and the final years of the Roman Empire. The glory has gone and from any vantage point the future looks chaotic. Our political leaders are uninspiring, our churches are torn apart by scandal and tepid unbelief, families are crumbling, violence is on the increase, and compassion for those who are suffering seems to be diminishing. The social fabric itself appears to be unravelling and some commentators are even doubting we have a future.
In such a context, our hope, anchored as it is in the unchanging character of our good and gracious heavenly Father, is even more precious. Precisely because God himself is its guarantee, Christian hope cannot be overwhelmed. In both Old Testament and New, the believer’s hope amid disappointment or even despair is tied to the person and purpose of the sovereign God who always wins. In the psalms, the sons of Korah cry out “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation” (Psalm 42:5, 11). Perhaps it was also David who prayed, “You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word” (Psalm 119:114).
What makes hope in God possible is his sure and certain word, his promises made to his people. He always keeps his word. His covenant is inviolable and irrevocable. The words of the Old Testament find their focus in the New Testament, in Jesus: “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor. 1:20). Matthew draws a specific link between Jesus and the hope spoken of by Isaiah: “a bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Matt. 12:20–21). Just a chapter before he had recorded Jesus’ own words, “Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28–30).
It was the Old Testament hope they had heard and embraced that drew Simeon and Anna and John the Baptist to Jesus. They had been waiting for “the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), for “the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38), for “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). It was the great resurrection hope they had first heard from Jesus’ own lips that fired the first disciples’ mission of proclaiming him as Lord, first to the Jews but then to the Gentiles. Jesus had told them, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40). He later told Martha, the sister of Lazarus, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25–26).
Both Peter, the apostle to the Jews, and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, spoke about the waiting that is anchored in the character of the God who has given us his promises, and in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells”, Peter wrote (2 Pet. 3:13). Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come”, (1 Thess. 1:10).
You can’t get away from hope both in the Old Testament and in the New. So we need to take the hopeful, future-oriented character of Christian faith and living seriously. It exposes the hopeless of the world that desperately needs to know Jesus. It changes the way we look at the world now and live in the world now.
We at Moore College are looking for the return of Jesus with all the blessing that will bring. We are looking for that day when we hope he will find us faithfully engaged in the mission he has entrusted to us. And when the hopelessness of the present drives us to tears, we long for that day when God himself “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
