The End of Hope

by Mathew Block

“I thought the dead who are already dead more fortunate than the living who are still alive. But better than both is he who has not yet been and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.”
– Ecclesiastes 4:2-3 –

It is a grim passage we read here. Solomon, that King of Israel renowned for his great wisdom, looks upon the things of earth and despairs in the meaninglessness of it all. Wealth, wisdom, and even family fail to satisfy in the end. We spend our lives in toil, merely to build up possessions that we cannot keep. All people are dust, and in the end we too shall die and return to dust. The life leading to that grave can be bitter too. The world is filled with injustice: the powerful oppress the weak; the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper.

“It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with,” Solomon laments. “I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 1:13-14).

Perhaps you have felt that kind of world-weariness before. I certainly have. There is much in this world that feeds into such frustration. Maybe it’s conflict in your family. Maybe it’s a dead-end job. Or maybe it’s nothing at all: just a sense of emptiness, a hole you cannot fill no matter how hard you try.

“It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with,” Solomon laments. Perhaps you have felt this kind of world-weariness before.

God knows we have other heartaches too, even inside the Church. Fewer and fewer Canadians identify as Christians and many congregations have shrunk accordingly. As secularization takes hold, we find family and friends uninterested in faith and even antagonistic towards it. In our churches, we find relationships between the family of God strained as people we trust—even leaders in our own church—let us down, and in spectacular fashion. Elsewhere in the world, we hear of Christians being slaughtered for their faith. It can leave us wondering: Is God paying attention at all? Does He even care?

In the midst of these trials, we come face to face with the mystery of God. We do not understand why He allows evil to befall His people, and it grieves us. We try in vain to find an answer, to discover some hidden meaning in the darkness. But we fail. And we lose hope.

In these circumstances, God comes calling after us, calling us to look to Christ. It is true that God’s ways are often hidden from us—He can feel distant or invisible. But Christ “is the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). That means God’s will for you is made visible in Christ. If you doubt that God loves you, if you doubt that He cares for you, then look to Christ: you will see God’s love for you there. The God who loved you enough to send His Son to die on a cross is still the same God who cares for you even now. Even when it hurts. Even when it all seems meaningless.

Nearly two millennia ago, a group of Judeans were facing that same pain and despair. They had met Someone that they thought made sense of it all, a Rabbi who gave purpose to their lives—even a Saviour. But then He was taken from them to die a cruel death. All they had left was His body—a symbol of all the hopes that had died with Him. It had all been for nothing.

But it was not for nothing. Hope did not stay dead because He did not stay dead. Christ arose. And because He lives we too will live. The end of hope is not despair. True hope—Christian hope—finds its end not in its destruction but in its fulfilment. Out of evil, God will finally bring good. Out of death, He will bring life.

The end of hope is not despair. True hope—Christian hope—finds its end not in its destruction but in its fulfilment. Out of evil, God will finally bring good. Out of death, He will bring life.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” the author of Hebrews writes (11:1). That hope will culminate one glorious day with something more than hope: the conviction of things seen. “For now we see in a mirror dimly,” St. Paul writes, “but then face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). The darkness, the pain, and the evil of this world will pass away, to be replaced by Christ and His Kingdom.

On that day we shall see Him face to face. And we shall know at last the blessed end of hope.

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Mathew Block is editor of The Canadian Lutheran and Communications Manager for Lutheran Church–Canada.

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