No Matter What, Be Stubbornly Hopeful
Sometimes, hope is all we have. But to keep it, you’re going to have to be stubborn.
The Book of Revelation isn’t about the end of the world as we know it, although that’s a fascinating subject. It’s really about how to live life hopefully in the world in which we currently live. It’s about how Christians can be stubbornly hopeful no matter how bad things seem to get.
Maybe the world is getting worse. A bunch of atomic scientists seem to believe we’re 90 seconds from Doomsday and The United Nations warns that we’re entering “a new era of conflict and violence.”
Maybe the world is getting better, too. After all, we’re living longer, eradicating diseases, and decreasing global poverty.
When I was a college student, I took a course on the Revelation and we held a panel discussion about the three major branches of Christian eschatology.
Postmillennialists believe the world will become more “Christianized” over time, ushering in a thousand years of peace at the end of which, Christ will come again.
Premillennialists see us on a continual downgrade into a seven-year period of tribulation. Then Jesus will come again, defeat all of his enemies, and commence a literal 1,000-year reign of peace.
And amillennialists (which means “no” millennium) see it all as figurative and leave Jesus’ second coming more unpredictable, if literal at all.
I’m not nearly as certain as I was back then as a college student, firmly convinced of my particular theological convictions. I’m far more curious than certain about the future.
But I do know one thing for sure. The key to thriving in the world, whether things are getting better or worse, is to be stubbornly hopeful.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. witnessed racial and economic injustice proliferation society, he kept stubbornly hoping that love and nonviolence could make things better.
When Mahatma Gandhi surveyed the economic conditions under which millions were living in India, he kept stubbornly hoping that things could change.
And when Israel’s leaders were calling for the crucifixion of Jesus and Rome was content to oblige them, Jesus kept stubbornly hoping that the cross (and of course, his insider knowledge about the empty tomb) would save the world.
And that’s it for me. That’s all I need. I just need the message of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ to reverberate around in my head and heart to remind me that no matter how hopeless things might feel at any given moment, I get to be stubbornly hopeful, too.
I like the way the late Tim Keller put it in his excellent book The Prodigal God:
This world is not simply a theater for individual conversion narratives, to be discarded at the end when we all go to heaven. No, the ultimate purpose of Jesus is not only individual salvation and pardon for sins but also the renewal of this world, the end of disease, poverty, injustice, violence, suffering, and death. The climax of history is not a higher form of disembodied consciousness but a feast
I’m convinced that our stubbornness about our hopefulness is an act of rebellion against the cultural norm of pessimism. And I think this stubbornly hopeful rebellion just might flip everything on its head and change the world.
So no matter what happens today, tomorrow, or the next day, don’t stop hoping. Sometimes, hope is all we have. But to keep it, you’re going to have to be stubborn.