God decided to let his people know just how rich and glorious that truth is. That secret truth, which is for all people, is that Christ lives in you, his people. He is our hope for glory.
Christianity makes a startling claim: our hope is not primarily an idea. It is not an optimistic philosophy, a spiritual energy, or a vague promise that everything will be okay. Our hope has a name. Paul does not simply say that we have hope; he says our hope is Christ. God answered humanity’s deepest questions not by giving us an explanation, but by giving us a person.
When we ask, “Where is God when the world suffers?” Christianity forces us to look at Jesus. There we see God touching the sick, approaching the rejected, weeping in front of a grave, confronting injustice, and allowing human violence to fall upon Him. God did not answer suffering from a safe distance. He entered into it. The cross means there is no place of human pain from which we can honestly say, “God does not know what it feels like to be here.”
Having Jesus means even more than that. If Christ is alive, then our hope does not depend on our ability to remain strong. He does not merely show us the way toward a new world; He is the beginning of that new world. That is why the Christian can look at an unfinished reality and still hope: because the future God promises has already entered history in flesh. Our hope is not that everything will turn out the way we want. Our hope is that Jesus remains faithful and true even when everything else stops being what we expected.
By Daniel Clavijo, Bible League International staff, Colombia
