There
is a proverb in the bible that says, "Hope deferred makes the
heart sick." Various news articles and stories have pointed out
that depression and discouragement are on the rise, and this ancient
proverb rightly links it to hopelessness. I believe an overarching
sense of hopelessness pervades our culture because we are constantly
told that the material world is all there is and we are nothing more
than products of chance. Of course, there are many brilliant
scientists, scholars, and theologians who disagree with this and give
good arguments to the contrary, but the bullhorn of popular opinion
often drowns them out.
We
need hope. Hope is simply confident expectation or even joyous
anticipation of good. And for the Christian, our hope is in Jesus and
specifically his resurrection. To many, the idea of Jesus rising from
the dead sounds mythological and maybe even ridiculous. But even
atheists such as Dr. Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist, admit
that it's possible that God exists and if so, miracles are not out of
the question. God does exist and he became a human being - Jesus. To
this day, many are still unable to explain away the evidence
supporting and surrounding the resurrection of Jesus. So much so that
John Crossan and Gert Ludemann, two well known critics of the
resurrection, concede that Christ's resurrection is the best
explanation for the rise of Christianity and that the disciples most
certainly had experiences after Jesus' death in which Jesus appeared
to them as the risen Christ.
I
say all this not because it necessarily matters what these gentleman
think, but because it shows that one doesn't need to abandon reason
to believe such things. Christianity has never been about blind
faith, but rather informed faith. The disciple Thomas wouldn't
believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he saw and touched him
for himself. This is far from gullibility. Historian and theologian
N.T. Wright points out that people 2000 years ago knew just as well
as we do that dead people don't come back to life. Something
happened.
So
what? If Jesus truly rose from the dead, then reality is totally
different than what we're told it is. There is something more -
something beyond. One author puts it this way, "without this
hope of life beyond the grave, every question from love to justice
becomes a mockery of the mind." At Outflow, we are passionate
about matters of love and justice, and often say that we aim to help
people "realize hope". We believe this hope is found in
Jesus. In him we find healing for our sick hearts. In him we find the
solution to the problem of death. In him we find life.
Philip
