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| The rainbow is symbol of hope in the Bible |
As the calendar
flips from 2016 to 2017 the world seems in dire need of a fresh injection of
hope. There is much
uncertainty, not a little threat, and considerable suffering. But that isn’t
the whole picture.
Yes, a maverick
US president-elect ignores experts and announces policy in 140 inflammatory
characters. The UK government understandably refuses to declare its Brexit
negotiating hand but in so doing leaves its citizens fearful for an unknown
future. Russia and North Korea are becoming more bullish. Terror threats are
high. The resources of essential services are squeezed to the bone. Housing and
living costs are rising faster than incomes pushing millions of people “Just
About Managing” closer to or over the edge. Millions more starve in Yemen and
Nigeria; large areas of once bustling cities in Syria are now piles of rubble.
But there is
also much to celebrate. There is, arguably, still more good in the world than
bad.
There would be
so much more suffering and unhappiness if it were not for the armies of
volunteers who staff and resource children’s, youth and old people’s centres
and activities; who raise funds for charities providing services the state
cannot afford; who organise food banks and credit unions; who become street
pastors, prison visitors, and the like. There are international aid and rescue
agencies clearing up the mess left by power-crazed national and tribal leaders.
And millions of ordinary people do what they can to care for their relatives
and neighbours, protect the environment and support their community.
We should never
let the bad news overshadow the often unsung acts of peace and goodwill that
last all year long. There is reason to be hopeful even when clouds gather on
the horizon. “True hope is honest,” says Christian writer Philip Yancey. “It allows
a person to believe that even when she falls down and the worst has happened,
still she has not reached the end of the road. She can stand up and continue.”1
Hope is not wishful thinking
Yancey offers a
simple definition of hope. “Hope means simply the belief that something good
lies ahead. It is not the same as optimism or wishful thinking, for these imply
a denial of reality. Often, I think those of us who stand alongside suffering
people tend to confuse hope and optimism.”2
It is hope that
drives research to find cures for diseases, to discover more effective
technology, and to develop more nutritious strains of crops. It is hope that
inspires people to devote themselves to community service and fuels the
dedication of the caring professions and development agencies. It is hope that
fires the determination of people in difficult situations to survive against
the odds. It is hope that gets most people out of bed in the morning.
By contrast,
the lack of hope can have devastating physical and mental consequences. We need
to see where we are going. Circumstances may be difficult but for as long as we
can see at least a short way forward we can usually cope. But when all we can
see is a long dark tunnel or an apparently dead end, despair and depression
soon set in and with them comes the sheer physical inability to fight back and
take initiatives. The person caught in poverty may find their confidence is
drained and that it is impossible to seek more or better work; their life
stagnates or even spirals downwards. The elderly person in a care home, perhaps
far from family and former friends, sees nothing to hope for except further
degeneration, and having no reason to live slowly fades away.
Hope is a
factor in the well-known placebo effect, in which a patient’s belief that (say)
a pill will cure an ailment appears to reduce their symptoms even if the pill
happens to be inert. (Doctors admit to sometimes prescribing such “drugs” to the
“worried well”, and there are concerns that clinical drug trials may not reveal
the true effects of new drugs because of the placebo effect. In one trial an
established drug (diazepam) was found to be completely ineffective when given
to post-operative patients who were not told what it was for.3)
Less well-known
is the hope-less “nocebo effect”, a variant of the worried well or
hypochondriac syndrome in which people can become unwell, or not recover as
they are expected to, because they have, in effect, lost hope. In a famous but
tragic case in the 1970s, a man was diagnosed with end stage liver cancer and
told he had six months to live. He died within that period but an autopsy
showed that he had only a small tumour that was not spreading. A doctor
commented, “He didn’t die from cancer, but from believing he was dying from
cancer.”4
This is hardly
a new discovery. Centuries before Christ, a wise man wrote, “Hope deferred
makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (Proverbs
13:12).
The nature of Christian hope
The Christian
gospel is full of hope, but not the kind which cynics may accuse it of. Christian
hope is not primarily about renewal and restoration in a perfect setting after
we die. That promise is there, but biblical hope is as much to do with this
life as it is with the next. That is because it is centred on a God who is
always active in the world and who purposes the renewal of all creation. We are
not passengers on the platform waiting for the delayed train to heaven, but
co-workers with the living God in making his world a better place – to be
people of hope who bring hope to a troubled society. We are certainly waiting
for the return of the resurrected Christ, but all the while we’re called to be making
the world and ourselves ready for the perfect makeover he will inaugurate.
So Paul
encourages the stressed Roman Christians, “May the God of hope fill you with
all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the
power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Indeed, hope itself is bred from the experience
of living faithfully for God in trying conditions: “We know that suffering produces
perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not
put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).
The author of
the letter to the Hebrews describes the work of Christ to bring forgiveness, new
life and direct access to the living God as a hope which is “an anchor for the
soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). One commentator said on this verse, “We
are moored to an immovable object”5 – there’s hope for you! We
cannot be blown out of the water or dashed on the rocks.
With God, there
is always a tomorrow. With God, there is always something to do and to
discover. With God, there is always help on hand (even if only to endure). With
God, there is always guidance for the future (if only to press on into the unknown).
With God, there is always love (even when I feel alone or abandoned). With God,
there is always hope – now, as well as in the longer-term future.
And that hope
is an inspiration for living in the present. Theologian Stephen Travis
declared, “Living in hope is a life of adventure, of openness to the future
with all its hidden possibilities.”6 Or, as Jurgen Moltmann, another
theologian, put it, “Hope disposes the believer toward change. Hope is oriented
toward what is coming tomorrow. In hope we count on the possibilities of the
future and we do not remain imprisoned in the institutions of the past.”7
Biblically,
hope is closely related to faith (trust) in God and love (for God, and for
others), as in 1 Corinthians 13:13. “Biblical hope is never to be confused with
a feeling that things are going well, or even that thay might turn out well. It
is properly a habit of obedience. Like love and faith, hope is both received as
a free gift of God and expressed as a deliberate attitude and disposition.”8
Maybe it’s time
to revive the old freedom song, this time in the name of Christ, and declare
that come what may, we shall not be moved.
More than that, we shall overcome by
the way we live and speak and work in the world, full of hope in the God who lives,
however much the nations rage.
Think and talk
1. What do
these Bible passages tell you about hope for people who are struggling? Isaiah
40:29-31; Jeremiah 29:10-14; Lamentations 3:19-24.
2. What do
these Bible passages tell us about the source, nature and purpose of hope? Romans
8:22-25; 15:4,13; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 1 Timothy 6:17.3. Hope does concern the next life as well (1 Corinthians 15:19; Colossians 1:27; 1 Thessalonians 5:8; Titus 2:11-14); how may we keep this in balance with hope in this life?
4. Discuss how hope can be lost and recovered, and the effect this can have on people's lives.
References
1. Philip Yancey, Where is God when it hurts? Zondervan 1997/2001 edn, p.211.
2. Op.cit. p. 210.3. Michael Brooks, “Placebo Power”, in ed. Jeremy Webb, Nothing, Profile Books 2013, p.59.
4. Helen Pitcher, “When mind attacks body”, in ed. Webb, Op.cit. p.135.
5. A.B. Davidson, quoted by F.F. Bruce, The epistle to the Hebrews, Marshall, Morgan and Scott 1967, p.131.
6. Stephen Travis, I believe in the second coming of Jesus, Hodder and Stoughton 1982, p.214.
7. Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of hope.
8. Markus Bockmuehl, “Hope and optimism in straightened times”, Rediscovering Hope, The Bible in Transmission, Bible Society Winter 2013.
