Reaching Toward Hope

Ephesians 1:15-23

Introduction

As we seek to live our life, there are three general frameworks that people tend you use. The first is to live in the past. These are the people that are nostalgic for the good old days and find themselves reminiscing about the past rather that focusing on what is happening right now. A second are those who seek to live in the future. They try to anticipate what is coming around the corner. This can be about considering the positive things that might happen one day or dreading the negative things that might lay in wait. The third is the one that most people tend to see as the healthiest outlook and that is living in the present. There is a certain logic to this as we cannot change the past and we really do not know what will happen in the future. The only time period that we have immediate access to is the present. We can only choose what we will do right now and that is where we need to put our focus.

What if I told you that none of these three options provide the full answer for living life from a Christian perspective?

We are beginning a series on Ephesians and we are going to begin with what Paul says about hope. Thinking about these frameworks, you would think that hope would firmly fit in the future outlook. When someone does a job for their employer, they hope there will be a pay check at the end of that. When someone starts building a house, they hope there will be a home to live in or something to sell or rent at the end of it. 

Paul certainly looks to the future, both here and in his other letters, but the hope that Paul describes is not limited to a desire for a better future. Biblical hope is not a choice among three perspectives on time but rather an embracing of all three at once.

Hope Looking at the Past

Looking to the past can have some unhealthy results. There are those who live in the past so deeply that they cannot enjoy the present. Everything they experience today pales in comparison to the good old days. As someone who has a very strong nostalgic streak, I understand the desire to appreciate the past. We just have to do it carefully and in a way that enhances rather than takes away from our experience of the present or the future.

How does the past fit with our experience of hope? Something happened two thousand years ago and it is much more than just the start of a new religion. For Paul, as well as for us, the most important event that has shaped everything is that of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Theologians have spilled much ink explaining exactly what the crucifixion did on a spiritual level, but what we do know is that “Once I was lost and now I am found.” The death of Jesus must be spoken of in relationship with his resurrection from the dead. These two events together lead to our forgiveness of sins, adoption as children of God, and promise of eternal life. The point of this is that our hope is based on something that has already happened and not just something that we anticipate might happen. 

If you think about it, that is the way that hope works. We hope to have an active pickle ball group here at the church but that is not just a guess for the future. Something has already happened. A game has been invented that is accessible to people of different levels of skill and its popularity has spread across this area. This makes a successful pickle ball program much more likely. That is a minor thing but the principle is the same.

We need a relationship with God now and we long for life beyond death. Those are not empty hopes because the prerequisites for that hope, the death and resurrection of Jesus, have already taken place. We can be hopeful because of what has already happened and so in one sense, our hope looks to the past.

Hope Looking to the Future

As I have said, we often think of hope as being future-oriented and that is part of how it works. Even if you say “I hope I remembered to turn the oven off”, you are actually saying that you hope that when you go and check the oven, you will find that the oven is turned off. It is difficult to hope for something that has already happened. I cannot hope to do well in seminary because I have already completed seminary and I am aware of my marks. 

Biblically, we look to the future as well. We see this in the Old Testament with the anticipation of the Day of the Lord, the day on which God would right all of the wrongs in the world. In the New Testament, this is filled out more in that the Day of the Lord is connected to the return of Jesus and the resurrection of the dead. There are plenty of people who have made predictions about what the end times will look like. I can understand that temptation but it is not very helpful. The only thing that the Bible is really clear on is that Jesus will return and the dead will be raised. Beyond that is just speculation. 

There are promises of the future. God will not ignore the suffering of his people. The wicked will be punished and judgment will take place. God will set things straight and make things the way they should be after all we have done to mess things up.

This is our future hope and we should be hoping for the future. One scholar has described hope as “faith standing on tip toes.” It believes that something good is coming and strains to see the arrival of what we hope for.

One of my favourite moments in any work of fiction is found in the Lord of the Rings. The city of Gondor is surrounded by enemies. Siege engines are breaking the walls and gates. Gondor cannot hold out for long. They have lit the beacons to call for aid from their allies, the riders of Rohan. Will they come at all? Will they come too late? The people of Gondor are anxious as they hope that their help will come.

Hope for the Christian is that God will come to our rescue, this is part of the meaning of salvation. That includes the return of Jesus and our own resurrection. But it also is the promise that God will be with us tomorrow, next year, and even decades down the line. 

Hope Looks at the Present

I have said that common wisdom is that we should live in the present. But I have argued that as Christians we must look to the past, toward the death and resurrection of Jesus, and to the future, the return of Jesus and our own resurrection. But at the same time, the only thing that we have any amount of control on is the present.

When people feel hopeless, what does that generally look like? Whatever their physical and emotional response, we see it in how they act in the present. There is disappointment in the past and pessimism about the future, so why bother with the present?

That is a good question. But for the Christian, we live between two bookends, one where Jesus wears a crown of thorns and one where Jesus wears a crown of glory. We have a past that ensures that the future promises will come true. Our job is to decided on what hope-filled living looks like in the present.

We can look at how we do this as individuals and as a congregation. Where we get into trouble is when we either ignore the present or we only see the present. We need to see the present but in remembrance of the past and anticipation of the future. I think of it in comparison to getting your eyes checked. Before you can get glasses, they have to determine your prescription. There is an image projected before you. The eye doctor goes through different lenses in front of each eye until the image is clear. Think of that image as our current circumstances. Think of your left lens as a clear understanding of what God has done in the past and the right lens of what God will do in the future. Only when we get the right lenses can we see the present clearly and then make our designs accordingly.

Conclusion

As Christians, we are to be people of hope. But how do we live in hope? It is so much more than just wishing for something a bit better tomorrow. Christian hope occupies three different periods of time. It must be rooted in the past, the future, and the present. Jesus really did die on the cross for us and he really did rise from the dead. Jesus really will come back one day and we too will one day rise from the dead. And all of this means that we really can live in hope today. This is not a denial that there is real suffering taking place today. There is suffering that we need to grieve and there is injustice that we need to fight. What the past and the future tells us is that our actions today are not hopeless. There is more going on than what we would see if we only looked at the present. Together with the past and the future, we have ever reason to hold tightly onto hope.