Focus: He's Our Hope

Text: Lk.24:21

"But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel…"

The disciples of Jesus Christ followed and observed Him everywhere He went. They saw how He lived, the miracles He performed, and listened to His teachings, and they came to the conclusion that He was no ordinary man. They described Him as a prophet who was "mighty in DEED and WORD before God and all the people" (Lk.24:19). 

He was a dynamic man. His deeds were exhibits of the enormous power that He possessed. His words were infused with explosive and constructive energy. Moses was described by Stephen as "mighty in WORDS and in DEEDS," but Jesus Christ was "mighty in DEEDS and WORDS." Meditate on that for a moment and let it sink into you. 

God-sent people possess power. You can't function without unction, no, not if you are sent of God.

Jesus' disciples saw Him as their Hope - the Hope and Redeemer of Israel. They said, "But we TRUSTED that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." The word 'trusted' is elpizo in the Greek, and that is the word for hope. So you can see how faith and hope are connected. Jesus Christ became their hope. Every time they looked at Him they saw hope. He was to them hope personified or embodied. They looked at Him and all they could see was the future redemption of Israel. 

But all of a sudden, events turned against their hope, and according to them, "the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him" (Lk.24:20). In an instant, their hope failed them. They felt miserable and downcast. All they could visualize was gloom in the horizon. Their day was turned into night at the death of their hope. They were shattered beyond measure. 

As you may know, life ends where hope ends. Hopelessness is a form of death. We die the moment certain persons die on whom we have hung our hopes. Have you ever hung your hopes on someone and suddenly he dies or becomes incapacitated for life? Those who kill our hopes end up killing us. Everywhere we look we see graveyards of hope. Israel said of themselves, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts" (Ezk.37:11). The loss of hope makes living corpses out of people. Suicides occur when and where hopes are lost. The two disciples on their way to Emmaus were going home from Jerusalem totally devastated and dejected.

I have good news for you. Those who have made Jesus Christ their hope will never be ultimately disappointed.

You will never be put to shame, having Christ as your hope. Christ our hope never fails. Christ in us is the hope of glory. The two disciples later discovered that the stranger they had been talking to was indeed their very hope, now resurrected from the dead. They have been talking to their one and only Hope without knowing who He was. He did not disappoint. He kept His word. Three days after His death He came back to life and appeared to His own disciples. He restored their hope and joy. 

Christ our Hope is alive today and forever. From the grave He arose, and today He lives in us and abides with us.

The hope we have placed in Christ will never fail. He came back from the land of the dead to prove that. Our dead hope eventually resurrected. Jesus, their Hope that seemed dashed, came back from the grave and walked with them. They thought it was all over but God said otherwise. Christ is our sure and solid hope. He will fulfill every word He has said to you. Trust Him and calm your nerves! Remember that He is mighty in deed and word! He's our Hope!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter