WHEN HOPE MAKES SENSE
It is inevitable that man will go through adversity in his life and while he works his way through it, hope beckons.
‘If hope is not lost, everything is not yet lost’.
Hope, with the promise of a better tomorrow, allows man to plow through the trials and suffer the angst of adversity. But does having hope make sense?
Even if hope is actualized and a better tomorrow becomes the present, will that guarantee a pain-free tomorrow? Adversity has many heads and one head needs to be barely suppressed before the next one rises to inflict pain. Be it circumstances beyond control, sickness, natural calamities, financial crisis, relational problems, difficulties at work place and in family, the list is endless. If life can be summed up as tackling one adversity after another, with hope leading the way, but with no guarantee of a pain-free future, it is a meaningless exercise.
No matter how many victories you may have won, there is always death – the ultimate adversity lurking ahead and staring you down.
Death has the final say. It is the ultimate truth, if life were to be limited to an earthly existence. It comes to all, equalizes all things and makes all things meaningless. That your legacy lives on in memories or in progeny provides little consolation to the one who faces death. You can put on a brave demeanor and face it, but it is like saying “even if the lion would eat me alive, let me go through it with a smile”.
If hope were to make sense, it has to defy death and make sense beyond the grave. Paul says in 1Corinthians 15;
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied (9).
Because a disciple of Christ sacrifices much in this earthly life, if there was no hope beyond the grave, what ultimate good would it provide? He would be a fool to suffer loss in this life and then nothing else to look beyond to. Paul goes on to say in v 50-55,
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
Not only are those who have Christ in them overcomers in this world, they have hope beyond the grave. Now this is hope that makes sense because it provides a solution to the problem of death. Just like Christ was resurrected, a person who believes in Him will rise from the dead and go on to inherit eternal life. That hope beyond anything else in this life, makes life ultimately meaningful.
