Easter Sunday: A Living Hope
For Meditation
"Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” Morgan Freeman’s character “Red” in the classic movie Shawshank Redemption says this toward the beginning of the film. Though his words sound pessimistic, they are mostly true, especially if you modified his words by saying “temporary hope is a dangerous thing…” Nearly every single thing we humans hope in is fleeting and temporary. Whether physical beauty and health, family and relationships, professional success or lasting comfort, such temporary hopes are vulnerable to disaster and change and are not strong enough to sustain our lives. This year of pandemic has exposed many of the hopes we have banked our lives on to be fleeting and unreliable, and many people have been left disoriented and disillusioned.
In this Scripture passage, Peter uses the stirring phrase, “a living hope.” This is a hope that does not perish or fade, that is not affected by any circumstance, and that is impermeable to suffering. Where does such a hope come from? The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Commentator Ed Clowney writes of these verse, "Peter writes of a hope that holds the future in the present because it’s anchored in the past.” We have a clear and certain hope for the future because it is rooted in the unchanging historic event of Jesus’ triumph over death, which infuses our present with purpose and possibility, no matter what you are facing. This is the only path to a living, indestructible hope.
At the end of Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne writes to his friend Red, "Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” In Easter, we are given a hope that never dies. In preparation for worship this Sunday, read through one of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection, and meditate on the astonishing good news that Jesus is risen from the dead and what that means for our present and our future.
1 Peter 1:3–9
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.