DAY 117 - HOPE OF THE WORLD
MILANNA MARTILLARO, CREATIVE/PRODUCTION TEAM LEAD
“Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.” - 1 Peter 1:13
Hope is an interesting thing. Today it can be defined as a state of excitement and anticipation for what is to come. And I would argue that hope is necessary for human existence. It is what keeps us going, what drives us internally to and gives us meaning. Everyone needs hope.
Biblical hope, however, is the difference. In the bible there are two main Hebrew words for hope:
YAKHAL: to wait for
QAVAH: to wait (tension)
These two Hebrew words show us that within the bible, we can learn that hope is about waiting or expectation. There is a tension in biblical hope, a driving force that stirs up anticipation in us. This can be true in any sense of hope. In a way hope can be seen as optimism. You can be optimistic about a promotion in your job, or be optimistic about your future marriage. But true biblical hope, is about a person, which makes it different than optimism. Optimism is about choosing to see, in any situation, how circumstances could work out for the best.
Biblical hope is not based on circumstances. Biblical hope is more along the lines of, when there is no promise that things will get better but you choose hope anyways. This is the hope of Jesus.
Biblical hope is about looking at God’s past faithfulness and letting it motivate your hope for the future. It’s about looking backward to look forward. Trusting in nothing other than God’s character. It’s like in Psalm 39 when David says, “YOU are my yakhal”. Our hope is based on a person, and we can look to His character and His past victory to bring us our hope.
We do not have to look towards anything of this world to give us hope. Our hope is not found in a job, a spouse, a political leader, or a dream. Biblical hope isn’t about optimism based on the odds. It’s a choice to wait for God to bring about a future that is as surprising as a man rising from the dead. Christian hope looks back to the risen Jesus in order to look forward. And so we wait, and put our faith in Jesus, the hope of the world