[AI translation] There's always a strange feeling when you stand on the threshold of a new year. Of course, this strange feeling soon passes, because the novelty of the new year soon passes. After three days, no one will feel that the year is new. It will be just as familiar, drab and ordinary as the old one was. But at the very beginning, there is still a certain tension: what will this year bring, what can we expect from it, good or bad, what should we prepare ourselves for?Today's generation - since the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - no longer has any illusions. In an age in which all brains and forces are geared to the development of mass destruction, it is difficult to look to the future with optimism. No wonder one of the characteristics of humanity today is not hopelessness, but hopelessness. There is no hope, no expectation of anything good. So it is not pessimism, it is simply not looking beyond the width of the television screen.
Nor did the apostle Paul live with a very bright outlook. If anyone knew the dangers, the burdens, the distress of life, he really knew, yet he is full of hope, almost exultant in the certainty of a great, happy hope. What is the secret of this? It is that in his heart hope and love are joined together. (Rom 5,5) Paul's hope is not based on intellectual reasoning, on logical reflection, but on an inner certainty. For him, it is love that hopes for everything. That is why he writes that the hope of the one who loves is never shaken. Only, of course, what kind of hope and what kind of love are involved is very important here.
1) Look how briefly and simply Paul says: "But hope does not put you to shame" (Rom 5,5a) He does not expect to be disappointed in his hope at all. A very big statement, because one is usually very familiar with what the poet said, "Foolish, blind hope..." The Greek literature of the time of the Apostle Paul also constantly warned people to beware, for nothing is more precarious than human hope. Only the gods are not disappointed in their hopes. We ourselves know this well. How many times have we had our hopes like fireworks: promising to soar high, then burst and leave only a little smoke behind. How, then, can Paul say such a bold thing, that he has a hope that will not shame us, that will not be a bitter disappointment? What hope is this?
He is not talking about what we usually call idealism in the good sense. Because everyone can have ideals, ideals, dreams, beautiful, happy hopes, and it is good to have them. It's too bad if they don't have them anymore. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God will vouch for our hopes and ideals. Nor is it always certain that such ideals are correct. For, for example, the apostle Peter had a very different messianic ideal in his soul than the one Jesus had realised. Peter's ideal was that Jesus could not die. He had to be disappointed in his most sacred hope and expectation. Judas was also an idealist. When it was a question of which to hold on to - his ideal or the Messiah in Jesus - he gave up on Jesus. Even if our ideas are good and beautiful, even if they are true, they may not be in line with God's mind and will. We are often disappointed in our most beautiful and holy expectations. For example, when we say: it is impossible for this dear patient of ours not to be healed, if there is a God, He must have mercy on him. It is a fine and good hope, and the patient may yet die - we have hoped in vain for the good.
The hope Paul speaks of is not for the future imagination that we humans form in ourselves according to our own desires, but for God and His future imagination. In fact, do you know the difference between true hope and false hope? It is that false hope always looks to something, such as healing, success, avoidance of trouble, change of circumstances, and true hope always looks to Someone: to God. The living, the all-powerful, the loving, the redeeming God. In this Christian hope, what matters is not what I expect from God, but what does God expect from me? Because God has told us so much about His plans. Let me draw your attention to just a few of these future promises.
For example, He has definitely told us that we will remain His children, that no one will snatch His sheep out of His hand, that no one will separate His sheep from His love. So if anyone hopes in this, he will never be disappointed. This hope will never fail him. Then God has also made it unmistakably clear that the work we do in His name, for His reign, will never be in vain. It is written. It will always have meaning and even results. You can hope for that too. Jesus also said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. So it is not that we are facing a slow decline, extinction and the disappearance of Christianity on earth, but that it will be renewed and triumphant. Only you will not be left out of it! And Jesus spoke of God's reign being completed in the world, of the powers of redemption triumphing in the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, the eternal glory of God. Such a future is worth living, worth suffering, worth sacrificing for! So we are not waiting for total darkness, not for the night to come, but for the day to come, for a great happy sunrise, for us to go deeper into the light. Behold, such are God's plans for the future before us, and these divine plans are stretching the strings of the Christian church's hope almost to the limit. It is to this hope that the apostle truly says: "But hope does not put us to shame" - we are not disappointed! That is certain! For this, even to die is worthwhile.
2) But why is this hope so certain? Paul does not explain, he does not prove. A man without hope cannot be convinced by arguments anyway. Nor does Paul point to objective facts, such as the fact that God always fulfils what he promises, as in the events of Christmas. No! Paul is saying that the secret of this unshakable hope is something else - it has an inner basis, an inner motive: love. But what kind of love? This is what the apostle says: "the love of God". In other words, it is the divine love that is realized for us in the person and sacrifice of Jesus. For in Jesus nothing less than God himself appeared on earth, and appeared to embrace this sinful human world with his love. Jesus: this precious name means that God opens his arms and his heart to us in a great, forgiving, redeeming love.
Moreover, the apostle goes on to say that God not only shows this infinite love to us, not only proclaims it to us, but that this love is "poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit". This unheard of great love of God could not abide in the heart of God, it overflowed the channels of heaven and was poured out. This is what the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit actually means: to be filled with the love of God. Saturation with divine redeeming love. And indeed: those people - the disciples - began to love this world, the people, as much as God loved Jesus. Even to their Master's murderers, they happily preached the gospel of salvation. Indeed, the miracle happened to them, as Paul says in our passage. (Rom 5,5b)
God has never since withdrawn this Spirit of love. Pentecost is as unrepeatable a fact as Good Friday. That is why we can have an unshakable hope, even today. For if God's love also permeates our hearts through his Spirit, we can look forward to the future with the same good hope as the Apostle Paul. When I look at people with the love of God in my heart, I see not only what those people are like - how petty, hateful, vile, hateful, ugly - but also what those same people can become through Jesus, through the power of the grace of redemption. And then I see them as future dear, beloved children of God, "who will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth." (1Tim 2,5) So I have a good hope for people. For all people!
But I can also have the same good hope in my heart for the fate of the whole world with God's love in my heart. And that is because on this earth there once stood a cross, a great, bloody cross on which God's love made flesh suffered as an evil-doer condemned to death. This cross is a testimony to the fact that God has taken the destiny of this earth into his hands, that God has already done much good in what he has begun on this earth, for this earth. God spared no sacrifice for this life on earth. And then one thing is absolutely certain: even the troubles and misfortunes will end with a favourable and joyful result. God will turn even suffering to the good of this world.
Yes: we look at the world realistically, without illusions, but always taking into account the goodness, the power, the might, the irresistible love of God. I do not know what will come to us in 1961, whether it will be more or less difficult than last year, but I do know one thing: this year of 1961 will also be the year of the reign of Jesus Christ! Then we can already look forward to it with good hope!
Do you see now why there is so little good hope in men? It is because Jesus once said, "In the last days, love will grow cold in many." (Mt 24,12) The basis of hope is love. We can truly hope when we can love! And we can love when God's love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. In order to be able to look forward and move forward with unashamed hope, now and always, we must take very seriously the prayer we sing:
My only hope, O God, is in you;
Come and look upon me, O leave me not!
Be not so far from me, have mercy on thy faithful servant,
Lord God, do not forsake me
(Canto 276, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 1 January 1961.
Lesson
Róm 5,1-11