Christian preaching should be infused with hope.  This is because the Bible is infused with hope.  While every generation likes to think that their generation is different from all that have come before, the fact is that almost every generation has been lacking in hope.  I was just reading of the collapse of the 50’s optimism in the 60’s.  Dostoyevsky’s famous line, “If God does not exist, everything is permissible” springs to mind.  And if it is possible to state this in relative terms – God does not exist even more now . . . in the perspective of my culture, at least.  Culture changes, but needs do not.  The God is dead movement in the 60’s is not making the cover of news magazines now, but “new atheism” (great misnomer) gets plenty of airtime.  We may not live in fear of nuclear war as we did then, but what of terrorism, or even the fear of ecological disaster?  Times change, but hopelessness persists.

Biblical preaching should be infused with hope, big hope and mini hope:

Big hope. The Bible is shot through with messages of hope that this world as it is is not all that there ever will be.  We are people in a privileged position in that we know the end of the story is not what we see in front of our eyes, but more than that, God has told us the end of the story already.  You could say it is not written yet, but it’s already been written.  Sad to see how much of Christendom has moved to ignore or platitudify (new word?) the eschatological hope that pervades Scripture.  Oh yes, eschatology may be divisive, errors have been made, sensationalism has been embarressing at times, etc., etc., but one thing we can’t get away from, or redefine our way out of (at least not convincingly), is that God certainly gave us a lot of “big hope” in the Bible.  As we preach the Word, people need to hear and see that we are people of genuine hope.  A hope that is not irrelevant or incomprehensible, but a hope that lifts our eyes to that Day so that our lives are changed today.

Tomorrow I’ll share the mini hope . . .