Hope for a weary world.

The gospel in the midst of hopelessness according to Alexander Maclaren.

Photo by Maxim Tolchinskiy on Unsplash

There is, perhaps, no more tenuous subject to write about nowadays than hope. The freneticism that imbues every second of every day seems to be tinged with an inescapable hopelessness. No matter how many times you hit refresh, there seem to be more reasons to pack it in and give up. Consuming all that hopelessness cannot be how our Maker intended it. Indeed, I tend to doubt that our souls have the capacity to consume the disconsolate din of irremediable crises we scroll past without so much as a second glance. You see, even if we don’t engage or interact with the despairing news of the day, the incessant racket of events that seem beyond hope works like a slow drip of desensitization to the point where hopelessness is the status quo. In this ubiquitous resignation, “hope” is a pejorative, and those who cling to it are nothing more than Polly Annas staring down the apocalypse. 

But, of course, it is precisely in this despairing and forlorn scene that the words of God’s gospel were meant to reverberate with the message of grace. I concur with Rev. Alexander Maclaren, who once wrote, “The hope of the Gospel is the one thing that we need” (14:2.99). This sentiment still holds true. Ours is a world that is still desperate for hope, no matter how much it has resigned itself to its unchangeable fate. Like a light that pierces the darkness, the gospel bursts onto the scene and foments hope, even amid the ruins. This was the theme of the Mockingbird Conference in New York City from a few years ago: “Hope for a Weary World.” Even though that conference could barely be considered “history,” the substance of its message remains evergreen.

In the opening session, conference speaker and Episcopal minister Rev. Aaron M. G. Zimmerman trenchantly remarked, “Hope springs in an environment of hopelessness.” This, of course, is downstream of the proclamation of the gospel, in which the suffering and scorn of the Son of God is transfigured into the hope of redemption by virtue of his resurrection. Notwithstanding the depth of hopelessness to which mankind plummets, the good news of Christ crucified and risen again can raise the deadest and most despondent soul back to life. To echo Maclaren again, the hope of the gospel is precisely what our hopeless and weary world most desperately needs. We need to be confronted with the fragility of all our earth-bound hopes, an effect that is brought about by the preaching of God’s law so that we might cling to the changeless hope of the gospel, which “rests at last,” Maclaren says, “on the Being and Heart of God” (14:2.96). He continues:

The weakness of our earthly hopes is that they are fixed on things which are contingent and are inadequate to make us blessed. Even when tinted with the rainbow hues, which it lends them, they are poor and small. How much more so when seen in the plain colourless light of common day. In contrast with these the objects of the Christian hope are certain and sufficient for all blessedness. In the most general terms they may be stated as ‘That blessed hope, even the appearing of the Great God and our Saviour.’ That is the specific Christian hope, precise and definite, a real historical event, filling the future with a certain steadfast light. Much is lost in the daily experience of all believers by the failure to set that great and precise hope in its true place of prominence. It is often discredited by millenarian dreams, but altogether apart from these it has solidity and substance enough to bear the whole weight of a world rested upon it. (14:2.93)

No, to be sure, there is no forecasting what’s in store in the days, weeks, or months ahead. As near as Christ’s return “feels,” he, in his sovereign wisdom, could yet tarry centuries more. Even so, as all the fixtures of our resilience and resolve “under the sun” quake, we are drawn to see that there is only one source of hope in the end. It is the gospel of grace that gives us “the full assurance of hope, and that full assurance,” Maclaren comments, “is just what every other hope lacks” (14:2.97). Contrary to the mantra of modernity, there is hope to be found amid the rubble and scandal of our day. It is given to sinners through the Word and Spirit of Christ alone. This, you see, is why the church exists — namely, to serve as an outpost of hope in a world that continues to hurl itself into oblivion. The church’s message, therefore, is one that ought to forestall that descent by pointing to the God who embraced the oblivion of sin and death for the sake of the world. 

May you be filled with the grace, peace, and hope of Christ today. 

Works cited:

Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture, Vols. 1–17 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1944).