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Oct 31 - Nov 6, 2021
⬆️ Sermon begins at 51:02 ⬆️
Day 1: Hoping for Resurrection
Day 1: Hoping for Resurrection
By Pastor Marco Ambriz, M.Div.
Let’s start with a preliminary definition of hope.
Hope is to intentionally lean towards a future joy, even when one cannot yet see it.
Hebrews 11 is a chapter that has been nicknamed the “Hall of Faith” because it describes the future-orientated nature of faith. It lists saints — Abraham, Moses, Noah, Enoch, Sarah, Rahab, Gideon, etc. — who trusted in the Lord even when they couldn’t see the future. Their hope-filled lives can serve as examples for us today.
Heb. 11:13 All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.
Later, it says,
Heb. 11:39-40 All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.
Remarkably, these passages demonstrate how Christians today are connected to our historic brothers and sisters in the faith because we are all still longing for that great day of resurrection. God plans that we will all enter the fullness of the joy of eternal life together.
All Saints’ Day
In the Christian Church Calendar, November 1 is a day to remember followers of Christ who have gone before us and our connection to them in our joint expectation of the Resurrection when Christ returns.
Reflection
Reflect on the definition of hope provided at the top. Where do you resonate or disagree with it?
How does this concept of joy still yet to come help inform your faith in Jesus today?
Where is it helpful to remember that those who have gone before us are also longing for the fullness of Christ’s return?
Think of someone you know who was an example of faith to you and has passed away. Where can you give thanks to God for their life, and where can you pray for hope to follow Jesus until you see them again?
Day 2: Hope for the Transformation of Creation
Day 2: Hope for the Transformation of Creation
Romans 8:22 (NLT) For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.
This passage describes the whole creation — humans, nature, and even God! — in a place of expectation and longing for our complete transformation and resurrection at the end of history.
Reflection
Where do you see the Christian faith as a hope for the whole creation and not just individual souls?
How do you describe the future joy that you personally long for in the Lord’s return? Do you think about that often? Why or why not?
Where can you see God inviting you to re-envision future joy in his return and the resurrection at the end of history?
Romans 8:24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
Another version of v24 says: “We were saved in this hope…” The idea is that our salvation doesn’t come already finalized but is actually still in process. We need hope because God’s promises have not been fully accomplished yet.
Reflection
How do you feel about your Christian faith and salvation being something that is not yet complete until the day the Lord returns?
How can this scripture help you when you are frustrated and not seeing the results you want to see in your walk with God or in other’s walk with God?
Phil. 1:6 (NLT) And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Reflection
How can you encourage yourself and others to rejoice in the hope that God is still working in your lives?
Day 3: Hope Within the Storm
Day 3: Hope Within the Storm
By Dr. “Joey” Alan Le, Ph.D.
For Christians, the hope of resurrection and the in-breaking kingdom of God inspires courage in the face of grave danger.
St. Luke records an adventure story of the Apostle Paul’s final voyage to testify before the emperor of Rome in Acts 27:1-28:10. Paul is a prisoner, headed towards an inevitable execution. A typhoon strikes (v14), threatening to wreck the ship (v18). The crew had abandoned all hope of being rescued (v20). After many days of starvation, Paul stands up among them and encourages them. He prophesies that no one will lose their life, only the ship will be lost. Why? Because an angel of God had appeared to him and assured Paul that he would indeed stand before the emperor (v23-24).
Observe the profound change in the crew’s emotion. They started depressed and hopeless, but then were moved to cheer (v36). For some reason, the crew found courage in a life-threatening storm. What was that reason?
Acts 27:33 Just before daybreak, Paul urged all of them to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been in suspense and remaining without food, having eaten nothing. 34 Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will help you survive; for none of you will lose a hair from your heads.” 35 After he had said this, he took bread; and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. 36 Then all of them were encouraged and took food for themselves.
On one hand, eating the food expresses the hope the men had to survive the shipwreck. But, on the other hand, as Renewal scholar of New Testament J. Lyle Story suggests, “the men draw strength and cheer from Paul, his prophetic role, the angelic message, Paul’s trust in God, his constant pastoral reassurances.”[1]
One takeaway is that Paul’s joy and trust in the invisible God inspired the men to become buoyant.[2] His joy and hope in God sparked joy and hope in the people around him, even in the midst of a terrifying storm.
A second takeaway is that Paul’s joy and hope was not privatized. On the contrary, he shared his assurance with the depressed sailors (27:24-37), summoning them to experience the joy for themselves. [3] God’s protection and provision would be shared with them.
