Christian hope is a contagious hope. It is more than something an individual thinks will happen, but is something Christians share corporately. Our future hope of eternal life is not a vision of a private mansion to compensate for all the comforts we missed out on in this life. Our hope is the hope of fullness of fellowship with God, fullness of human community, fullness of harmony with the creation. In this sense, Christian hope must be shared, and even demands that such hope be spread around.
There is an element of Christian hope that fuels an excitement, a zeal that is sometimes louder than the message itself. It is an excitement that reminds me of the charged trial dialogue wherein Peter and John replied to the council: “...we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20)
All people, regard
less of their worldview or religion at some point experience the logical conclusions of their views of the future. At some point in life, all people have to come to psychological terms with the future: that is, they have to come to a liveable peace with what they believe the future entails. This may be as simple as anxiety over one’s upcoming career, or as epic as wondering what awaits us after the grave. All worldviews say something about the future, even if they choose to remain silent about the future.(A small aside on that last comment: even if one says the future is unknowable, that belief lodges itself into the mind as true, and therefore must find practical expression. If the future is entirely unknown, this results in certain obligations. For example, when encountering those who claim to know the future: claims of future-knowledge are then claims of falsehood, and we are to react to falsehood accordingly. So even agnosticism about the future entails obligations, and a lifestyle that is consistent with genuine ignorance.)
Consider what the Christian hopes is coming: justice to the wicked, fullness of fellowship, absence of death. Who can fail to be moved by God’s promise to “wipe every tear from their eyes”? (Rev 7:17) All wrongs will be righted, life will no longer have the curse of death upon it. Moreover, jerks, manipulative people, hypocrites, power-mongers, corrupt politicians, -everyone of vile character -will be excluded. (I feel I ought to elaborate on the exclusion of the wicked from heaven, but that's a topic for another post. For this post I'm satisfied with saying that the absence of evil people is a good thing to look forward to.) This hope is revitalizing, energizing. Life does not end in death, nor are we at risk of our good work ever being destroyed, nor is the future lost in agnosticism. If God’s promises are in fact true, any alternative one previously held seems all ashes and mire.
Herein lies the contagion of Christian hope. It seeks, even insists on being spread around. I think this gets misconstrued more often than not. To be sure, at times this becomes an adversarial issue, but at the core, what we proclaim in Christ (or rather, what God has proclaimed in Christ) is fullness of joy. This is the express motive stated by John: “...and we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 Jn 1:4)
Missing out on Christian hope is like having to work on Christmas day. Having done that numerous years in a row, it gets pretty sickening to become socially sidelined on missing out in crucial moments of turkey and wine, presents and laughter, and late night conversations by the fire while the frost grows on the windows. Missing out on Christmas is to be left out in the cold, and the spread of Christian hope seeks to include others in the joy of Christmas fellowship.
