We all need some kind of hope. We need to be able to look to the future with something other than dread. While that is true especially in these days as news of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shake our world and transform our everyday life, perhaps this is a time in which Christians need to reflect upon the foundations of our hope. In such a time as this, it is not enough to resort to speculation about whether current events are a prelude to the end of the world as we know it. There must be something more substantial to Christian faith.
It seems to me that in the biblical tradition there are at least three different dimensions of Christian hope.
1. Hope for our redemption and resurrection. Although it uses a variety of language to describe our human situation, the Bible is uncompromising in its assertion that as human beings, individually and together, we stand in need of salvation. Our Christian faith teaches us that we are profoundly alienated from God, from ourselves, and from one another. Life is fraught with conflict within and without. But perhaps most decisively, our need for deliverance confronts us on the margin of human experience, in death. For some, in the midst of the pandemic, the prospect of death has drawn much closer.
Death, as both the physical end of our existence on this earth and as the separation from God in eternity, looms over us. Death is an experience we all rub up against--both in the death of loved ones or in the confrontation with our own mortality, As our bodies weaken with the effects of our mortality, we are left to ask, "Is that all there is?"
Christian hope--grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ--answers decisively that there is more. Yet we do not actually experience what this "more" is in this life. The gap between our present experience and what God has promised creates space for hope--hope that in God's time we shall be raised from the dead, as was Jesus. It is for this reason that the apostle Paul could assert, "Death has been swallowed up in victory" (1 Corinthians 15:54). it is not as though we are removed from the sharp pain of the loss of loved ones or that we are confronted by our own mortality; rather, our confidence in the resurrection of Jesus as the first fruits of the new life gives us hope that we, too, shall be raised to new life. This is our inheritance as Christians--and it is our hope.
2. Hope for our broken communities. Early in the biblical story, God observed that it was not good for the first human creature to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Embedded in this observation is God's assertion that human beings are social creatures; that is, that we need life together in order to be fully human. But having made this assertion, Scripture goes on to teach that life in families, in our communities and between nations frequently is fraught with conflict., Too often, self-interest and fear reign supreme and produce injustices committed against one another.
In contrast to the realities of strife-filled human communities, the Bible consistently holds out hope for the establishment of a faithful human community in which concern for others outweighs self-interest and in which God stands at the centre of life. At times we catch glimpses of the divine design for faithful human community. Old Testament prophets dreamed of a time when God would intervene decisively to establish enduring peace. Isaiah and Micah both envision a world in which strife is ended and humans, animals and all creation live together in harmony (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:6-9; Micah 4:1-4). In the New Testament, the vision of a faithful human community surfaces in Jesus's proclamation of the Kingdom of God.
But while fragmentary glimpses of this Kingdom of God are found in many places in the Bible, its full establishment will come only in God's time. It has not yet arrived. In the meantime, we work with the Holy Spirit to manifest the principles of the Kingdom in our lives together, in our communities, in our churches, and in our families. To the extent that we are successful, we foreshadow the glorious fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, of the faithful human community. Yet our hope is that one day God will bring his Kingdom in its fullness.
3. Hope for creation. Scripture insists that the brokenness of our world extends beyond the alienation between God and humanity, beyond the alienation that exists between individuals, and beyond the conflicts both within and between nations to embrace all of creation. The world in all its dimension stands in need of God's saving, recreating work. In our time, when the life of the world is at risk because of damage to the environment or through the spread of disease, these aspects of Christian hope have special relevance.
The prophets speak of this hope for the restoration of creation. In Isaiah's vision of the coming of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:1-9), he envisions a time when the lion will lie down with the lamb and the child will not fear the serpent. He sees the return of a glorious ecological harmony within all of creation. For the apostle Paul, the realization of this vision is already in progress. It is for this reason that Paul can say, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves..." (Romans 8:22-23). For Paul, creation groans in the throes of giving birth. Revelation goes further and holds up before us the hope that God will create a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1). This process has begun; but it awaits its completion.
Conclusion. On the basis of the testimony of the Scriptures, we are certain that Jesus will come again and that with him will come the fullness of our redemption, the healing of our communities, and the revelation of a new heaven and a new earth. However, the timing is beyond our ken and attempts to nail down the timing are doomed to failure. But the failed predictions of the return of Jesus and the completion of God's work should not threaten our hope or lead us to despair of the truthfulness of the gospel's claims. Rather, they should reinforce our faith and our hope that in God's time and in God's way--not our time and our way--Jesus will return and the Kingdom will come. Therefore, Christian hope is never dependent upon a particular timetable of events; it always is grounded in the goodness of God and his purposes. There is no surer foundation for hope than this.