The story of peril and hope is instructive for followers of Christ. Even when we go through the roughest of waters, we can trust that God will accomplish his will for us. If we put our hope in God, we will find life, and rejoice in it. It is our mission to share that hope and joy with those around us.
Reflection
When you found yourself in dire circumstances, what got you through it? How did you find hope and cheer in the midst of danger?
What would you do differently if you knew that your joy and hope were meant to be shared with the people around you, rather than simply kept to yourself?
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[1] J. Lyle Story, Joyous Encounters: Discovering the Happy Affections in Luke-Acts (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2018), 219.
[2] Story, Joyous Encounters, 219.
[3] Story, Joyous Encounters, 219.
Day 4: Hope Enables Life in the Present
Day 4: Hope Enables Life in the Present
Marianne Meye Thompson (Presbyterian minister and Fuller Professor of New Testament Interpretation) observes that external circumstances or events cause joy, rejoicing, or gladness. One does not feel joy for no reason. One does not (more like, should not) feel joy at evils like oppression, tyranny, or sorrow. This means that “joy is the response to the goodness of the order of the world. What is good elicits joy.”[1]
Furthermore, the Scriptures teach that goodness is characterized by righteousness/justice and peace. But, Thompson reminds the reader that the world does not do justice or establish righteousness or make peace on its own. Therefore, the world does not and cannot bring about the circumstances that produce joy.[2] It is God who brings it about.
In the Bible, joy is the human response to God’s saving activity and triumphs. Joy disappears when there is tragedy or loss. And joy returns when God sets things to rights and when the causes of tragedy are removed.[3]
But how can we live with tragedy, suffering, and loss in the present? Jürgen Moltmann held that hope enables us to live through the pain in the present:
[Hope] is itself the happiness of the present. It pronounces the poor blessed, receives the weary and heavy laden, the humbled and wronged, the hungry and the dying, because it perceives the parousia of the kingdom for them. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. Thus hope goes on its way through the midst of happiness and pain, because in the promises of God it can see a future also for the transient, the dying and the dead. That is why it can be said that living without hope is like no longer living.[4]
This means that one can still find joy amidst present hardship because one knows that God’s promises will hold true in the end. The future makes the present livable.
Mary Clark Moschella (United Church of Christ pastor and Yale Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling) echoes Moltmann’s last point that one needs hope to keep on living. She maintains that joy is not something extra that humans can live without.
Joy and some of its other “near relatives,” such as wonder, beauty, and hope, can hold us and heal us when words and the usual distractions fail. Whether encountered through nature, art, prayer, work, play, or human relationship, embodied experiences of joy in this sense of aliveness and awareness of the good are needed to feed and sustain us in sorrow, and to open in us pathways to the love of God and neighbor.[5]
In other words, we need joy and hope to sustain us, otherwise, life would not be worth living. Indeed, joy and hope are the foundations for our love of God and our love for the people around us.
In the end, we can rejoice in the good that God has given us in the present moment, and we can hope in the good that God has promised us in the future.
As Ajith Fernando (National Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka) puts it:
We must accept that God is good and will look after us. Then we can experience joy and peace. And even if things go really bad, we can still “abound in hope” and look forward to God’s turning even bad situations into good ones.[6]
Reflection
How have you witnessed joy return when God righted wrongs and removed the causes of tragedy?
Is it true that ‘living without hope is like no longer living’? Is it true that joy is not something extra that you could live without?
In your present circumstance, what good can you rejoice in, and what do you hope for in the future?
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[1] Marianne Meye Thompson, "Reflections on Joy in the Bible," in Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture and the Good Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 35.
[2] Thompson, "Joy and Human Flourishing," 35.
[3] Thompson, "Joy and Human Flourishing," 35-36.
[4] Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James W. Leitch (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 32.
[5] Mary Clark Moschella, "Calling and Compassion: Elements of Joy in Lived Practices of Care," in Joy and Human Flourishing: Essays on Theology, Culture and the Good Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 103.
[6] Ajith Fernando, The Call to Joy and Pain: Embracing Suffering in Your Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 56.
Day 5: Imagining a Better Future
Day 5: Imagining a Better Future
A Future for Children
A Future for Children
Children often bring adults joy. Children can also embody our hopes too.
Jürgen Moltmann holds that every child represents a new beginning of life. With every child comes a new occasion, a new chance, to have a good life in the here and now and in the coming eternal life. A baby’s new birth points to the new creation of all things and the eternal life of God. “The birth of a child confirms the great hope in the victory of life over death.”[1]
Additionally, Moltmann says that not only do children bear our expectations for a good life, but children embody God’s expectations over us to cultivate a good life for children. We are called to reflect the goodness and mercy of God. God expects “the truly humane human being in every newly born child.” That includes grownups. We expect the good life for ourselves, and God expects us to create the conditions for the good life for others.[2]
It is our responsibility to make sure children have a future. We must have hope for them.
