18 April

Dear friends,

We are exploring the letter of 1 Peter over the course of around five weeks. Peter’s central claim is that, because Christ was resurrected, there is reason for living hope. In last week’s service, we set the boundaries for our conversation on hope, considering what its opposites are, and what it means to live without hope. We said that the opposite of hope is despair (there is no future outlook; we’ve hit rock bottom), boredom (nothing can change; we are stuck in neutral; nothing can surprise us), and optimism (everything will change and we will live happily ever after). In contrast, the living hope to which Peter invites us is hope born from suffering, and, most importantly, it is a person: Jesus Christ, who shows up in the midst of our suffering.

This week, we continue our conversation. From 1 Peter 1:17-22, we learn that hope requires us to take action. If we take a quick look at the way Peter introduces this section, we see that the resurrection of Christ means we must “prepare our minds for action”. In fact, as our reading shows, our hope is not a cheap hope. It cannot be bought with disposable things such as silver or gold. No, it is costly because it was secured by the “precious blood of Christ”. It cost Christ his life. If we treat hope as a cheap commodity, something easily acquired and easily discarded, then we may well give in to despair, become apathetic, get lost in academic debates about its importance, or believe that we can simply create or fabricate it for ourselves. However, if we reckon its true cost, then hope propels us into action. We inscribe ourselves in service of the one who ransomed us from despair and set our sights on hope. We become agents of hope ourselves. Eva Illouz writes that hope is “agentic” – it drives us into action, “it unseals fate, propels us forward”. To describe this agentic nature of hope, she quotes one of my favourite poems on hope by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.” 

Marius Louw