Psalm 42:11, “Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.”
One of the implications of Christ’s death and resurrection is invincible hope for anyone who would receive Him as their life. The one trusting in Christ simply cannot be hopeless…they cannot enter a place of utter destitution of soul. Why? Because they have a stronger constitution than others? Because they are better adjusted? Because they are incurably optimistic? No–it is because when they arrive at “hopelessness,” when they arrive at state of desolation….there they will find their God who has endured this too in their place.
Jesus’ death is more than death, it is damnation…and damnation IS hopelessness. The damnation He bore–the hopelessness He bore–in His death was that of His people, of His Bride–of you and me if we are clinging to Him as our Lord and God. There is no depth, no horror, no suffering, no exile, no darkness, no terror, no malevolence, no shame, no loss, no sorrow, no weakness, no indignity that our Lord has not endured in Himself as He died as the enemy of God in our place.
And then–beyond all conceivable hope–He rose again…..and He didn’t rise with a whimper, or as a bedraggled sufferer who barely survived…He rose again as the Beloved of the Father, as the Captain of the Church, as the Groom of the Bride, as the Son of God in Power, as the Lamb who was slain, and yet lives forevermore. And with that resurrection, He secured HOPE for His people. Christ has irreparably bent the arc of our lives so that, with every descent there WILL be an ascent, with every evening there WILL be a morning, with every death their WILL be a resurrection.
And I cannot close without saying this….what Jesus did on the cross SAVES us from our sins and SECURES invincible hope for us….but more fundamentally than either of those things, what He did on the cross SHOWS us our God. God is like this….the substitutionary, hell-absorbing death of Christ shows us the heart and glory of God toward His people (John 12:27-28, 17:1-5,26).
So even if we do not know the specifics of how this present darkness will dissolve into a dawn of joy…we DO know His heart, we DO know He is sovereign, and we DO know that all things will be made to sing the glory of God as He is revealed in Christ….and therefore, we can–we must–hope in Him.
