A reflection on hope in anticipation of the 7th annual Kingdom Justice Summit on February 27 with the theme of Hope.

By Jimmy Bero
Collaboration Project Story Team

I’ve recently started describing my positive attitude as “sinfully optimistic.” 

For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve seen the glass as half full (or all the way full if you include the air in the top half). I like this about me, not only because the data would suggest that it has positive effects on my health, but because it simply makes me feel good. 

But my optimism has cost me something as well. There’s also a negative side to being eternally positive.

You see, I married a pessimist. 

Pessimists prefer to be called realists, but any optimist knows they’re just trying to justify their negative attitude. 

Jokes aside, I’ve learned so much from my wife. She has deep and true empathy for people who are hurting, and can show a level of compassion that I rarely am able to give people. When I’m trying to see the other side of the situation, or look for the silver lining in a hard situation, she sees a person. My body tells me to escape. Hers says “be present.”

Enter hope. 

Every once in a while you come across a quote that doesn’t just make you think, but takes up residence in your mind. A number of years ago, as I was pondering the idea of hope, I found this quote from C.S. Lewis from his book Mere Christianity:

“Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

What shook me about this quote is that it was able to gently call out my optimistic attitude as a form of escapism, as empty wishful thinking, while inviting me into something much more beautiful. You see, hope isn’t something that glosses over pain or suffering. Hope looks to the future not as a way to escape the present, but as a way to empower us toward a life of goodness and justice right here right now.

When we dwell on eternity in the kingdom of heaven, it is like fuel for our souls. Just as a car requires electricity or gasoline to move and do what it’s meant to do. Christians are meant to be kingdom-building followers of Jesus, bringing heaven and earth into a greater union with one another. 

King Jesus isn’t an optimist, walking around telling people to look on the bright side. 

Could you imagine a blind man coming to Jesus and instead of healing him, Jesus just says, “Yeah, well at least it’s not leprosy.” 

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve looked at a situation in my life, or worse, in someone else’s life, and simply “at-least-ed” myself into not feeling bad. But the longer I’ve been following Jesus, and the longer I’m married to someone who embodies the actual hope of Jesus, the more I’ve been able to be present and enter into the hard places in my life and the lives of others. 

Jesus certainly doesn’t try to escape the harsh realities this world has to offer. Paul captures this in his letter to the Philippians 2: 6-11:

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

So whether you’re an optimist or pessimist, may you first be a person of hope, fueling your life with the truth Jesus – that in his life and teaching, his atoning death, and triumphant resurrection, you may be empowered to bring justice and hope to others. 

Like Lewis so elegantly observed, “the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.”

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