Alleluia! Christ is risen from the dead,
trampling down death by death,
and upon those in the tombs bestowing life! Alleluia!
On Easter Sunday we closed our worship service with these ancient and triumphant words. Jay and I both encouraged you to take these words with you throughout the great fifty days of the Easter season. These words remind us of the hope that we have in Christ and of the good news that we have to share with the world.
In thinking about these words and about the moment we find ourselves in, I have been thinking about hope, what it is and why it matters.
In his first epistle, Peter tells that us that through Christ's resurrection we have been born to a living hope. Living hope is a hope not primarily in something that will happen, but in something that has already happened, Christ's resurrection from the dead. More than that, living hope is hope in the resurrected one himself who promises that those who trust in him will live too, that they will have life in his name.
This Sunday we will hear Peter preach the first truly Christian sermon in the book of Acts. He will proclaim that Jesus, the one crucified, dead, and buried, is truly alive, risen from the dead, and that in his life is our life. What Peter preaches is the reality of living hope, hope not in a concept or an idea or a preferred outcome, but hope in a living Lord, hope in a person.
Hope too is a virtue, what the Church calls a theological virtue, which means that, among other things, hope never happens by accident; it must be practiced. And if the proper object of our hope is a person, then we practice hope by knowing better and better the one in whom we hope.
My prayer for you all is that despite the circumstances we find ourselves in you will come to know more and more the living Lord, the one in whom we hope.
Chris+