This is our hope. It’s in a resurrected Christ, and because of His resurrection, He invites us into resurrection as well. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you (1 Peter 1:3-4).

Many modern psychologists consider hope not just a luxury, but actually a deep human need. I’m quoting here from an article from the American Psychological Association:

Beginning in the 1980s, the work of the late psychologist C. Rick Snyder, PhD, set the stage for much of today’s research about hope. Snyder defined hope as “the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways” Snyder also published work on positive psychology, or the study of how people and communities can thrive. Unlike optimism, which is simply the expectation of a better future, hope is action-oriented and a skill that can be learned. “We often use the word ‘hope’ in place of wishing, like you hope it rains today or you hope someone’s well,” said Chan Hellman, PhD, a professor of psychology and founding director of the Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma. “But wishing is passive toward a goal, and hope is about taking action toward it.”

Humanity has certainly taken action in hope. We have put our hope in progress and technology, believing that science and innovation will eventually solve our biggest problems, and yet advancements in technology have brought along with them advancements in things like weapons and an increasing disconnection with other human beings. Technology, with its improvements, has made us more desensitized, more anxious, and more lonely.

We need a better hope than that.

We have put our hope in self-actualization, believing that if we can “find our own truth,” express ourselves fully, and be true to ourselves above anything else, we can finally achieve personal happiness. And yet today we no longer know what to believe. We don’t know what’s real and what’s not. We are grasping and clinging to anything that might be true because we don’t know what is.

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