Are you tired of hearing grim news about the pandemic? Are you feeling overwhelmed? Is your new normal (at work or at school or at home) more than you can handle? Do you feel like giving up? Jesus was no stranger to any of those feelings. He was under tremendous pressure to perform for the crowds. He was under constant stress from his enemies. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders, but Jesus never lost hope and neither should we.
Jesus as the Essential Hope
Jesus was well aware that there were those in power who wanted him dead. He healed the crowds with supernatural power that could belong only to the One from God. He told the crowds not to tell the authorities about him. Matthew tells the story and he explains that this was to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had said about the Messiah —
Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out; no one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope” (Matt. 12:18-21).
A defining characteristic of Jesus was that people from all nations “put their hope” in his name.
Certainly, this has come to pass. There are people from all nations on earth who worship Jesus each day, proclaiming him to be their Lord and Savior, and putting their hope in him.
Hope in the Shawshank Redemption
Andy Dufresne is the protagonist in Stephen King’s screenplay, The Shawshank Redemption. It is a story about the power of the human spirit. After spending years in Shawshank prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Andy Dufresne is tired. You can see it on his face. He is done with Shawshank prison and the corrupt warden who runs it.
At this point it is unclear what Andy will do. You, the movie-goer, can only see one way out. And when Andy sits on his bed at night with a rope in his hands you are left to imagine that suicide is the way out. This is the climactic turning point for the movie. Will Andy kill himself? Has the human will to survive been beaten out of him? After twenty years in Shawshank, you certainly wouldn’t blame him.
Andy, however, has found another way out. He uses the rope, not to kill himself, but to escape. The day he escaped he said something to his best friend Red that should have given us a clue. He said, “Remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
Hope is a good thing. It is the best of things. Hope is the essential fruit of Christianity.
The Reason for Our Hope
“… but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame …” (Rom. 5:3-5).
Paul explained that this essential hope is trustworthy because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This hope is tough and resilient because we know that Jesus sacrificed himself for us — but not only that — he did so while we were yet sinners.
If Jesus had waited for us to get cleaned up before he died for us, we would not have the same hope. If Jesus died only for the “good people,” or “the elect,” we wouldn’t have any reason necessarily, to hope.
But, our hope is built on this: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
God must have seen something good in me even in the midst of all my wretchedness. This gives me hope.
Andy was right — Hope is the best of things.
Three Reasons for Hope
Here are three reasons hope is the best of things.
1. Hope empowers us for life.
Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Cor. 3:12).
The strange thing about Andy Dufresne is that the prisoners at Shawshank were deathly afraid of the warden and the guards — but, not Andy. He had a quiet air about him that seemed to elevate him above the pettiness of their pitiful power plays.
In one scene he locks himself in the Warden’s office and plays a beautiful operetta over the prison speaker system. The men working in the prison yard stop their work and for one brief moment, the music lifts their spirits above and beyond the prison walls.
Andy knows that he will go to solitary confinement for his breach. He knows that the warden will slam his powerful hammer down to crush him. But, he also knows that he will not be crushed. Hope has empowered him.
Paul credits the power of his preaching to the hope he has in the gospel message. It is our hope — for a better world, a stronger life, a new day — that empowers us to keep breathing, keep fighting, keep loving.
2. Hope is contagious.
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Co. 1:27).
A big part of the story of Andy Dufresne at Shawshank was the impact he had on the other prisoners. Andy was stripped of his dignity and power. Yet, he had learned the lesson of Viktor Frankl in his holocaust prison — “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
In a quiet and unassuming way, Andy never let them take away his attitude. The power of that truth spread like wildfire through Shawshank. It changed the men who knew Andy. It changed Shawshank.
Hope spreads like wildfire. When people see the hope you have in Christ, they recognize its power and it spreads. Hope is always contagious.
3. Hope brings new life.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In 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 can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3-4).
When Andy finally escapes he does so by crawling through half a mile of a sewage pipe. At the end of the pipe, Andy falls into the ditch it drains into. It’s raining outside. Andy lifts his hands to the wide-open sky and is baptized with the rain.
He is a new man. His sins are washed away. He is free.
That is what hope in Jesus brings us — a new birth, a new start, a new life.
The movie, Shawshank Redemption, ends with a glimpse at the new life Andy has found. It is a simple life living in wide-open spaces, next to an ocean of endless blue waters.
I know that things are difficult right now. For some, life has become seemingly unbearable. I know that the coronavirus will pass. However, for some, it feels like it will not pass soon enough. I’m not trying to make light of your very real struggle. I just want you to know that Jesus is someone you can cling to when you feel like givng up.
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
This is our great hope. Jesus sets us free!
Hope is, indeed, the best of things.
