A Hope Fulfilled

I have got to say that I am disappointed in myself. Here I am, in Holy Week, and not blogging. The two best times of year (post-quality wise, not quantity - that would be August) are Christmas and Easter. Unfortunately I have not had much time to sit down with my Bible this week as it has been very hectic in my life lately (in a good way though). Still, that does not mean I have not done my fair share of thinking. This week I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about hope. Ever since I wrote my first post about hope titled “Hope” I can’t stop thinking about it. It seems my crisis of hope is gone, for now at least. Now back to Easter, Easter is about the Gospel, which means Good News, and good news brings hope so then we can conclude that, really, Easter is about hope. You know when something really bad happens and you still cling to that hope that maybe, just maybe, it didn’t? I do. There are many examples that come to mind but one in particular shook me from a young age. I had a dog named Daisy, she was a wonderful dog. She was very well behaved, loving, and extremely chubby. But Daisy was diagnosed with cancer and died at the age of three. I remember waking up to go to school and seeing Daisy lying on the floor unable to move and knowing that I wouldn’t see her again. I held her close, prayed, and that was all I could do. All day I clung to the hope that when I got back she would be there as she always was, barking wildly at the door and jumping up to give me a kiss. But she wasn’t and I was devastated. Well the Gospels fulfilled that hope, through that my hope is fulfilled. When Jesus died the disciples felt the same way, I can imagine Peter biting his nails, pacing back and forth, hearing a knock at the door and hoping in the back of his mind that it is Jesus. Imagine his surprise when he sees him standing there! Through the Gospels Jesus defeated death, he didn’t defy it and he certainly didn’t cheat it, he defeated it fair and square and in doing so we have hope. Hope that one day, not in this life though, I will see Daisy, and not only her but Dutch, my great grandparents, my great uncles, and every other family member I lost (and unfortunately with time will lose) and love. The Good News is good because it gives hope to the hopeless. It is a message of faith and love that says “If you just hold on, if you just wait on God, He will fulfill your promise.” At one moment in history hope was fulfilled in a miraculous way, and because of that, our hopes can be fulfilled in the same way through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.