Real hope

This morning's reading and reflection from Day by Day is such a great message for me. I'll have to keep that image of a sunrise over the ocean as hope. I've been on the beach watching the sunrise over the ocean more times than I can count.

http://prayer.forwardmovement.org/forward_day_by_day.php?d=28&m=2&y=2013

Psalm 71. You are my hope, O Lord GOD.

If you have strolled at sunrise on an eastward-facing beach, perhaps you saw sunlight reflected in blinding brilliance across water. Your eyes could accept only shielded glimpses, and from wherever you glanced, the glorious path on the water followed, as if your vision drew the light toward you. Biblical hope is like that.

In contrast, our use of “hope” is a four-watt night-light. If you say, “I hope it doesn't rain,” the fulfillment is “iffy.” Hope in God is not. Ordinary hope is no match for the hope attached to our unchanging God, so the psalmist wrote with confidence, “You are my hope.”

In the New Testament, Christ is hope’s focus. Christ-centered hope cannot disappoint because its certainty is rooted in the cross (Romans 5). This hope gives life, so that Jesus could declare “Anyone who believes…has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). Hope for today and for the future, hope already assured in the past event at Calvary, hope in the Risen Christ!

We walk together, hope shining on the Lenten path, grounded in the history of the cross. I do hope that it doesn't rain on Easter, but no temporary storm can deny Easter’s dawn. The day will come. In sure hope, get ready to say, “Indeed, He is risen!”