Hope of Blessing for the Poor
Hope of Blessing for the Poor
But what about those tired and poor who have no hope? As American Protestant Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann frames it:
Hope is easy and flimsy for those who already have richness, fullness, and laughter now; but hope is hard for those who are denied the riches, prevented from fullness, and have no reason to laugh.[3]
What does God do for those who have no hope? Jesus envisioned futures where there were dead-ends and proclaimed possibilities when there were only impossibilities.
Read Luke 6:20-25.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus announces hope for the poor. In Luke’s version, the blessings form a counterpart to woes. Jesus critiques and condemns the rich (v24), the full (v25a), the ones who laugh (v25b), and the ones who enjoy social approval (v26). Such people live comfortably in this age and would not want a new future.[4] They do not need to hope. Everything is good as it is for them.
In stark contrast, Jesus promises blessing and a new future for those who presently live impoverished, hunger, and grief. He gives hope to the hopeless.[5]
But it’s not simply because they are rich that Jesus condemns them, or simply because they are poor that Jesus blesses them. Instead, it is how they gained their wealth, or how they were impoverished, respectively.
Brueggemann explains Jesus’ Beatitudes this way:
The new futuring of God is for those who have not only resisted these exploitative practices but have been victimized by them. The future will be given not to people in their fullness but to those who have been forcibly denied enough. The future is given to those who are experienced in groaning. The future is denied to those who have been cynical and calloused and self-deceiving enough to rejoice in the present ordering and are unable to grieve about the ruin toward which the community is headed.[6]
In other words, the future is hopeful for the poor because their exploitation and victimization will end. But the future is dire for the rich because there will be a reckoning for their exploitation of the poor. (This is true not just for those who actively exploited others but also for those who passively sat back and let others be exploited. They, too, are complicit.)
In the end, because of God, the victims of poverty can imagine a better future. They may have hope.
God’s Role and Our Role
God’s Role and Our Role
Well, it is undoubtedly God who brings about the good and heals wounds. But that does not mean that it is all on God. Humans have a role, too, in activating our hopes in God and doing something about it.
The Romanian Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, and professor Dumitru Stăniloae teaches that “our hope can move between two points,” that is, between Christ’s saving work and our own efforts to follow Christ’s teaching and example. See Jn 14:6, 21.[7]
In sum, we have hope that God will redeem our broken lives. God initiates and completes the redemption, but we participate in it as it unfolds. Because of that hope in God, we work today to restore and heal our world, trusting that our work is not done in vain but will last until eternity.
Reflection
If you have children or want children, what do you hope for them in the future? What are you doing to ensure that they have a future?
The Beatitudes portray dramatically different endings for the presently poor and rich. If you believe Jesus’ word, what changes do you think you should make in your lifestyle?
Explain in your own words how your hope in God’s redemptive work could motivate and sustain your work to restore and heal the world around you?
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[1] Jürgen Moltmann, "Expectations," in Envisioning the Good Life: Essays on God, Christ, and Human Flourishing in Honor of Miroslav Volf, ed. Matthew Croasmun, Zoran Grozdanov, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017), 130.
[2] Moltmann, "Envisioning the Good Life," 131.
[3] Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001, 2001), 110.
[4] Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 109.
[5] Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 109.
[6] Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 112.
[7] Dumitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church, trans. Robert Barringer (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 1980), 168.
Day 6: Hope as Divine Gift
Day 6: Hope as Divine Gift
“Hope” is the expectation of good things that don’t come to us as a matter of course.
Let’s break this definition down a bit. Hope expects things in the future, but not all expectations are positive. A visit to the dentist is something you expect, not with hope, but with dread. Thus, hope is usually an expectation of a future good.
Furthermore, not all good things are a matter of hope. The rising of the sun is a good thing, but we don’t hope for a sunrise. With a fair amount of certainty, we know the daylight will come. But on a scorching hot day, we certainly do hope for a cool breeze or a smattering of rain. Therefore, hope is a future good that isn’t a matter of course.
Next, there is a difference between optimism and hope. Both deal with good things in the future. The former has to do with what is latent in the past and the present. It is an unfolding of what is already there. “We survey the past and the present, extrapolate about what is likely to happen in the future, and if the prospects are good, we become optimistic.”[1] The latter, hope, is concerned with good things in the future that come from the outside. For Christians, it comes from God. It is not latent, but a new gift.[2]
God instills hope in his people throughout the Scriptures. To name a couple:
God gifts a child to the barren Sarah in her old age (Gen. 21:1-2; Rom. 4:18-21).
