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A wise man once wrote, "If tears were indelible ink instead of clear fluid, all of us would be stained for life." It seems that no one escapes the heartbreaks, the calamities, and the brutal blows of life. How do we cope? What sustains us? In a word, HOPE. When hope is gone, despair is inevitable. That is why hope is such a common theme in literature and movies. In the recent Tom Hanks movie, Castaway, there is a subtle allusion to a suicide attempt when the hope of rescue is gone. And in the end a picture of his girlfriend fuels his hope of reunion with her and sustains his will to survive. In another recent movie, Gladiator, the hero endures the long agony of being apart from his wife and son with dreams of being reunited. It sustains and drives him. But when in a cruel twist of treachery they are murdered, he loses hope and despairs of life. Ultimately it is his hope in an afterlife, including being reunited with his family, that renews his motivation to live a life of honor and integrity and to seek justice.
These movies are simply recognizing that there is something inside the human soul that longs for a better place, a more just world, where our hopes and dreams can be realized. We long for a world where there are rewards for goodness, honor, and love and where there is a just accounting of evil. This is an apt description of the hope of heaven that permeates the Bible. We want and need to know that everything will turn out right in the end. The problem is that there are no such guarantees in this world. Even in Castaway, an agonizing turn of fate ruins the protagonist's hope of being reunited with his fiancé. That is why the biblical focus on hope in the next world is so encouraging. But hope in the Bible is not merely a fanciful wish like buying a lottery ticket in the "hope" of winning the jackpot. It is an assured trust and confidence in the word of the sovereign God who has spoken unbreakable promises. The God of the Bible holds the whole world in His hands. His promises are not subject to blind fate because He cares and exercises control over history. His promises are not empty or fanciful but assured future reality! Therefore, "we may have strong encouragement, we who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of our soul, a hope both sure and steadfast" (Hebrews 6:18-19). This assurance that justice will prevail, that wrongs will be made right, that what we do and think and believe does matter can have a profound affect on how we live. It inspires those who take their faith seriously to truth and goodness and integrity. It brings encouragement and comfort in the most painful moments we endure. The hope of heaven motivates us to live a life of love and sacrifice and faithfulness. It is a source of comfort and encouragement and it arouses the best and most noble of our inclinations. And the result is that although we know that we cannot produce heaven on earth we strive to bring about the justice and the goodness we dream about to the world in which we now live.
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by Rev. J. Patrick Curtis, Senior Pastor |
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