The late Lord Soper, a famous Methodist preacher once said of the apostle Paul's dictum concerning, Faith, Hope and Love in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that for him and with all due respects to the great Apostle the most helpful of these three remarkable spiritual values was HOPE. Soper felt that under the pressures of life, personal as well as political, his faith often wavered, his love went cold but he had never lost hope. Although hope was the poor cousin of the other two for him it had proved to be an anchor for his soul.

I would subscribe to that myself and for three good reasons. The first being that hope provides a forward- looking objective for our lives. It constitutes the goal for which we can aim - the vision we need to draw us on to new and better things. In this life, as has been often stated the effort needed to achieve is often more exciting than the accomplishment itself - the journey more thrilling than the actual arrival. I'm not implying that if and when we reach heaven itself there will be a disappointing sense of anti-climax but it is alas, a common fact of this earthly life that people's vices attract more attention than their virtues, as per George Best. Hope constitutes the thing we live for and when hope is lost, when depression and despair set in, faith and love fade very quickly and for some people self-destruction seems to be the only way out.

Another feature of hope is that it not only presents a goal to aim for, it also it also provides the dynamic, the vital determination to achieve that goal. The thing that gets you out of bed on a cold, dark and depressing morning and makes you do your best for that day. You may not know just who to trust and how much you may feel particularly friendly or affectionate towards other folk,  but something still spurs you on and you try to give it of your best. Hope is the surest antidote for guilt or fear. Hope impels you to shake off these negative emotions and to find a new confidence and courage.  Paul in his valiant missionary journeys for Christ admitted that at times he felt knocked down by the opposition of his enemies but never did he feel knocked out.

But when I speak of hope in these terms I'm not merely referring to the shallow optimism that is often taken for hope. It's not a matter of looking for 'the cloud with the silver lining' - a whistling in the dark and just hoping against hope that for you it will turn out for the best.  Often with folk hope is a refusal to face reality - a vain hope that next time you won't get drunk, or loose your temper, or lose your winnings on the next bet. The hope of which I speak is described in the Bible as 'a living hope' (1 Peter 1 verse 3) based on the historical fact of Jesus Christ's resurrection from death. Jesus Christ by his life, his death on the cross and his resurrection gives us hope of victory over all that would harm us in this world or in the next.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
no merit of my own I claim,
but wholly trust in name
 
On Christ, the solid rock, I stand
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

Up to now we have been thinking of hope in personal terms but what about hope for the world ? Over one hundred years ago at the turn of the 20th century the British Empire was at its zenith and in spite of severe and impoverished conditions for the working man, the industrial revolution had helped to make Britain the 'workshop of the world'. It seemed a new age was dawning and Methodists throughout Great Britain were contributing one guinea (a lot of money in those days) to the '20th Century Fund' which in total helped to build the great Central Hall Westminster and other central halls in many of our large city centres. The idea was to draw multitudes into buildings, unlike the usual ecclesiastical structures where they could hear the Gospel preached and if poor benefit from a practical social ministry. This latter work often proved to be the model for the Welfare State which was introduced by the government fifty years later.

Those were years, before the tragic first World War, of great optimism and hope not just for Britain but for the whole world.  Congregations sang with great enthusiasm and conviction:

Christ for the world, we sing:
The world to Christ we bring
With loving zeal;
The poor and them that mourn,
The faint and overborne,
 Sin-sick and sorrow-worn
Whom Christ doth heal.

Basically the agenda for the Christian Church is the same but it's a different world. Continuing wars, terrorism, global warming and environmental pollution, increasing materialism, growing militant religious forces, frightening moral and ethical uncertainties, racial hatreds and criminal lawlessness all darken the future and dissolve hope of a truly better world to emerge. And yet we must still cling to the hope of God, that He by His almighty grace will, as Paul puts it in writing to the early Christian Church at Rome, enable us to live in the hope that the whole creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay (in every sense) and be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8 verses 20 to 21)

Natural disasters like the tsunami and violent hurricanes sweeping across the Southern States of America only serve to drive home the basic fact of our human frailty and how quickly all the technical impedimenta and luxury of our 21st century life-styles can be swept away or reduced to matchwood. Of course we can rebuild and march on, but untold suffering and death still remind us that unless our hope for better things is grounded in the living hope of God, and as Christians we would add, and as through Jesus Christ then there is no hope for the human race and all is lost.

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