Hoping

It's been an interesting winter for weather. There's been a lot to talk about when it comes to the weather, particularly if you live in the north, where it has snowed a lot. If you donated money to charity every time it snowed, you'd have been a very generous person this winter. (And what's with naming winter storms? I'd like the record to show that I strongly oppose this movement. Hurricanes are one thing. But are we going to be naming every weather pattern that crosses the country soon? Will I soon be enjoying 'Sunny Day Violet'? Will the weather channel tell me that Tuesday might be 'Overcast & Grey Greg'? Does July hold 'Heat Wave Hamlet'? How come no one ever consults me on these decisions? [editor's note: the reason no one consults Keith is because of paragraphs like this one.])

Where were we?

Right—weather.

If you're like me, you hope the weather will be nice this weekend. But what is that hope rooted in? Basically, you hope that atmospheric conditions work themselves out in such a way that nice weather happens to coincide with the days we're off work, rather than, say, on Monday, when we're stuck inside staring out the window. The atmospheric conditions, as far as I know, don't care one bit about our weekend. Come to think of it, I doubt they even know what a weekend is. I don't see many desk calendars littering the skies whenever I'm on an airplane.

We hope for a lot of things that don't have much grounding. Have you ever hoped a car wouldn't break down, despite the horrible sound emanating from under the hood? Hopes don't do much good then. Have you ever hoped a person would changed, despite the fact that every piece of evidence suggests that the person has no interest in changing? What is that hope rooted in, other than your own desire?

But when we talk about the Christian hope of life beyond death, we're talking about a hope that is rooted in something real—the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We don't idly hope for resurrection because it's some bright idea we came up with. We hope with confidence in resurrection because Jesus himself was raised from the dead, and he promised that we would have a resurrection like his. Our hope is rooted in history, in the idea that what has happened will happen again. Jesus' resurrection is the assurance that what he said is true, and so when we wonder how we can have such bold a hope, we look to Christ and remember that he has been raised, and so we, too, shall be raised.

This is why Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, takes such pains to list the number of folks to whom the resurrected Christ appeared. They were proof of the boldness of our hope. They had witnessed Christ, raised from the dead. Because he lives, we, too, shall live.

What great hope we have!