Hope Realized

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44; Romans 13:11-14

Central Baptist Church—Lowesville, VA

02 December 2007

“Hope is the last to die.” Hope makes a difference in our living and preparing to live. It makes a difference in our celebrations. Advent is a season of waiting. Advent is also preparation. We prepare our lives to experience the fulfillment of our hope. We anticipate fulfillment. We live in the assurance of what is to come. My family’s Christmas tree may still lie in the attic. The assurance of Christmas’ coming, however, has already impacted the way we speak, the places we go, the songs we sing, and the plans we make. We live in anticipation. What good is hope, however, if what we hope for never comes to pass? Can we begin celebrating even before the promise comes to pass? As believers, how can the reality of our hope be realized before we see its fulfillment?

They had long awaited the coming day of peace. It captured the nation’s imagination to think along Isaiah’s hopeful words of a day of restoration. Yahweh would come to establish a permanent reign of justice, peace, hope, and prosperity. The swords of nations would become plowshares. Spears would be transformed into instruments of harvest. Yahweh would personally arbitrate between nations, eradicating those conflicts that would lead to war, fighting, and its related devastation. Isaiah’s words of hope were not for his generation alone. Hope cast a vision for what could be. It cast a reference for life as God intended. It gave encouragement and purpose to the living who yearned for that greater reality.

For generations the people lived with this vision of hope. It seemed to take forever in coming. Many tried to do something about it, believing that it must be up to them to bring about the anticipated reign of Messiah. They won small battles and little victories, but the cost was great, and the peace so longed for seemed just as far away as ever. They clung to that hope, regardless. It was this hope that kept so many of them going.

Isaiah’s words had come at a difficult time. They came in anticipation of deportation and exile first, to be followed later by this restoration of hope. His words were a bleak comfort for a nation headed into Babylonian exile. There could be no hope of avoiding exile, but he proclaimed the hope of a glorious future after a return to Jerusalem and the inauguration of Yahweh’s reign of peace.

They were words to keep a people going. They were words to live by and by which to gather strength for the coming days. Hang on, for Yahweh will see us through and return us to a better future than the past and present we have experienced! Hope was a reality to which they would cling with growing desperation in exile. Hope was a vision that would energize their descendants for a return to the land of promise. Hope would make a difference, for they knew that something better was on the way.

That did not mean that life was easy. The nation was uprooted and dragged off kicking and screaming into Babylonian exile. They were forced to eat strange foods, put up with strange customs, learn to conduct themselves in a new language, and face insult and injury for their faith, traditions, and heritage. It would seem for many that hope was an empty box elaborately wrapped, but empty and void. Hope kept them alive, but they could not see how it would or could ever be fulfilled. What was the point of hanging onto a hope for an unattainable future?

For some, it made a difference. People like Daniel lived by hope. They lived hope not as a future reality, but as a reality that was already present. They allowed hope to transform not only a distant future, but a present existence. They took hold of hope as preached by Isaiah and allowed hope to transform their present, as well as pave the way into a seemingly unreachable future. The confidence of faith allowed hope to make that future reality a present experience of Yahweh’s promise and provision. They lived with a realized hope. It made a difference in the attitudes they carried into the business of living and anticipating the promise.

Some brought hope back with them from exile. Nehemiah lived by hope to lead the people to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Haggai called on hope to encourage the rebuilding of the Temple. Judas Maccabeus claimed the hope of Yahweh’s promise to struggle against religious persecution in his day. Simeon lived by hope in anticipating the birth of Messiah and the fulfillment of Yahweh’s promise. Hope made a difference, for the held it not as an unattainable future, but an ever-present reality.

Jesus urged the same claim on hope. The disciples did not know the day, hour, or even the year of the supreme fulfillment of Jesus’ coming in glory. That did not make any difference. They were not to worry about when and how. They were to live in full expectation of the hope they claimed.

No, they did not know when. No, Jesus did not tell them when. He told them to be ready. He reminded the disciples that they just needed to live in the assurance of the coming fulfillment of the hope they had already claimed. As Paul reminded the Roman believers, salvation is not simply a future reality to lie down and await. In hope, salvation is already realized. Heaven is already present and making a difference in the world. What is needed is that we lay hold of hope as a living reality.

This is the way Isaiah lived. This is the way Daniel lived. This is the way Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Paul lived. They allowed hope to become realized in their daily activities. It changed the way they looked at the world. It changed the way they responded to challenge, disappointment, and disaster. No, they weren’t always perfect in their responses. They allowed hope to change the course of their living.

It would have been a simple thing for any of these heroes of faith to throw down the towel in the face of adversity. It would have been understandable for them to look at all the problems they faced and decide that hope was some dreamy fantasy that just did not apply to life. It wasn’t that they just kept on doggedly doing what they had always done—quite the contrary! It was not that they could life after worldly concerns and trust God for success. Hope changed their perspectives on life. It lifted them out of selfish concerns into living after the purposes of God. Hope enabled them see God’s promise as already fulfilled. It gave them the strength to trust God’s direction, will, and promise. They claimed hope as already realized, assured in the faithfulness of God’s promise.

Advent is waiting. Advent is preparing. Advent is anticipated living of the reality yet to come. It is living God’s peace amid a world in conflict. It is experiencing God’s victory in the assurance of all God will bring to pass. What good is a hope we do not apply to living? What is the point of hope that makes no impact on those around us? The world lies in wait to see if the hope we claim is real. The world watches on, not to hear cries of “Merry Christmas,” but to see the hope and joy of Christmas make a difference in the way we live.

If our lives do not give evidence of the hope in the gospel of Christ, what good does that hope accomplish? An unrealized hope is best left to die.

—©2007 Christopher B. Harbin