The Paradox of Hope

The story of Christ coming into the world is a story of hope. One hymn beautifully says that God “wrapped our injured flesh around Himself,” so that we might receive the hope of life, salvation, and resurrection. Jesus is truly our living hope.

Yet the hope Jesus brings is, in many ways, paradoxical. In our world—and in our senses and experience—we see people born, live, and die. Even Christians, who believe differently, struggle to look beyond the finality of death. Death feels stark and absolute, like the end of a trilogy we’ve read to the last page. Many people believe that after life comes only emptiness and nothingness. You are born, you live, you die, and then you are gone. So where, then, is hope?

Hope is in the person of Jesus, born on that first Christmas. For the Christian, we are born into this world, but when we encounter Jesus, we are offered a life-changing, life-giving choice. We can continue as we always have and eventually reach an ending without hope. Jesus said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it” (Matthew 16:25a). We cannot give, save, or create life on our own. But Jesus continued, “If you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”

When Nicodemus asked Jesus how to have eternal life (John 3), Jesus answered plainly: “You must be born again.” To truly live, you must die to yourself. To find eternal life, you must be reborn—raised into a new life with Christ and gathered into the company of all the saints.

This sounds strange at first, but it is the very heart of the Christian faith: we die to self so that Christ may live in us. As we surrender ourselves, His life begins to shape our own. We become who we were truly made to be—exactly the person God designed when He created us. Playwright John Guare put it beautifully: “It is amazing how a little tomorrow can make up for a whole lot of yesterdays.”

A judge once told a young man for whom I was pleading, “Your past casts a long shadow.” Despite our appeals, the judge sentenced him to four years in jail. Perhaps the judge delivered justice, and perhaps the young man hoped for mercy. But Jesus offers something far greater: grace. While earthly judges remind us of our past, Jesus declares, “I have cast your sins as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). God Himself says, “I will remember your sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34).

So—what will you choose? The world’s view that you are born, live, and die? Or Jesus’ view: that you are born, you die to self, and then you truly live?

As for me, I place my faith, my life, and my hope in the God who forgives, forgets, and saves.