Hope is one of the most powerful ingredients in our lives. The minute we lose hope, everything begins to unravel. Without hope our lives are dark shadows of what they could be. When hope is lost men turn to destructive vices or even willful self-destruction. Hope is what we need when everything around is seems hopeless. The good news is you and I aren’t the first (and won’t be the last) to face hard or even hopeless scenarios in life.
Peter wrote a letter to new believers who were being persecuted of their faith. Before following Jesus their lives were simple and straightforward but also hopeless. They weren’t persecuted but they also weren’t hopeful about the future. For most of human history hope wasn’t much of an option. Famine, starvation, slavery, and oppression of all sorts was the norm. People just lived, reproduced and died. Then the gospel of Jesus showed up and said there’s more to life than this present suffering. Now they had a hope for the future a hope for eternity. Yet now they also encountered persecution from the state and the culture at large.
In his first few remarks Peter emphasizes the hope that they (and every believer) enjoy.
I Peter 1:3: 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.
Don’t miss that living part. Our hope is alive and well. The world is full of dead hopes. My childhood hope to one day play in the NBA is very much dead. Forgive me, but hopes that people had in JFK to fix our nation died in Dallas. The hopes that millions of people placed in random investments that were supposed to make them rich, well you get it. Hope in Jesus by contrast won’t die. Peter was reminding them that their hope grew even though many of them were being systematically oppressed and killed. Rome thought it could kill these believers hope by killing them, but Rome would die before their hope could ever be killed. Why? Because their hope wasn’t tied to their life, but a living Jesus who was resurrected.
““The Resurrection is the supreme vindication of Jesus’ divine identity and his inspired teaching. It’s the proof of his triumph over sin and death. It’s the foreshadowing of the resurrection of his followers. It’s the basis of Christian hope. It’s the miracle of all miracles.””
The good news is we have a living hope. So my question is simple. What’s the basis for your hope? Your health will fail. My money will run out. Our government will let us down. Jesus is alive and His resurrection is the basis for a hope that won’t die.
"Optimism is a wish without warrant; Christian hope is a certainty, guaranteed by God himself. Optimism reflects ignorance as to whether good things will ever actually come. Christian hope expresses knowledge that every day of his life, and every moment beyond it, the believer can say with truth, on the basis of God's own commitment, that the best is yet to come." ~ J. I. Packer