New Birth

We all need to have hope, for without it life becomes unbearable and we are left with despair. Ben Patterson, in his book The Grand Essentials, tells the story about an S-4 submarine that was rammed off the coast of Massachusetts. It sank immediately. The entire crew was trapped in a prison house of death. Every effort was made to rescue the crew but all attempts failed.

Near the end of the ordeal, a deep-sea diver, who was doing everything in his power to find a way for the crew’s rescue, thought he heard a tapping in the steel wall of the sunken submarine. He placed his helmet up against the side of the vessel, and he realized it was Morse code. He attached himself to the side, and he spelled out in his mind the message being tapped from within. It was repeating the same question, “Is there any hope?”
Recently I had the opportunity to hear a lecture given by William Hauben, a Holocaust survivor. At the end of World War II when he was liberated from the Ebensee Concentration Camp, he completed studies for the cantorate at the Cantor’s Institute of the College of Jewish Studies in Chicago. As I listened to his amazing story, I wondered how it was possible to not give up and lose hope of survival.

The secret of his survival was that Hauben believed God had a purpose for him. That purpose was to be a living witness; to tell the world of the atrocities that occurred so that this would never happen again to anyone, anywhere. That purpose gave him hope.

Much of what William Hauben said was similar to the famous physician Victor Frankel, also a Holocaust survivor. Frankel realized that when people lost hope they simply gave up and died. Hope not only enhanced life but gave people a totally different perspective.

So what is hope? American Presbyterian minister and author Lloyd Ogilvie suggests in his book, The Greatest Counselor in the World, “Human perceptions of what we hope for usually involves wishful thinking. We have all wished for ourselves, for other people and for the future. These wishes are the result of our human desires, what we have evaluated would be best for us and others, or for some situation.”

As one who has been a lifelong fan of the Maple Leafs, I begin each season saying, “I hope they win the cup this year.” I hope they will, but in reality I don’t think it will happen. In this instance I am simply trying to be optimistic.

A biblical understanding of hope is quite different. It is a gift God gives to us. No matter the circumstances I am facing, I can have hope, because I believe that God is sovereign over every situation that happens in life and that God is faithful to His promises. Therefore I choose to trust Him for everything in life, because I know His desire for each person is that which is good.

Years ago God spoke to the prophet Jeremiah words of promise and hope: “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

At this time the people were living in exile in Babylon. Since they longed to go home, some prophets tried to give them hope, but it was false hope, telling the people they would soon return to their land. God spoke to Jeremiah and told him to tell the people they were not going home but would remain in exile for 70 years. In the meantime they were to settle down, build houses, plant gardens, get married, and have children. When the 70 years were completed, the Lord would return them to their land. The promise of “plans to prosper you … to give you hope and a future” would be fulfilled, but according to the sovereign plan of God. Would they trust God?

The apostle Paul faced many situations that could cause people to despair. When he went through suffering and hardship, facing the possibility of death, he chose to focus on the power and presence of Almighty God. Later he would write: “We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

When people discover they have a terminal illness, there is a type of hope that is changing and somewhat limited. Psychologist Theresa Rando writes in Grief, Dying and Death: “Initially the hope is that the diagnosis will be proven incorrect. This changes upon confirmation of the diagnosis, to hope that there will be a cure or some miracle that will enable the patient to escape death. Later this hope is transformed to a smaller scale and the patient hopes that life will be optimal albeit limited.”

We can understand this approach to hope, but if we are honest it is fleeting and in the end there is death. Although we recognize death will happen to everyone, how is it that some people are able to die with the assurance that death does not have the final word? Ultimately our hope is not focused on getting better, but on aligning our life with God’s purposes. We live in a world where suffering and death is a reality, but God does not intend this to drive us away but to draw us closer.

The apostle Peter refers to this as living hope. He states, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4). As difficult as it is when one is facing death, we know that this is not the end of our story. Our ultimate hope is that one day we will be with God.

Author Charles Swindoll writes in Hope Again, “Who can mind the journey when the road leads home … So if you want to smile through your tears, if you want to rejoice through times of suffering, just keep reminding yourself that as a Christian, what you are going through isn’t the end of the story … it is simply the rough road that leads to the right destination.”

This ultimate hope is based on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. If God brought His Son back from the dead, we can have confidence that God will be able to bring us through any situation we are facing.

When it comes time for us to face our death, we realize that not even death can separate us from God. In this issue of the Record, Tony Plomp affirms his hope in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism: “My only comfort in life and death … is that I am not my own but belong body and soul to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.”

The greatest assurance we can have in life is that we belong to God. The apostle Paul wrote, “If we live we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” (Romans 14:8). So if you are fearful about life and what it holds for you, remember God will keep you. He called you to be His and He will never let go.

J.I. Packer reminds us in Knowing God, “What matters supremely, therefore, is not, in the last analysis, the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it—that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. I am never out of his mind … I know him because he first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me; and there is no moment when his eye is off me, or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore when his care falters. This is momentous knowledge. There is unspeakable comfort … in knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me and watching over me for my good.”

So as we look at life we realize that what is important is not what we have acquired or accomplished, but the relationship we have with God and that one day we will share in the glory of God. St. John wrote, “Now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

Imagine that! One day we shall see God face to face. That is our hope.