A Day to Hope

Vickie Wade Painting

1 Peter 1:3 

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Psalm 43:5 (NIV)

5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?

    Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

    for I will yet praise him,

    my Savior and my God.

Hebrews 2:10 -14

10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.[g] 12 He says,

“I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;

    in the assembly I will sing your praises.”[h]

13 And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”[i]

And again he says,

“Here am I, and the children God has given me.”[j]

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them,[k] fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

C.S. Lewis Quotes on Hoping For Something More

Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise.

At present we are on the outside… the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the pleasures we see. But all the pages of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get “in”… We will put on glory… that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.

We do not want to merely “see” beauty–though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.

As the victims of the mass shooting in Connecticut continue to be laid to rest, I find myself trying to weigh such a deep, confounding tragedy with what I know about hope.  In Christ I have a sure and certain hope and it is to that hope I cling.  Proverbs 24:24 tells me that evil has no future and the lamp of the wicked will be snuffed out.  Evil will not prevail.  Satan will lose.  God, the ultimate good guy, will always, always win.

Can you hear the angels singing?

"Listen!  They're Singing"  - Evan Wickham