1 Corinthians 13: Hope

1 Corinthians 13:13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

“Hope springs eternal,” wrote Alexander Pope. There is good reason for Pope’s statement. Hope is “that in which one confides or to which he flees for refuge; expectation of good; and in the Christian sense, joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation.”

Hope is what provides us with meaning in life. Hope is what makes sense out of tragedy, war, hate, evil, crime, disease, crisis, inner conflict, death, oppression, and all of human suffering no matter in what shape or form it may be described or found. Many of the Negro spirituals written during times of slavery express a vivid hope. How can one have hope in the midst of such oppression and agony? Hope was the only way to make sense of it all.

Hope says that this is not all there is. Hope says our purpose in life is not simply to suffer. Hope turns difficulty into joy by guiding us to faith.

Humanity revolts against oppression and suffering because in them hope is attacked. When we try to understand why we are oppressed, suffer and endure deep inner conflict, hearing the empty words, “There, there, it will be alright,” while the oppression, suffering and inner conflict are not removed offers no consolation, no hope.

It should then be no wonder why teen suicide, veteran PTSD, random angry mob violence and many other senseless situations are on the rise. They have no hope! They have no hope because it is not being offered to them. The ones in the position of offering something have no hope themselves, so they cannot give what they do not have!

True hope is in the Lord. Hope says there is a refuge from the storm I am now enduring.

To better and further understand what hope is, perhaps we should define what hope is not. Hope does not erect non-discrimination laws to accommodate someone’s choice. Hope is not tolerant of all things and intolerant of anyone who disagrees with that particular point of view. Hope does not encourage self-indulgence. Hope does not profit from its own recommendations. Hope does not call for tolerance for the sake of gaining votes and notoriety.

None of these offer refuge. Non-discrimination policies leave a person where he or she is and ignore the oppression, suffering or inner conflict which lies behind the subject of non-discrimination. Tolerance of anything except that which disagrees with it breeds divisiveness, shows no empathy and closes its mind to wisdom. Encouraging self-indulgence on behaviors which are destructive ignores the oppression, suffering or inner conflict endured by the individual, and further acts in its own self-interest because the one encouraging self-indulgence often profits from that which is being encouraged. Anyone who acts with self-interest and are motivated by profit toward those who are oppressed, suffering or dealing with inner conflict only heap upon the individual more oppression, suffering and inner conflict. Trying to get everyone to like you and vote for you is an impossibility. The best that can be hoped for is to improve the welfare of the majority and hope the detractors can one day overcome their ignorance.

It is sadly unfortunate that all of the false hopes just named are not being identified as such in today’s culture. At the heart of the push lies a desire to eliminate all standards of right and dispense with God. The over-arching reason for eliminating right and God is to so oppress people that profiteering, greed and corruption can continue unchecked and unfiltered. Dividing the people along lines of intolerance and encouraging self-indulgence to enslave people in destructive behaviors pave the way for riches untold to a wealthy few, which is underway even now.

At the core of the human existence is a search for meaning, significance and, most of all, refuge from oppression, suffering and inner conflict. There is only one source of true hope, and it is Jesus Christ. All others who give false hope cannot compare and can only make human existence worse.