There’s a fine line between hope and despair. Nothing has made that clearer than the last few days. As I write, I’m sitting in my office at home trying to reflect on what has happened in the last few days in the nation’s capital city. Yesterday, when I actually began to write this article, I was at my office in London as fire engines, police cars and ambulances speed past on the way to Liverpool Street, King’s Cross, Russell Square and Tavistock Square to deal with the aftermath of terrorist bombs. London seemed to be in the grip of an eerie silence broken by the mourning wails of the sirens. As I made my way home, people waited tensely for trains and buses, knowing that just hours before fellow travellers, equally keen to reach their destination, had stepped onto public transport oblivious to the danger that lay in bags and briefcases by their feet. As I waited at London Bridge for a train, the tense atmosphere was punctured by regular calls for the drivers of vehicles parked outside to move them. Despair and fear placed their hands around peoples’ throats in London over the last few days and tried to squeeze the life from them.
Just a few days before the bombs, I had decided to write on the subject of hope. I was spurred on by the fact that I was again in London on the day the success of the Olympic bid was announced. When it was, the great city expressed a collective ‘Yes, we’ve done it.’ It was a yes of hope. Coincidentally, the day after Liverpool Football Club won the European Championship, I was at Anfield Stadium for a series of meetings, and was caught up in the euphoria of that cities, ‘Yes, we did it’ too. Both cities thought they could not achieve their dream – and both were proved wrong. The Olympics are coming to London and Liverpool won the cup. The residents of both found a new confidence – a confidence based on looking to the future not looking to the past. A confidence based on ‘hope’.
As the death toll rises in London, I am reminded of other terrorist atrocities that I have witnessed. My wife and I were in New York just a month after 9/11. There, too, the people of the city mourned. Yet they also showed a determination to keep going, not only because they knew they had to but because they wanted to – hope drove them forward. I am a Belfast boy and perhaps no other area of the UK has known or felt the pain of terrorism like Northern Ireland. I’ve had my fair share of bomb scares. I’ve been caught up in blasts. I’ve felt the ground shake beneath my feet and known that someone somewhere has just been murdered in the name of ‘freedom’. I can visit the graves of friends and family who died too young. I can stare into the faces of relatives who were caught in bomb blasts whilst on buses. What is it that keeps people going in such situations? What can we learn from these terrible atrocities?
Hope
Hope keeps people going. If we are victims of chance only, then there is little for us to look forward to. I applaud the police and the emergency services in London. Their determination and focus are exemplary. I am thankful to God for the commitment of so many heroic and brave people. Many owe their lives to them. I’m also thrilled at the prospect of the Olympics coming to the UK. I’m delighted at the regeneration it will bring to the East End. The Olympics give people hope because they rightly call on us to dig deep into ourselves, stiffen our resolve and aim for the highest – the motto of the Olympics is our motto for our lives – stronger, swifter, higher. These aspirations and dreams pull the best from us. And in a strange way, the atrocities in London and other places do the same. After the initial shock, we become determined that terrorists will not beat us. New York, Madrid, London, Belfast and Jerusalem are all bustling centres whose very existence proves that terrorism will never work. They each are parables of hope. However, human resolve is not enough to provide lasting hope.
Biblical
We are all in some way products of our past. But as Christians, we are also, and much more importantly, products of our future. The reality of the Kingdom breaking into life through Christ is something that has changed the world – and will continue to change it. The Hope that London needs, or Belfast or Madrid or New York or Jerusalem is not simply a non-descript feeling that things will be alright. Nor is it a humanistic feeling that if we dig into our resolve and try harder, we can make things better. Such notions of hope cheapen it too much. The Christian Hope is that the Kingdom will be established, pain will be no more and the lion will lie down with the lamb. The establishment of the Kingdom is so certain that it changes the here and now. The purposes of God are so sure that they reach back from a place we are yet to reach and they change the way we view our present. The very call of the Gospel echoed in Paul’s letter to Corinth, that we are to be ministers of reconciliation, pushes us as Christians to be heralds of hope – harbingers of something better. I am confidant of the future, not because it lies in the hands of Ken Livingstone, Tony Blair or George Bush. I am not hopeful because of science, technology, politics or the progress of human nature. I am confidant of the future because it lies in the hands of Almighty God.
Historically Grounded
I am confidant of God because of the reality of His Son. The Christian Hope is not pie in the sky when you die. It is firmly rooted in the soil of Jerusalem. The facts cause us to hope. Jesus lived, died, was buried and rose again. The cross and the tomb are empty – and those facts shape our future. Paul and Peter would describe this as a living hope. Because the crucifixion was followed by the resurrection, all things are possible. It is because of this hope that places like Madrid, London, New York, Belfast and Jerusalem can have a bright future. The resurrection has changed things. Not only are individuals transformed by this hope, they go on to become agents of transformation where they live – including these great cities and others around the world.
Available Virtue
Hope is real. Faith ties us to the God we cannot see. Love fills us with His presence and sends us into the world as His ambassadors. Hope is living in this moment of history knowing that it is shaped by the next, and the next and so on. Just around the corner is Christ. He imbues us with hope. Not only is He on the road ahead of us, He is walking toward us.
It is the reality of this hope that will see our nation and our world changed. Christian hope helps us understand that what we see is not all that there is. It shows us that we can achieve so much more and attain to so much higher because God is at work in the world. This reality shapes our cities and our world because it shaped and changes us. We are purified by hope – changed by it.
I’ll be back in the office on Monday. People will still be uneasy about the train, the tube and the bus. All of Britain will be a little more uneasy about its safety. As an Irishman, I’ve lived with that sense of uncertainty all my life. Over 3,000 people have died in Ireland in the last 35 years at the hands of terrorists. Yet that has not destroyed the future for Northern Ireland. Terror will not win the day anywhere. The reason is simple – His name is Jesus.
The Light shines in the Darkness, but the darkness can never understand, comprehend or overcome it – never has, can’t now and never will.
John 1:5 * Authors own translation.
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‘Excerpt from an article written by Rev Malcolm Duncan, Leader of Faithworks, for Christian Herald, July 2005.’
Rev Malcolm Duncan
Leader of Faithworks
1 Kennington Road
London SE1 7QP
