Brown's Daily Word 3-26-08

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord for the way He has called us to be His people who have been redeemed by His own blood. We serve the Risen Savior who is in the world today.
For 2,000 years the foundation of Christianity has rested securely on this simple yet unfathomable truth: Jesus is alive! The resurrection of Jesus Christ has given rise to a living hope for those who believe it. In 1 Peter 1:3, we read these wonderful words from one of Jesus’ own apostles, who was an eye-witness of Jesus’ resurrection: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3).
Surely no apostle felt the death of Jesus more agonizingly than Peter. He had boasted that he would not leave him nor forsake him. He had bragged that he would stay true and fight for him even unto death. Peter meant well, but failed so miserably. All the apostles experienced the loss of hope when Jesus died, but Peter experienced additional shame and disgrace because of his denial of even knowing Jesus.
I believe that it is likely that there are many whose hopes have been crushed and whose dreams have been unfulfilled. Maybe, even a few years ago, they had glorious dreams of what they would like to be, and what they would like to do, but all those dreams have faded away or collapsed. Yet, it is just that kind of loss of hope and that level of disappointment that the resurrection of Jesus is designed to relieve.
We celebrate Easter and the great triumph of Christ over the grave — and it is a great triumph — but I think we often forget that Easter also stands for the presence of Christ with us to meet the pressures of life as they come to us day by day. Jesus understood how Peter felt in the hour of his monumental failure and collapse of faith, and he sought him out, appeared to him, and reconciled Peter to himself. Do you remember that Jesus appeared to the disciples on the shores of Galilee after his resurrection? He prepared a meal for them on a fire, and called them to come and join him. Then Jesus asked Peter three times, “Do you love me, Peter?”
Three times Peter affirmed his love. And three times Jesus gave him something to do, “Feed my lambs” (John 21:15-18). That was an enormous encouragement to Peter. Surely that was on the forefront of Peter’s mind when he wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Author Philip Yancey describes a unique funeral custom conducted by some African Muslims. Close family and friends circle the casket and quietly gaze at the corpse. There is no singing, no flowers, and no tears. A peppermint candy is given to everyone. At a certain signal, each one puts the candy in his or her mouth. When the candy is gone, each participant is reminded that life for this person is over. They believe life, like a peppermint, simply dissolves. Isn’t this a hopeless view of life?
The apostle Peter wrote his letter to Christians who were facing persecution, difficulties, and death because of their faith. He exhorted them to stand strong, repeatedly reminding them of Christ’s example, and probably mindful of his own failure. Peter, who is also called “the apostle of hope,” encouraged them to trust in Jesus, live obediently in hard circumstances, and keep their hope fixed on God’s ultimate purpose of deliverance.
When Jerome Groopman diagnosed patients with serious diseases, the Harvard Medical School professor discovered that all of them were “looking for a sense of genuine hope—and indeed, that hope was as important to them as anything he might prescribe as a physician." After writing a book called "The Anatomy of Hope", Groopman was asked for his definition of hope. He replied: “Basically, I think hope is the ability to see a path to the future. You are facing dire circumstances, and you need to know everything that’s blocking or threatening you. And then you see a path, or a potential path, to get to where you want to be. Once you see that, there’s a tremendous emotional uplift that occurs.”
The doctor confessed, “I think hope has been, is, and always will be the heart of medicine and healing. We could not live without hope.” Even with all the medical technology available to us now, “we still come back to this profound human need to believe that there is a possibility to reach a future that is better than the one in the present.”
In our day “hope” is a rather weak word. One dictionary defines it as “desire with expectation of obtainment.” And it lists “trust” and “reliance” as synonyms.
But we usually mean much less than this. We speak of “hoping against hope” or “hoping for the best,” which implies that we are not very hopeful. But this is not what “hope” means in the Bible, and even the dictionary definition falls short of it.
In the Bible, “hope” means “certainty,” and the only reason it is called “hope” rather than “certainty” is that we do not yet possess it, although we surely will.
“Hope”, in this passage, does not imply a wishfulness but rather a dynamic confidence that does not end with this life but continues throughout eternity.
“Hope is one of the theological virtues,” C. S. Lewis said. “This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set out to achieve the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built the great cathedrals and made monumental contributions to the world of art during the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade - all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is because Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in effecting change in this one. "Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”
There are many people who have an uncertain hope for the future. They do not have a clear path to where they need to be. They do not have a certainty about what the future holds. However, for those of us who believe in Jesus and in His resurrection, we do not have an uncertain hope; rather, we have a certain hope.
The Scripture assures us that we can face the future, especially death, with the promise of great truths.
We are given the assurance that we will not be alone. There will be a divine companion with us; a hand will steady us through this time. Jesus said, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 b). We have that promise, whether we feel it or not, that we will not be left alone. Jesus said to his disciples, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).
Over and over we have this promise repeated in the Word, that Christ will be with us always, especially in the hour of death. Many of those who have died have borne testimony to that fact. When D. L. Moody was dying, his last words were, “Earth is receding, heaven is approaching; this is my crowning day.”
We need have no fear about death. Christ promises us that there is no ground for fear. I have been struck by the fact that in the Word of God there are 365 places where it says, “Fear not.” The reason is that Christ has promised, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 b). There are many passages in the Word of God that assure us of the promise of a greater future beyond death. There are passages that describe the glory to come, and picture for us the beauty of life beyond as a great and marvelous experience where we will be more alive than we ever were here. Paul says, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).
In the New Testament you can see how these early Christians were filled with a constant sense of the presence of Jesus with them. Everywhere they went they did so with joy and optimism and expectation. When you read the book of Acts you see that from beginning to end it has a ring of triumph. Peter declares “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. . . .” All of us can experience a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
In Jesus,
Brown

It is always the case that when the Christian looks back, he is looking at the forgiveness of sins.
Karl Barth
Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.
John Calvin


God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.
John Calvin