Ask a Theologian: Hope
Dear Theologian,
Scripture says, “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three.” (1 Cor 13:13) But what is meant by Christian hope? And how is it related to faith?
Hoping
Dear Hoping,
Let’s begin with the ordinary meaning of the word “hope” in the English language: As a verb, it means “to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment; to look forward to something with confidence or expectation.”
This stance seems to be basic to human nature. We are beings who live always in expectation of something more than what we presently have or are. If we stop hoping, we are close to giving up on life altogether.
What is meant by Christian hope? In the New Testament letters, the Greek word elpís, translated as “hope,” occurs in many places. For example, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Pet 3:15-16) This passage suggests that hope is almost a defining characteristic of the Christian believer.
What reason do Christians have for living with hope? We can best get at this by considering what those who first heard Jesus were hoping for. They belonged to a people who for five centuries had been longing for a future restoration of the Kingdom of Israel under the rule of a just and powerful king. For many, this included the expectation of an “anointed one” (messiah) who would be sent by God not only to restore Israel, but to bring in the new and final age—the age of God’s justice and peace. (Look, for example, at the vision of “the peaceable kingdom” in Isaiah 11.)
When Jesus appeared, he proclaimed that “the Kingdom of God” was at hand. This must have re-awakened, for many, the never-abandoned hope of the restoration of Israel. But, as things turned out, Jesus did not bring about a military or political change of fortune for Israel. Rejected by his own people, he was executed as a criminal by the Romans who controlled the land.
What became, then, of the hope which his disciples had entertained? Their state of mind is poignantly expressed by the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: “Our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” (Lk 24:20-21, emphasis added) This expectation of theirs had been destroyed with utter finality by his death.
What, then, is the origin of Christian hope? We cannot understand it (or feel it) without believing in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. It was only the revelation of the risen one that changed the disciples’ state from despair to incredulous joy. And it is only our own faith in him as risen Lord that grounds our hope. As Paul saw so clearly, if Jesus is not risen, we have no hope.
“If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:17-19)
When we say on Easter Day “Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!” (BCP, p. 294) we are not merely affirming that something is true (that Christ is risen). More fundamentally, we are putting our trust in the transcendent power and utter faithfulness of the God who has raised Jesus from the dead.
Abraham, for St. Paul, was the model of that kind of unshakable trust in God, when he dared to hope that God’s promise of descendants would be fulfilled. He took this stand “in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (Rom 4:17) This is the “kind of God” that Christians also dare to believe in.
If faith, then, is understood as trust—indeed, total trust in God––then it is quite clear that faith is “the ground” of hope. Looking to an unknown future with firm hope is possible only because of one’s confidence in the God who has raised Jesus from the dead. “I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.” (2 Tim 1:12)
Christian hope, though not contrary to reason, can never be grounded rationally in a way that would rule out faith. I cannot be sure intellectually that my hope is justified. But when I put my trust totally in the God of Jesus Christ, I can be whole-hearted in living my life with firm hope, even in the face of death.
But what are Christians hoping for? In the familiar words of the Nicene Creed, recited every Sunday, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” [1] This is the ultimate “object” of Christian hope, but it is not the only thing that we hope for. It is precisely our firm faith in the unimaginable future of the risen life that enables us also to hope for many things in this present life.
This is why Christians who are deeply rooted in the Lord can engage themselves in the struggles of the world without despairing. A person of faith is one who insists on living with hope, reaching out always to a future which is incalculable and uncertain, but which is in God’s hands.
Hope, in a way, is the essential thing about the Christian outlook on life, in contrast to the absence of hope in much of our popular culture. Hope for ultimate joy in the risen Christ enables Christian believers also to hope for good outcomes of the processes of history. Even in the midst of defeat and suffering, the Christian never stops hoping, because the Christian’s firm ground is the God of the crucified and risen Jesus.
Faithfully,
The Theologian
[1] BCP, p. 358.
The Rev. Wayne L. Fehr writes a monthly column for the diocesan newsletter called "Ask a Theologian," answering questions from ordinary Christians trying to make sense of their faith. You can find and purchase his book "Tracing the Contours of Faith: Christian Theology for Questioners" here.