July 2017
Imagine being a politician and trying to hold in your head
all the figures and arguments so that you are ready to answer any question that
might be thrown at you. Not many of us
could do that well.
But there is one
question that Christians are told they must always
be ready to answer. Peter tells us to
get ready for this one: “Why do you have hope?”
(1 Peter 3:15-16)
In English ‘hope’ often means a vague longing that things
will work out OK in the end. But Peter’s
word ‘hope’ in the original Greek is more focussed. It means something that is absolutely certain
but just hasn’t happened yet, like the ‘sure and certain hope’ that is spoken
about in a Christian funeral service.
Peter knew that when life in the 1st Century hit
hard, people would be puzzled to see that the Christians still had hope. Struck down by serious illness, crushed by
the cruelty of someone they trusted, hounded out of the synagogues by Jewish
leaders or hounded to death by Roman rulers, Peter wanted them to be ready to
explain why they still had a sure and certain hope.
And Christians ought to expect that people will ask the same
question today. The more we are struck
down by serious illness, crushed by the cruelty of someone we had trusted,
grieved by violence and suffering in every corner of our world, saddened by
chaotic politics, or hounded to abandon our Christian beliefs, the more we
should expect people to wonder why we still have hope and to ask us why.
Peter tells us his answer: In this world we can never put
the people and things that we love beyond the reach of death or decay but God
has trounced death in Jesus who now holds all the levers of power in earth and
heaven. Nothing can stop Jesus bringing in
a new order where his triumph is shared with all those whose only hope is in
him. We have “an inheritance that can
never perish, spoil or fade”. (1 Peter
1:3-4)
Perhaps you’ve been puzzled by an apparently indestructible
hope in someone you know – go ahead and ask them, “Why?” See if they’re ready with their answer!
Sincerely
Graham Burrows
