Living in hope

I’m thinking about hope because on Wednesday I joined 14,000 others in the O2 in London to hear President Obama speak. He wrote a book didn’t he called the audacity of hope. In underground stations they have signs called all on the board. This one was at North Greenwich station where you alight for the O2. I’m glad Lis found it on line for me as I was in the middle of 14,000 in the station and couldn’t get near it. He once said … Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it and to work for it and to fight for it.”

What do you hope for? For yourself? For your church? For the world? 

Yesterday at Masham Sheep Fair we had a chatterbox space where people could stop for conversation and write prayers. People hoped for peace in Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan, sunshine, the 70’s back in Leyburn, those were the days, a stop to deforestation, for my sheep to win its class and for compassion and understanding.

It was an absolute privilege to one of the 14,000 people on Wednesday night listening to President Obama. Maybe history will view him as one of the greatest American Presidents although the current one wants to be remembered as THE greatest doesn’t he? As I reminded you earlier Obama viewed hope in one of his books as audacious. He said this famously:

“I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us, so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.” So hope is something to do, something to believe, to work for something that will come. The late theologian Walter Bruggemann said the prophetic tasks of the church are to tell the truth in a society that lives in illusion, grieve in a society that is in denial and express hope in society that lives in despair.” 

We need hope. Hope never disappoints. 

The Bible warns us that if our hope disappoints us, it’s because our hope rests on the wrong object. There is only one place to look for hope that is secure, no matter what. Consider these verses:

You are my hiding place and my shield; I hope in your word. (Psalm 119:114) 

O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. (Psalm 130:7) 

The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love. (Psalm 147:11) 

I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11) 

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” (Lamentations 3:24) 

Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5) 

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13) 

Notice what each of these verses does. Each confronts us with the radical, life-reshaping truth that ultimately true, lasting, and secure hope is a person — the Lord Almighty. Hope — the kind that transforms your life, gives rest to your heart, and ignites new ways of living — is attached to him. Scripture repeatedly invites us, commands us, and implores us to hope in the Lord, and it gives us reason after reason to do so. 

We express hopes every day. I wasn’t going to join the queue and scramble back to the underground on Wednesday night after President Obama had finished and I got out of the O2 which takes some time. So I joined a slightly shorter queue for a taxi to get me back to Kings Cross.

My taxi driver called Joel hoped for a lot of things —- 

He hoped his football team, West Ham, might do a bit better - “Potter needs to be sacked.” He got his wish as Graham Potter was sacked yesterday. He hoped the traffic jam might end soon. He hoped we might all get along - growing up in the East End he was introduced to curry and Jamaican food and “ a decent kebab.” And he hoped for a Nigel Farage government. 

£72 later I got out of his cab. We had “had a nice chat.” 

Joel’s hopes though relied on human intervention. A board at a football club making a decision to change the manager, a decision to be made not to dig up around the 02 again when a American President is visiting, a common humanity deciding to understand each other, an election and democracy and political leaders trying to persuade us our hopes can be realised by them bringing a new order to things. Napoleon Bonaparte gave this very unique statement to leaders when he said, “Leaders are dealers in hope.” We need some of those leaders don’t we? 

Christian hope is about God. And it never disappoints and it is eternal. 

Hope is always fueled by some form of desire. It may be the desire to be loved, to be cared for, to be protected, to be understood, to be provided for, to be accepted, to experience comfort or pleasure, to have control, to be forgiven — the list could go on and on. Also, hope always has an object. I look to someone or something to satisfy my desire. Lastly, hope carries an expectation of when, how, and where the person or thing in which I have placed my hope will deliver what I have hoped for. 

Almost every day, you entrust your smallest and largest longings into the hands of something or someone with the hope that your longings will be satisfied. To be human is to hope. And when hope isn’t there it’s just well, empty. 

Lis and I went to a funeral this week of one of the ladies who came to the craft group. It was a humanist funeral. I’d never been to a humanist funeral before. We celebrated the lady’s life. We watched pictures of her while Queen sang these are the days of our life. The celebrant told those assembled their only comfort was memory and being together. I wondered how the thing would end. He stood in silence and then thanked people for coming. The family gathered round the coffin which was still there visibly upset. There was no proper ending and no hope and no consolation and no God and no eternity and we left feeling something vital was missing. The service disappointed. Hope does not.

Back in the 2nd World War when England was going through some of its most trying times, Sir Winston Churchill went to a place called Harrow, an exclusive prep school. He began to give a speech and in the middle of that speech he said these words, he said, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” Then he said it again, “Never give in.” What he was saying at that time to the people of England was, don’t ever give up your hope. And I say to you as a people today the same thing, don’t ever give up your hope. 

We hold on and we hope for what we don’t yet see…

In some African folklore, there is a tale of a small, bright bird known as the Hope Bird. This bird doesn’t sing when the sun is shining. It doesn’t wait for clear skies or calm winds. No—the Hope Bird sings before the storm is over.

It’s said that you’ll hear its voice while the rain is still falling, while thunder still echoes across the plains. Long before other birds dare to chirp again, this one begins its tune. To the people, it became a symbol—an icon of faith before sight, of believing good is on the way even while everything still looks bad.

That’s what hope in God’s promises looks like. It sings before the answer comes. It praises before the healing. It trusts before the breakthrough. Romans 8:24 reminds us, “Who hopes for what they already have?”

So maybe today, your skies are still grey. Maybe the downpour hasn’t let up yet. But if you have God’s promise, you can sing early. Hope does not disappoint.

So are we hopeful or hopeless? I hope it’s the first of those. We have a gospel to proclaim to our communities. The God of hope goes with us every day, we live in hope.