Hope for all

The vital thing for every human being is hope. There was a series on the polar explorer, Ernest Shackleton, on TV recently. His team suffered extreme hardship, Their ship was trapped for months in ice. Then the ice started to crush the boat.

They took what they could carry and set off looking for a safe campsite. But they were ill, they were weak, some could go no further. So Shackleton and a few others set off on one of the longest trips ever in an open boat to a whaling station where they could get help.

All the men were rescued.

Shackleton gave them hope, and that hope saw them all through. He was one of those determined men who would get there or die trying. They knew absolutely that he was on their side. They could wait in the sure and certain hope of his return with a rescue party.

Psychologists have studied people in extreme situations — Jews in death camps, prisoners of war in North Korea. Hope was what made all the difference. Those who had hope survived; others just gave up on life.

Jesus gives us hope.

Charles Schultz, who wrote the Peanuts cartoons, drew one contrasting the different ways we think of hope. He showed the vast difference between a hope based on reality and “hoping to goodness.” We usually think first of hoping to goodness, and forget about Christian hope.

The Christian hope is that Jesus will return, that Jesus will bring all the sin and sickness and sorrow of this world to an end.

As they say in Catholic masses, the Christian faith is about these facts: Christ died, Christ rose, Christ shall come again.

Paul writes,

1TH 4:13 Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. 14 We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.