I once read a story about a maritime incident which occurred years ago off the coast of Massachusetts. A ship had accidentally rammed a submarine and the submarine, being disabled, sank. Crews of deep-sea divers worked diligently to try and find a way to free the crew that was still on board the submarine. After many hours, however, it soon became all too clear that time was running out and the possibility of being able to free the crew bleak.
As one diver worked frantically to find some sort of escape hatch or thin part of the hull, he suddenly heard what sounded like a faint tapping noise coming from the submarine. As he got closer to the area where the tapping sound was clearer, he put his helmet up against the hull and realized that he was hearing Morse code. His heart sank as the message became clear: Is … there … any … hope?
We’ve also heard stories of former POW’s who, when describing the horrific conditions and treatment they endured, would invariably be asked the question: “How did you survive such an ordeal?” And the answer was always the same: HOPE.
There is a wide range of emotions we can display depending on the situation we face and the mood we’re in. These emotions are evidence of our response, and they speak to the moment. They are a reactive answer to something which already took place. However, there is only one state of mind that feeds our sense of purpose and gives us a reason to move forward from one moment to the next, from one day to the next. We call it “hope”.
We can even go so far as to define hope as evidence of anticipatory excitement, evidence of something yet to be but, like faith, we believe in its promise. We haven’t seen it yet, but we know that if there is nothing else that comes with it, there will at least be the potential that it will be better than where we are. With hope, we don’t even ask for or demand guarantees though we might like to manipulate an outcome better suited to our liking. Hope, for all intents and purposes, is good enough.
As evidenced by the sailors and the POW’s in the stories I share, hope is the one thing that gave them a reason to hang on for just a little longer. In their minds there had to be something hanging before them, sort of like a carrot on a stick, which would give them a reason to move beyond the moment and into the next. For humans, I think, there has to be a reason to move, to dream, to even pray. It is because right before us is hope, which which gives us that reason to move into the next moment, that reason to hang on for a little while longer.
“Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Christ Jesus, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Romans 5:1-5
What do we hope for most? Paul tells the Romans that “hope does not disappoint”, but do we honestly give much thought to the Resurrection? I would suggest that the only time we really give any serious thought to the life that is to come is when a loved one passes from this life. Is this what the disciples had uppermost in their minds when they approached the tomb? It does not seem so. In John 20:1, Mary Magdalene is the only one mentioned who came to the tomb. In Luke 24:1, however, we are told that “they (Mary, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women) came to the tomb taking the spices they had prepared”, but there is no indication that they expected to find the tomb empty even though they had been told more than once by Jesus that He was to be raised on the third day. This was the third day.
What does this tell us? It is clear they had no idea what they were about to encounter, and it is implied by the mood of the story that the promise of the third day was all but forgotten. The spices prepared for Jesus’ body had more to do with customs of the culture than with any notion of a resurrection. It would appear that the momentum Jesus had begun had come to a halt. There was nothing left and the disciples were certainly mourning the loss of the One whom they loved, but they were about to perhaps return to their lives as though nothing had ever happened.
Even when they encountered the empty tomb and rushed back to tell the others of what had happened, there is still no hint of resurrection. In fact, in John 20:8-9 it is told that they reached the tomb, saw the clothing with no body, turned and left. The “other disciple … saw and believed” but it seems as though the only thing he really “believed” was that the women had told the truth; that the body of Jesus was no longer in the tomb. Verse 9 implies such when it is written that “they as yet did not understand the scripture, that He must rise from the dead.”
Whether there was any reason for the disciples to have any hope at this point according to what they knew is hard to say. It was not until Jesus made His appearance to Mary that it became clear. Even after she saw “the two angels”, she seemed clueless until she turned and saw Jesus.
It’s very strange that, throughout Jesus’ life and as many times as He reminded them that all this would take place but that He would be raised up on the third day, it never occurred to them that everything they had pinned their hopes on was unfolding right before their eyes, but they were still not able to comprehend that the HOPE they still had before them looked exactly like an EMPTY TOMB.
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