In my Christian tradition, every year we work through a cycle we call the "Church Year". It starts in late November or early December each year, as we hear the promises of God sending a Savior into the world. The first major celebration is the birth of Jesus, followed by His baptism, His transfiguration a few weeks later, His death and resurrection, His ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Then we focus on the continuing work that God does as the message of Good News in Jesus goes forth through the world. Then, as November rolls around again, we anticipate Jesus' promise of reappearance, to usher in the new creation to His faithful people.
You may have looked at the title for this entry and wondered about it a bit. "The Place Where Hope Ends." That's not a place that we typically think that we want to be. We want to be somewhere that hope abounds. We don't want to think about hope ending. After all, if hope ends, so do our dreams, our reason for pressing on. We don't want to think about what would cause our hope to end, with the expectation that it would be painful, a dark place with no escape.
In a sense, that's true. During our lives in this world, hope is a precious commodity, something that can give us strength even in the weakest hours. We hope for a better life. We hope for a better marriage, a better family, a better life situation, a better future. If those hopes come crashing down, we mourn and weep because we have lost the thing that keeps us going.
Yet, there is a place where hope ends, but all things actually are better afterward. That is the place and time when Jesus reappears in this world. For those who have put their flickering trust in Him as their Redeemer and Salvation, hope ends, and gives way to reality. A new creation, in the world that He kills and burns and then makes new. Hope ends in the furnace of His judgment and His glorious presence, but for those who have cried out to Him, that ending actually leads to something better than before. It leads to a place where we are with Him forever, and where nothing separates us from Him. It's a place where the messiness, ugliness, and brokenness of this world are gone, and we are introduced to a place where none of that will ever have any effect on us again.
The place where hope ends starts with Jesus' cross, because there we see the price that is demanded. The place where hope ends starts, for us personally, when we are touched by the water and God's Word, where God kills, but God also makes alive. The place where hope ends, for us all, is that moment when God the Father declares that it is time and sends forth His only Son to be Judge and Redeemer, eventually to turn all things over to the Father once more. For those who are sealed to Jesus through grace, through baptism, and through His Word, hope ends, but it actually ends to an improvement far beyond what we could ever hope for.
You may have looked at the title for this entry and wondered about it a bit. "The Place Where Hope Ends." That's not a place that we typically think that we want to be. We want to be somewhere that hope abounds. We don't want to think about hope ending. After all, if hope ends, so do our dreams, our reason for pressing on. We don't want to think about what would cause our hope to end, with the expectation that it would be painful, a dark place with no escape.
In a sense, that's true. During our lives in this world, hope is a precious commodity, something that can give us strength even in the weakest hours. We hope for a better life. We hope for a better marriage, a better family, a better life situation, a better future. If those hopes come crashing down, we mourn and weep because we have lost the thing that keeps us going.
Yet, there is a place where hope ends, but all things actually are better afterward. That is the place and time when Jesus reappears in this world. For those who have put their flickering trust in Him as their Redeemer and Salvation, hope ends, and gives way to reality. A new creation, in the world that He kills and burns and then makes new. Hope ends in the furnace of His judgment and His glorious presence, but for those who have cried out to Him, that ending actually leads to something better than before. It leads to a place where we are with Him forever, and where nothing separates us from Him. It's a place where the messiness, ugliness, and brokenness of this world are gone, and we are introduced to a place where none of that will ever have any effect on us again.
The place where hope ends starts with Jesus' cross, because there we see the price that is demanded. The place where hope ends starts, for us personally, when we are touched by the water and God's Word, where God kills, but God also makes alive. The place where hope ends, for us all, is that moment when God the Father declares that it is time and sends forth His only Son to be Judge and Redeemer, eventually to turn all things over to the Father once more. For those who are sealed to Jesus through grace, through baptism, and through His Word, hope ends, but it actually ends to an improvement far beyond what we could ever hope for.
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