How to put our hope in the right things – Advent Hope, Part 3

This week I once again welcome guest blogger, Kirk Marks. Kirk is a retired pastor of 30 years who now works in international fair trade.

A couple years ago, I reached a direction-changing point in my ministry career. Some things that I had worked very hard on for a long time, and that I had looked forward to, I saw coming together. Life was going in a really good direction for the next chapter of my ministry and my work. But there’s always the possibility that things won’t go as you hope they’re going to go.

I saw that possibility too. It was either all going to come together in a new opportunity that I was really looking forward to, or it could go sideways. That tension really got to me, so much so that I sought out a friend of mine who is a psychologist. We sat down, and I talked about how this scenario was affecting me. I told him very honestly, “If things don’t go the way I want them to go, I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get out of bed the next day.”

He said, “Kirk, even if this goes as badly as you can possibly imagine, if this goes the opposite of what you’re looking forward to, there’s still going to be a way forward for you.”

I remember thinking at the time, “How can he know that? How can he know that that’s going to be the case? I really don’t think I’m going to be able to get out of bed if this goes sideways.” But what I realized later, what he realized and was trying very gently to say to me, was that I had put my hope in the wrong things.

I was hoping in a circumstance, hoping for something to happen, and I was not hoping in a God who’s above those circumstances and is at work regardless of how those circumstances work out.

Indeed, the situation did not go the way I hoped.

And I was able to get out of bed the next day. Actually, the event that didn’t go as I wanted was the first domino in a series of dominoes, a series of events I never thought would happen. Yet I was able to get out of bed then, and I was able to get out of bed every morning since. There was indeed a way forward.

We can put our hopes in the wrong things. Circumstances working out the way we want is one of the wrong things that we can put our hope in.

Let’s talk about putting our hopes in the right things. From my story in this post and the previous two posts here and here, perhaps you’ve gotten a sense of where I get wisdom from.

I get wisdom from the experiences that I have had.

I get wisdom from preachers who preach good sermons that matter.

I get wisdom from good counsel, like my friend who told me that I would be able to get out of bed.

I get wisdom from theologians who write great books and think great things.

I’ve accumulated some wisdom from those sources. But of course, the main source of wisdom that we have is the wisdom that God reveals to us in his word through his son Jesus Christ and the written word in the scriptures.

It’s in the scriptures that we find direction and hope. The Sermon on the Mount is filled with the hope and promise that Jesus’ coming brings (Matthew 5—7). What did he say in the Sermon on the Mount? We’re going to look at the Beatitudes.

He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

There’s a promise about hope. There’s a kingdom that is coming. A kingdom that we can have. A kingdom that comes to those who are poor in spirit.

Jesus also said, “Blessed are those who mourn.” (Matthew 5:4).

Think about how strange that sounds. Shouldn’t it be the opposite? “Blessed are those who don’t have to mourn because those bad and mournful things don’t happen to them.” But that’s not what Jesus said. He said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” You hear the hope and promise in that. That in our worst mourning, there is a promise of comfort that only God can provide.

Next, Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek. They will inherit the earth.”

I think we feel most hopeful in this world when we’re working towards something, when we’re pushing against something, when we’re moving in a direction, we’re doing something. We feel really hopeful then.

But when we’re meek, when we can’t fight back, when there’s nothing to work at, when we’re defeated, then we feel the least hopeful. Jesus says when we’re meek, we’re blessed. For we’re going to inherit the earth.

So many people work, try to achieve and accomplish to earn an inheritance, and yet notice Jesus makes a promise that when we pursue meekness, the inheritance is going to be given to us. There’s great hope in meekness.

Jesus goes on to say, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They will be filled.”

Perhaps you know the hopelessness that comes seeing the unrighteousness of this world, the unfairness that people have to live with and the injustice of systems around us that we seem not to be able to do anything about. That was the hopelessness that I faced in the coal regions and people had in their hearts, as I mentioned in the two previous posts.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who deeply desire that something would be different about the circumstances. Why? Because they will be filled. God will one day do something about what we feel so hopeless about.

Jesus goes on to talk about who is blessed and even says crazy things like, “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say evil against you because of me.”

That doesn’t sound like blessing to me, but he says, When you are persecuted, yours is the kingdom of heaven.” There is tremendous hope, tremendous promise in what Jesus says as we seek to live out those things, to be meek, to be merciful, to be the things that Jesus describes, to be poor in spirit, to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, to forgive those who harm us. We seek to live in that way.

We live in great hope because God has promised us great and marvelous things and resolution of the hopelessness in this world through living in the way that follows Jesus. Do you see the difference between the way we use the word hope in the English language today and this hope that I am talking about? We use the word hope in the English language today very, very glibly.

Anything that we want to happen, we use the word hope for, right? “I told you “I hope it doesn’t snow this week. I hate snow. I hate this cold weather.”

“I hope my team does well and makes it to the Super Bowl.”

“I hope I get the stuff on my Christmas list.”

Anything that we’d like to see in the future, we say we hope for it. In and of itself that isn’t bad. In fact, it’s important to stay optimistic about the future, to think positively about what’s coming. We should avoid pessimism, miserably and negatively thinkin about what’s coming.

But the way we use the word hope sometimes has no ground or promise to it. “I hope it doesn’t snow,” but I have no control over that and thus no certainty about what’s going to happen.

I have no guarantee of any of these things in the future that I may or may not want to come. That’s very different than the hope that we find in Scripture and the hope that we’re talking about as a theme of Advent. That hope that we have is rooted and grounded in the promises that God has given us.

That’s why we have hope in him because the God who loves us, who is before us, who is our Heavenly Father, promised that he will always be with us. That he’ll never leave us or forsake us. That he has good plans and not bad for us.

That he has life and life eternal for us. Those are all good things to hope for and want to have in the future, and they’re promised to us by God who loves us.

The theologian I mentioned in the previous post, Dr. Moltmann says it this way: hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised to us by God. Faith believes that God is true. Hope awaits the time when that truth will be shown.

Faith believes that God is our Father. Hope anticipates when he will show himself to be Father toward us. Faith believes eternal life is given to us. Hope anticipates that it will in time be revealed. Faith is the foundation upon which hope rests, but hope nourishes and sustains our faith. And thus it is through faith that man finds a path to true life but it is only hope that keeps him on this path.

Thus it is that faith in Christ hopes in its assurance of what God has promised to us. You see the difference? Hope is indeed based on the promises that God has made to us. So we look to him in hope.

Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash