Here's Hoping

As I began to write this manuscript, coronavirus was going global and the stock market had crashed into the ground. Future hopes deposited in healthy bodies and investment accounts were taking a beating. Fitness and nutrition, acquisition and ambition were turning out to be bad synonyms for hope. The idolatries of cultural success had fallen, as the venues of sports and entertainment were empty and silent. Meanwhile, as is customary in hopeless times, the current Presidential campaigners had adopted futurist slogans in the tradition of earlier campaigns. We remember Keep hope alive (Jackson 1988); Leadership for the New Millennium (Gore 2000); A safer world and a more hopeful America (Bush 2004); Hope (Obama 2008); Forward (Obama 2012); Restore our Future (Romney 2012). Following what has been aptly described as “the hope and change messianism of Obama", Donald Trump re-branded President Reagan's successful rallying cry of 1980: Make America Great Again! Joe Biden was telling us that "Our best days still lie ahead" and Bernie Sanders was committed to give us "A future to believe in". Regardless of their differences, they share a naïve hope-ology. If hope is still just round the corner, then why does that corner feel like a very long, slow turn, that just keeps bending until it appears to be a circular treadmill of hopelessness? The Hope T-Shirt has been turned inside out and is now reading Anxiety. We have been coined 'the age of anxiety'. If you think about it, anxiety is the antithesis of hope, since its posture in the face of the future is fear. Social commentators like Ross Douthat have commented on the public's wavering trust in once respected public institutions as well as its dwindling expectations for personal and private life. There is not so much a demise of optimism as a death. As Douthat observes, there are no present equivalents to the“hopes of utopia percolating in Paris, Woodstock, and San Francisco.” Or are there? The fact is that the growth of Christian hope is blooming and burgeoning in the massive revival movements of Africa, China and South America. The near-the-floor reading on the West's hope-meter is in stark contrast to the rocketing hope-scales in the global East and South. Yes, maybe the apostle Paul's dictum can be heard in the western wind:“without hope and without God.” However, what Paul immediately went on to say to the Ephesians is a front-page declaration that needs to be re-read and re-heard:“BUT NOW!” Now what? The hopelessness of separation from God, of being without God and without hope, has been exchanged for the hope of nearness:“But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” This book is a plate of appetizers, a wide variety of bites and tastes of this enormous subject of Christian Hope, to show you how it can be served in so many different ways, but also to demonstrate that it is an ingredient that the recipe book, the Scriptures no less, suggest is present in everything that we spiritually ingest for our present and eternal nourishment. I am trusting that you will find this modest treatise: *Pertinent: relevant and applicable to both present culture and your present life *Persuasive: a presentation and argumentation from biblical material that seeks to convince you about the future according to God *Personal: we may find ourselves in very different places on the hope-index for many reasons that will be part of the discussion: whether the reason is theological or psychological, temperamental or intellectual, or whether it has been eroded by disappointment and loss of many kinds. This matter of hope is so foundational to our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, to our daily discipleship, to our capacities to live for Christ. You can read book after book about discipleship but so many of them never deal with the subject of hope, and often, never even mention it. That is an utterly incomplete presentation of the Christian message and ultimately unhelpful, because unhopeful. Renowned Professor of Divinity, Martin Marty, commented on“the eclipse of hope in our culture of prevalent hopelessness." Thus, he asked:“Could a revived‘theology of hope' restore faith in hopeless times?”This book seeks to contribute a few decibels to a loud resounding answer to his question. Yes! Regardless of the raucous headlines and news-bytes that subvert our hope and prospects on a daily basis, regardless of the overwhelming need of humanity at this hour, perhaps this book can remind you of your enormous significance to the God of Hope, who, if He can see the sparrow, can certainly see you, and give you a recovered and renewed living hope in a world of darkening hopelessness. As hopeless as the future is for so many, for the Christian it is a“blessed hope". Hopefully, this book will encourage you to“hope fully”and be reminded about why we neither fear nor mourn as those who have no hope. Here's hoping indeed!