Hope...waitin' for the light to shine!

 

“Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, I risk my whole eternity on the resurrection.”  Charles Spurgeon

  Our world is becoming more and more hopeless. Talk to someone about nearly any subject, whether the economy, education, world peace, crime, environment, public morality, work conditions, the Church, health, disease, government, marriage and divorce. Have a conversation about any of those subjects (and a host of others) and you’ll soon find that you’re drowning in a sea of negativity and pessimism.

  Life for too many has become dismal and dark. It reminds me of a scene from that classic Mark Twain novel, Huckleberry Finn. Huck wrestled with the darkness in his society and his own darkness as well. In his Southern culture, it was a major crime to help a runaway slave, as Huck had done for Jim. So Huck was torn between the attitudes of those who had raised him who were pro-slavery and looked on abolitionists as those “dirty abolitionists,” and his own friendship with Jim, the slave, who had sacrificed for him, taken risks for him, and had been through all kinds of adventures with him up and down the “Big River,” the mighty Mississippi. At this point in the book, Huck sings, “I am waitin' for the light to shine. I am waitin' for the light to shine. I have lived in the darkness for so long. I am waitin' for the light to shine.”

  Isn’t that most of the people you meet, maybe it’s even you…“waitin' for the light to shine.” This world is drowning in a sea of hopelessness. But, if you’re a Christian, this is not your world!

  Apart from the Christian faith, this world and everything we know is hopeless. Only Christianity has a guaranteed hope. Otherwise, despair hangs like a cloud over our culture. Christianity though offers hope, not just in this life, but also in the life to come.

  The power of Christian hope is accentuated by the difference in epitaphs marking the tombs of 1^st century Christians and unbelievers. Along the Appian Way, which runs south from Rome, stand the disintegrating tombs of aristocratic families that fed on the fat of Rome's power. The inscriptions on those tombs reflect the barrenness of hope. The crumbling Latin on one stone reads: “What I ate and drank I have with me; what I have left I have lost.”  Another says, "A cocktail, please, for you and me." Still another: "Wine and lust ruin the constitution, but they make life, farewell."

  Early Christians persecuted by Rome, often martyred in the Coliseum, were frequently forced to live and hide in the catacombs. Excavations in Rome have revealed some 60 catacombs, containing 600 miles of galleries, 8 feet high, and from 3 to 5 feet wide. On both sides are several rows of long, low, horizontal recesses, one above the other like berths on a boat, closed at the front either by a marble slab or by painted tile. Both pagans and Christians buried their dead in these catacombs. But there’s a stark difference in their epitaphs. Pagan inscriptions read: “Live for the present hour, since we are sure of nothing else.” Or, “I will lift up my hands against the gods who took me away at the age of 20, though I had done no harm.” Another says, “Once I was not. I know nothing about it, and it is no concern of mine.” Still another, “Traveler, curse me not as you pass, for I am in darkness and cannot answer.”   

  Yet, when the graves of Christians were opened, there were skeletons that revealed that their heads had been severed from the bodies, ribs broken, bones calcined from fire. What a contrast to heathen sentiments to read the epitaphs on the Christians' tombs: “Here lies Marcia, put to rest in a dream of peace.” Or, “Called away, he went in peace.” Still another, “Victorious in peace and in Christ.”

  What made the difference? Easter! Hope that comes with the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. For the child of God, our ultimate hope centers in Jesus Christ, His Resurrection and the Life of the One Who has conquered death and promised us, as His followers, "Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19). Hope for the Christian is different and must be distinguished from merely waiting with bated breath, fingers crossed. Christian Hope is always a confident, guaranteed expectation. Christian Hope never just says, "I hope so." Because of the Resurrection, our hope looks forward to an unconditionally guaranteed glory, where all evil, sorrow, and pain will be banished forever, and where an unimaginable Heaven and inheritance awaits us.

  Christian Hope then is much, much more than mere aspiration. It’s a settled conviction, joined to faith and based on God's Word. When Paul said that the heathen lived "without hope," he didn't mean that they had no desires. Rather, in the truest sense, they were without hope because they lived without the definite certitude that only comes from faith in Christ.

  Ancient culture at its very best, had no long range perspective, but saw man as a prisoner of this world and of life from which there was no escape. The Christian has a guaranteed hope that is interrelated with Easter, Christ’s resurrection and His second coming. Hope, then in the New Testament, is a joyous expectation of eternal salvation. It’s a confident anticipation unmarred by doubt.

  Man innately believes in a life that survives death. Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, "Almost every person with who I have ever talked in my world travels has believed in life after death." Even Freud called the belief that death is the door to a better life as the "oldest, strongest, and most insistent wish of mankind." Yet, only the Christian who has committed his or her life to Christ, trusting in His sacrificial death on the Cross as the payment for their sins has true hope, not just a “I hope so.”

  Do you know Jesus? Do you have hope? There are many Christian hopes that pertain to this life: hope of answered prayer, the hope of another chance, the hope of God's providence bringing triumph out of tragedy. A  Christian has both hope today and hope for the world to come. It’s what Peter refers to as a “living hope” (1 Peter 1:3-5). Our living hope is founded completely on the resurrected Christ. Earthly hopes often prove vain. The resurrection of Jesus Christ on that first Easter morning launched true hope into its high and confident orbit. Do you have that hope today?