| Message written by Alistair Mollison  Aug 2, 2020

What are you hoping for? 
What does the word “hope” mean to you? Different people have different ideas about what hope is. There are those who opt for the Disney-inspired “When you wish upon a star ….. Anything your heart desires will come to you. When you wish upon a star… your dreams come true.”  This hope is entirely self-focused, and puts the onus on the person to work really hard at hoping to get results. Then there are those whose hopes are a form of escapism from reality: “I really hope I win the Lotto Max $50 million” or “I hope the Leafs win the Stanley Cup this year” Once again, very self focused, but with less stress.

Some people look for external sources of security as the guarantor of their hopes. Financial security is placed at the mercy of the cycles of fear and greed in the stock market. Political leaders who promise bright tomorrows catch our enthusiasm and our votes at the ballot box. And these all lead at one point or another to anxiety or disappointment. Is America really becoming Great again? Even in the more benign times of Barack Obama, the results after four years didn’t live up to the promise of 2008, and a sarcastic Sarah Palin could say to the voters “how’s that hopey, changey thing workin’ for yah?” Placing our hope for whatever in human beings and institutions will always be a hit and miss proposition at best.

So where do we look for real hope? The year 2020 has dealt a harsh blow to some forms of hope, whether employment security, or financial security, or our health, or the safety of our family members, or a sense that life will ever be “normal” again? What are we hoping for, and where can we look with trust and optimism for the future?

I Peter 1: 3-9

          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, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 

In I Peter 1:3-9 we have Peter’s bold declaration that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we have been born into a “living hope”. This is not some future projection of our personal wishes, this is a foundation of rock-solid security that is alive and energizes our lives today. As the hymn writer records “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness…..On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

Peter was writing to new believers oppressed on every side: by the religious establishment of the Jewish faith, by family members opposed to their decision to follow Christ, by the ruthless power of Rome that saw them as unpatriotic heretics and a danger to society. Their hope clearly did not come from their circumstances, but from seeing beyond their circumstances to the greater thing that God was working out in them through Jesus Christ.

Peter moves on in verse four to indicate that this “living hope” is something that can’t “perish, spoil, or fade”. Many things in this life can perish, spoil or fade. The stock market can drop 30% in a matter of days, eroding a lifetime of savings. Health security can disappear with a simple cheek swab or blood test. Instead, Peter tells us three ways we can count on our “living hope”. First it is an inheritance; it is legally ours and won’t change. Nobody is going to rewrite God’s will for us. Secondly, it is kept in heaven for us so it is not vulnerable to anything that happens here on earth. And finally, we are shielded by God’s power until that time when we receive our full blessing of salvation. The image is one of a military guard that surrounds us and keeps us safe.

Peter does not shy away from saying that life in the meanwhile will be difficult. In fact he talks of suffering “grief in all kinds of trials”. But he tells us that even in hardship there is an opportunity to prove that our faith is genuine by the ways we deal with suffering. Finally Peter tells us that even in the midst of trials and suffering we can experience an “inexpressible and glorious joy” as we press on for the goal of our faith: the salvation of our souls. These sentiments are perfectly captured in the words from Great is Thy Faithfulness: “strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow.”

Friends, these may be days in which we need that strength, but these are also days in which we can have bright hope for tomorrow. It all rests on God’s faithfulness, on the rock-solid assurance of salvation that comes in Christ Jesus. The world may offer other options for where we place our trust and our hopes, but experience has taught us how fickle and uncertain those are.  Instead, let us invest our hopes exclusively in the “living hope” that comes through the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.