Jul 27, 2020
Hope - From Axis Culture Translater Premium Vol 6 issue
29 "
Experts
warn a second surge of
COVID-19 deaths are imminent. Racial tensions continue to
dominate the news cycle. Economic insecurity is trickling down into
every sphere of life. It seems everything these days is up for
grabs. Despair, darkness, and depression are dominating the
cultural landscape and our interior lives. And yet, as followers of
Christ, we are called to be people of hope in a hurting world,
which, in hard times like these can only seem like “foolishness to the
Greeks.” But is it?
If
there is one lasting legacy you can leave with your children during
this kairos moment
in their lives, it might be this: We are a people of hope. But hope
and good old-fashioned optimism are radically different things.
While optimism is focused on a good future outcome or a pleasant
change in our current circumstances, hope is a quiet confidence in
the present based on what God in Christ has done in the past. As
long-time missionary and theologian Leslie Newbigin once wrote, “I am
neither an optimist nor a pessimist. Jesus Christ is risen from the
dead.” Amen to that.
For
Newbigin and for us, hope is defiance in the face of fear. It is
the often courageous task of staring reality in the face and still
claiming that though evil, suffering, and death remain, they have
already been defeated. Hope is standing in the valley of dry
bones and daring to believe God will breathe life into
them once again. Hope is mustering the courage to go to the tomb in
the early hours before dawn, just in case. Hope is living as
resurrection people in a dying world. Hope is joining God right
here and right now in the renewal of all things. If Hell is
hopelessness, then maybe a little bit of heaven is the realization
that all over this tired old world, “hope springs
eternal.”"