Hope in the Lord!

My soul waits for the Lord more than those who wait for the morning, more than those who wait for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! Psalm 130: 6,7

On the walls of an eastern city there were watchmen whose task it was to look for the sunrise and then let the citizens know that a new day had dawned. That's the image behind this lovely piece of Hebrew poetry. The watchmen didn't for a moment doubt that the dawn would come, and that its bright rays would drive away the shadows and light up the streets.

Their hope, in other words, was expectation, not a vague wish of the kind we sometimes express in modern English – ‘We can only hope’. Theirs was a deep-seated trust, a confidence in divine providence: the sun would rise, the day would dawn. That is the notion of hope that runs through Scripture like a silver thread. It excludes, rather than embraces, doubt about the outcome. In short, it is a term which is fundamental to the life of God’s people. They should ‘hope in the Lord’, who is reliable and trustworthy, who does what he says and fulfils what he promises. To hope in God is, if one can put it this way, to back a certainty.

In the earlier part of the Hebrew Scriptures (what we call the ‘Old’ Testament) hope is usually seen as temporal blessing from God - long life, many children, victory, land, cattle and so on. In the great Hebrew prophets, however, hope begins to look to the future, to the coming of the messianic kingdom and even the resurrection of the dead. It is that notion of hope that is carried over into the New Testament, where hope, according to St Paul, is one of three things that ‘abide for ever’. We have only to contrast that with the cold word ‘hopeless’ to recognize how central hope is to human life and human happiness.

Adapted from David Winter's new book 'Old Words, New Life' (BRF £6.99)