The Reason for My Hope

As we continue to journey along in this Easter season, I find myself reflecting on what it means to be an Easter people. It is an innately celebratory season where we remember for 50 days that death is not the end. With that in mind, I find myself being bogged down by the weight of the world. It feels like it is a constant stream of one atrocity after another, with only small moments of reprieve sprinkled in. It often does not feel like death is not the end.

So, when our second reading this Sunday asks us to always be ready to give an explanation for our hope, for our reason for having it, I initially find myself pausing. Isn’t it a bit naive to have hope in these times? To believe that goodness can still exist, and hope will prevail? I find myself struggling to see where the line is between ignorance about what is going on and a grounding sense of knowing this will not last forever.

What does it mean to hope? There is of course the actual definition, but in a lived, embodied sense, what does it mean to have hope? There are many days where I struggle to articulate hope, to feel it, but I still believe in it. 

“I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me,

but you will see me, because I live and you will live.”

It is difficult at times to remember where God can show up, but Jesus’s words are powerful. Our call as people of faith is to be that reminder that when the world cannot see God, we still can. In a world that feels like it has been abandoned by Jesus, his words remind us that he still carries on. 

Hope is believing something will be fulfilled, that we will see it come into fruition. Hope is holding on, continuing to stay even when things are uncertain and difficult, because we do believe death is not the end. Hope is not perfect, nor is it linear. It is dirty and messy and human.

I am finding hope in my toddler discovering the world around him with such wonder and joy. I am finding hope in the shared cups of coffee with neighbors in busy shops. I am finding hope in the seemingly small moments of humanity I encounter in my daily life. 

God is within us; He dwells within us and with all those we encounter. We get to see the resurrection within those around us, within those we love dearly as well as those we do not know at all. 

All of that is the reason for my hope: believing that God dwells within each of us, and those we encounter, even when the world cannot see it.

Today's Readings