Someone said that we people are able to survive for forty days without food; four days without water; four minutes without air; but people cannot live just for four seconds without hope. If that is true, then we have to figure out, what is hope? How and why can hope be an energy and power for people to stay alive? And how are we able to get that hope from to time in order to be hopeful people? It is not easy to have an answer to these questions, but it is not impossible to find out the answer to them in hope. St. Paul said, "And now faith, hope and love abide always" (1 Corinthians 13:13). So we have to believe there is hope always as long as we are living in this world.
During the last long and cold winter, everyone hoped spring was coming. Finally it seems to be that something like spring has arrived. I think that some people might be disappointed with this weather, since it is not what they hoped for during the winter. A young person hoped for getting a dream job after finishing school, but some may still be waiting for a phone call for a job interview from a company that was not even close to the one for which that person wanted to work. Some people continuously gamble in hope of becoming a millionaire. Sometimes these uncertain, unrealistic, and implausible hopes make people worse off, disappointed and despairing when they don't work out. So we wonder what is hope? What is the real hope that makes people stay alive?
I don't want to argue about the definition of hope in this UC Chimes or whether or not each person's expectation, wishful thinking and dream for the future should be considered to be hope. Why? Because I believe that no matter what it may be, if any of them could be a cause or a motivation for a person to move forward and stand up again toward what they should be and do, then it must be a real hope for them. Although the surrounding circumstances, the results of the trials and the reality in which we are now, might not be favourable for us to pursue what we want and wish for, if we don't give up but keep hoping, and then that hope is the source of power and energy to stay alive. Therefore a true hope never makes us disappointed.
A reason why so many people begin with hope but finish in despair, is that because they think that their hope should become reality that can be touched and seen. Of course we can say that a dream has come true when we get something that we really wanted and hoped for. But everyone knows that there is actually never a perfect achievement or a complete fulfilment of dreams and hopes in this world. So hope in this world, no matter what it may be, cannot be the eschatological hope, the very last hope. The Bible said, "Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience" (Romans 8:24-25). That is hope against hope, the true, final, last hope in faith of Christ Jesus. So everyone is able to have this hope until the last moment of their life.