God implants hope in the disciples after the crucified Christ resurrects from the dead (Acts 2:22-36).[3]
Miroslav Volf suggests that “hope is love stretching itself into the future.”[4] God is love, and “love always gives gifts.”[5] We can hope in God because we can expect good things to come from God as a gift. God’s love itself is a gift, and every gift God gives is an expression of his love. The Christian hope, then, is that all people flourish, starting with individuals, then expanding to communities, to the entire world.[6]
Reflection
Aside from being an expectation of good things in the future that comes from God as a gift, what other qualities/characteristics does the concept of hope have?
If God is love, and love always gives gifts, what good things can you expect in the future?
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[1] Miroslav Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," in Covenant and Hope: Christian and Jewish Reflections, ed. Robert W. Jenson and Eugene B. Korn (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2012), 141.
[2] Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," 141.
[3] Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," 141.
[4] Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," 141.
[5] Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," 141.
[6] Volf, "God, Hope, and Human Flourishing," 141.
Day 7: Hope in Becoming Like God
Day 7: Hope in Becoming Like God
We, along with the rest of creation, eagerly wait for the day when Christ will return and restore all things to God’s intended glory. For now, though, we are left with reforming our hearts and preparing for the extraordinary transformation which God will initiate in us. It would be easy to focus on our imperfections and faults, and sins. But the best way to start is to hope for the best, not avoid the worst. We hope for the day when creation is reconciled with God in perfect communion.[1]
So, oddly enough, the first task is to repent. Repentance marks the starting point of our journey to becoming one with God. Timothy Ware connects repentance with hope:
[R]epentance is not negative but positive. It means, not self-pity or remorse, but conversion, the re-centering of our whole life upon the Trinity. It is to look, not backward with regret, but forward with hope — not downwards at our own shortcomings, but upwards at God's love. It is to see, not what we have failed to be, but what by divine grace we can now become; and it is to act upon what we see. To repent is to open our eyes to the light. In this sense, repentance is not just a single act, an initial step, but a continuing state, an attitude of heart and will that needs to be ceaselessly renewed up to the end of life.[2]
As dreadful as our circumstances may be, and as black as our sin might be, when we genuinely repent, we place our hope in God, trusting that God can save us, even from ourselves. Hope, once again, opens us up to a new future where we can one day rejoice.
But what better future is there, what gift is greater, what deeper joy is there than to be with God himself? God desires that we “may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). We are not perfect now, but we can trust that God is in the process of perfecting us (“when he is revealed, we will be like him” 1 Jn. 3:2).
This does not mean that we usurp the place of God (apotheosis). Instead, it means that God transforms us so completely that we will look and act like God. It is not just that God restores a purer version of our creatureliness, but that God raises us so that we may have fellowship with the divine.[3]
Thompson provides a fitting conclusion for this study on hope and joy:
[W]hile the authors of the Bible hope for the time when they will be able to rejoice fully, they also rejoice in the present; they experience joy and gladness; they know of life that is characterized by equanimity, gratitude, and celebration, even if part of a life not untainted by war, injustice, conflict, debilitating illness, or death. The joy that is experienced in the present, prior to the removal of all causes of sorrow, acknowledges both the goodness of God’s bountiful world and anticipates the outpouring of God’s full blessings in the future. When Paul calls people to rejoice in the Lord always, the key may be the focus on “the Lord.” One does not always rejoice in the world, or in circumstances; but one may rejoice in the Lord. To cultivate this trust and confidence in God and God’s goodness is to cultivate joy.[4]
Reflection
Which comes easier to you: looking for the worst or hoping for the best?
How does Ware’s take on repentance as a positive, hopeful, lifelong act change your perspective on repentance?
How have you experienced God transforming you into the likeness of Christ?
What can you rejoice in now to demonstrate your hope for the future?
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[1] Christoph Schwöbel, "Like a Tree Planted by the Water: Human Flourishing and the Dynamics of Divine-Human Relationships," in Envisioning the Good Life: Essays on God, Christ, and Human Flourishing in Honor of Miroslav Volf, ed. Matthew Croasmun, Zoran Grozdanov, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017), 82.
[2] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way, Reprint ed. (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986), 152.
[3] Jürgen Moltmann, Theology and Joy (London: SCM Press, 1973), 61-62.
[4] Thompson, "Joy and Human Flourishing," 36.
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