After the trauma of the crucifixion the Bible offers us the resilience of the Resurrection in return.
Hope is part of life and is cut off only by death. We hope for healing when sick, for saving when attacked, for comfort when despairing and for reunion when separated. What we hope for is God’s protection and blessing at all stages of our lives including as we face dying. The main difference in how hope is experienced in the New Testament is that the act of salvation has now been accomplished in Christ so that hope now becomes an eschatological blessing and a reason for new confidence. This hope rests on faith in the act of salvation as St Paul tells us:
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Romans 8:24-25
This new community born after Jesus’ resurrection lives hopefully believing itself the fulfilment of the free God’s ancient plans and promises. The community grows as it shares its Good News and through the witness of its members lives transformed in their following the way of Jesus beyond his death. He has fulfilled the hopes and promises of the old covenant through his resurrection. It provides a new way of understanding hope in the present and in the future, not only in terms of time but also in terms of death. If one man can rise from the dead and return to earth, then the final barrier to God has been broken since now all can come to God through Christ.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38
After the trauma of the crucifixion the Bible offers us the resilience of the Resurrection in return –
Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
John 20:19-23
The foundation for this Christ-centred hope becomes apparent in such texts as:
God “has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
Ephesians 1:9-10
In this perspective our future hope is Christ-shaped or Christo-morphic. The historical life, the death and resurrection of Jesus, is seen to involve an eschatological breakthrough in the early Church. The ultimate future has been made available to us. In the messianic tradition of the Old and New Testaments, a language emerges that is capable of expressing the new creation quality of the future. A language rich beyond the dreams of human calculation or statistics.
Our future has started with Christ “…the first born among many” (Romans 8:29; Colossians 1:18) “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Paul parallels our common experience of death as the children of Adam with our common hope for the Resurrection in the new Adam as Christ “since all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” (1Corinthians 15:22)
The resurrection of Christ is also seen as the indicator of the ultimate significance of material creation too: “…for creation itself will be set free from its bondage and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21)
It is the whole Christ-event which grounds our hope in God’s intention for the future of history and all creation. This future had already come among us in the paschal mystery of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit. God is neither an eternal present nor an absolute future, but rather the creative power in the present where the full future is being formed. The present, broken open, reveals an unforeseen potential in individuals, groups and situations. This becomes focused in a tension between what has already happened in Christ and what is yet to be, between being in Christ and becoming in Christ. We can see this being thought through in the early Christian writings. Initially this “already” element of Christ’s resurrection leads Paul to expect a quick return, the Parousia. Then as time passes the experience of the early communities refocuses on the whole process of death and resurrection, as a permanent dynamic of our lives, with our resurrection ultimately taking place after death (2 Corinthians 5:1-10; Philippians 1: 21-23; Philippians 3:21).
So Biblical hope reminds us that the present is provisional, and death is not the end. No system, knowledge or power on this earth can define the fullness of truth found in Jesus.
Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation… in Him all things hold together; He is the beginning, the first born from the dead.”
Colossians 1:15
Further Reading:
Brueggemann, W. (1987) Hope within History. Atlanta: John Knox Press
Brueggemann, W. (2001) The Prophetic Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press
Brueggemann, W. (2014) Reality, Grief and Hope: Three Urgent Prophetic Tasks. Cambridge: Erdmanns.
Grey, M. (2000) The Outrageous Pursuit of Hope: Dreams for the Twenty-First Century. London: DLT.
Kelly, A. (2006) Eschatology and Hope. NY: Orbis Books.
Lane, D. “Eschatology: Hope seeking understanding” ch. 12 of Hessian A. & Kieran, P. (2007) Exploring Theology: Making sense of the Catholic Tradition. Dublin: Veritas.
Lane, D. (2005 2nd Edn) Keeping Hope Alive: Stirrings in Christian Theology. Oregan: Wipf & Stock.
Pope Francis. (2024) I am asking in the Name of God: Ten Prayers for a Future of Hope. London: SPCK
Sobrino, J. (2008) No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays. NY: Orbis Books.
Wiesel, E. (1971) Souls on fire. New York: Summit, pp167-8 on the power of re-telling the story.
