Do you still hope? It is easy to lose heart and lose hope when life is complicated and painful. How do we overcome our hopelessness? How do we help others who feel hopeless? It is possible to keep hope in the present tense.
Cleopas and another anonymous disciple, (perhaps his wife Mary, about whom we read in John 19) left town after his crucifixion. When an unknown stranger joined them and asked them why they were so upset, they admitted about the crucified Jesus, “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” See how their hope had moved to the past tense? They even knew that the tomb was empty, but they headed home, hopelessly.
Thankfully, Hope personified in a stranger, arrived just in the nick of time. Their fellow traveler, though disguised from them was in fact, the risen Lord. He taught them from their own scriptures that Jesus had to suffer before he entered his glory. Only when he broke the bread before their eyes did they see and begin to hope again. They headed back to Jerusalem in the middle of the night only to find that Jesus had also come to the other disciples. Through his own resurrection Jesus restored their hope.
With them we no longer say about the brokenness of our world, “We had hoped.” Instead, we can always say, “We have hope.” E. Stanley Jones, the great missionary once said, “The early church succeeded because they did not lower their eyes in despair and say, ‘Look what the world has come to.’ Instead, they lifted their eyes in delight and said, ‘Look who has come to the world.’” We live in continuity with those early believers. We could spend the rest of our lives saying, “Look what the world has come to.” But I like the early Christians’ hopeful strategy much better: let’s lift our eyes and tell the world about Jesus who has come to the world.
