I attended worship on Easter morning and heard a good sermon: “Stuck on the Road.” The message was based on Luke 24:13-49, the account of the risen Jesus showing up on the
journey of two individuals to their home in Emmaus. The two said that before Jesus had been killed they “had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” Their hope had died. When they understood that the man who had joined them was, in fact, Jesus resurrected, their hope was restored. The preacher’s application was: since the living Christ is with us – sometimes recognized, sometimes not – on our road, we have hope. Good stuff.
I’ve had some thoughts about this and would like to share some with you.
First, let’s clarify a couple of things. “Hope” does not mean “wish.” When you wish for something, you simply want it to happen. It’s a desire for something that is not real to become real. When you say something like “I hope I don’t get cancer,” you’re actually meaning “I wish I don’t get cancer.” It’s a want that you don’t know whether it’s attainable. When the guys who wrote the books of the Bible said “hope” (in Hebrew or Greek) they were not meaning “wish.” Hope, in the Bible, means confident expectation. It’s trusting and believing it will happen, so you are willing to wait faithfully and obediently for it to happen and to contribute to it happening. Hope, in the Bible, is based on God’s person and will, revealed by his words and works.
What are we hoping for? What are we confidently expecting to happen? All my problems and struggles to end (including my enemies; well actually just people I don’t like)? Abundance of blessing and prosperity for me and my loved ones? The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (if you ever write a book, try to come up with a shorter and catchier title than that) sums up what Biblical hope is about: “Hope is never egocentric, but always focused on Christ and on God. Its heart is not the blessing of the individual but the kingly rule of God, who will be ‘all in all.’ More specifically, the content of [hope] consists of salvation, righteousness, resurrection in an incorruptible body, eternal life, seeing God and being conformed to his likeness, and sharing in his glory” (volume 2, page 187). My own summation for what the Bible teaches us to hope for is for all of God’s creation, including humans, to be restored to his original intent. There’s a lot to be said about that, but in essence I mean Genesis 1:27-28 will become reality.
Now that we’re clear(er) on what hope is and what the Scripture says we hope for, let me go a little further.
We who claim to believe in and follow Jesus Christ have a different hope than the rest of the world. We have an alternative expectation for what is happening and what is going to happen. Consequently, we have different goals and motives, alternative desires and interests, contrasting attitudes and behaviors and evaluations and methods.
Therefore we ought to be invested in and putting forward this alternative hope. The hope which resurrected Jesus gave to the two travelers to Emmaus was not the same as the hope their religion and national leadership had given them. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to political conservatism and liberalism. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to preserving or abandoning the Constitution of the United States. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to building a border wall or opening the floodgates to immigration. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to unfettered diversity or divisive racial superiority. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to strict law-and-order or loose libertarianism. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to material prosperity and indulgence, the American dream, excellent fitness and health, and the pursuit of personal happiness. Hope in the risen Christ is an alternative to insisting on my rights being respected and preserved. And on and on…
Because Jesus has risen, there is an alternative to living as if the Messiah did not come and make a difference, change everything, begin new creation. Our hope is in Jesus, not Trump or Clinton, not guns or gun control, not the national anthem or kneeling on the sideline, not aggressive militarism or absolute pacifism, not my culture or your culture… Our hope – our confident expectation that we and our world will belong completely to God and will be filled with his glory, his love, his goodness, his peace – is in Christ.
I believe that we need to be talking about this alternative in our churches, small groups, classes, and our families and friendships. We don’t have to choose one of the positions that are promoted by the political parties, media, educational systems, and other cultural influencers. In fact, I think we ought not. When issues of concern are discussed, it seems someone should suggest something like, “Let’s take some time to look at this in the light
of what we know Christ wants and work to bring ourselves in line with that.” Instead of staying with our opinions that fall in line with some faction’s outlook and agenda (or just our own agenda), it seems we ought to consider that there is probably an alternative that better reflects God’s intentions. If we can just sincerely talk about that possibility and listen to each other and primarily listen to the Holy Spirit, maybe we will discover that God has something in mind that we haven’t thought of.
And I have no doubt we need to be praying in humility and submission that we will be able to see from our Father’s perspective, that our minds will be alert to worldviews that contradict his purposes (even the ones that we have cherished), that we will be renewed in our hearts and minds to be like Christ, and that we will have the wisdom and courage and love to offer the alternative to the people with whom we share our world.
Jesus has risen and lives. Hallelujah! We have hope, and it is different, it is better, than anything else out there.
