Expectant Hope

Wars in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine collide with news of mass shootings in the United States and the daily roll of tragedy and death in the headlines. Adding to the news feeds are the undercurrents of economic, environmental, social, and interpersonal struggles plaguing our thoughts and smartphones. We live in a dying world full of everything that diminishes the human soul. We often find ourselves buried under a flood of stress and strife. Being overwhelmed is not new to the human condition. Despite the immediacy and volume of digital communication, God meets us at the intersection of circumstances and despair and offers us what this dying world cannot: real hope.

The ancient Hebrew concept of hope in the Bible embodies words describing waiting for, waiting upon, or waiting with a certain and concrete expectation. Tikvah, a Hebrew word often translated as hope, is the active hoping in God we see in the biblical stories ranging from Abraham to Haggar to the Apostle Paul. Tikvah also means rope, presenting amazing imagery for our hope in Jesus, which forms a distinct and active concrete hope differing from the cultural concepts of hopefulness or wishful thinking often represented in the songs and stories told in popular media.

In 2 Corinthians 4:13-18, Paul describes Christian hope without ever using the word hope. Paul begins in verse 14, setting the stage for hope. Our circumstances, good or bad, are not the source of Christian hope. Christian hope erupts from an ongoing choice to believe in God, His faithfulness, and His promises. Paul then reminds us in verse 14 that our hope is tied to God’s past faithfulness. The Hebrew concept of hope and its double meaning of waiting upon and rope helps us visualize that our hope is tied on one end to the anchor of God’s past faithfulness. Our hope is pulled tight through the present and God’s present faithfulness through the finished work of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit, our guarantee and sanctification (Ephesians 1:14). On the future end of the rope, our hope is tied to Jesus himself (Hebrews 6:19), securing our future with God in the new Heaven and new Earth.

Because the rope of our hope is anchored in God’s faithfulness at both ends, Paul tells us not to give up (v 16). Nothing we will face in this dying world will ever change God’s past, present, and future faithfulness. Our hope will never go slack, no matter the trial, trouble, or persecution we face. Paul does not shy away from the reality that this life is full of despair and troubles. Instead, Paul fills the content of our hope. “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all” (v. 17). Paul piles all the headlines, all the news feeds, all our stress, and all our despair up against the anchors of our hope. Paul concludes that hope in God’s past faithfulness, future promises, and the presence of God at work in our lives today is stronger and more secure than anything this world can throw at us.

“For we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).