Hope

Saint Paul

Hope in Saint Paul

He also says in his defense before King Agrippa: "As for me, I thought I had to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26, 9). These two defenses have offered Paul good opportunities to respond and give reasons for the hope that was in him, according to that advice that Peter writes in his first letter: "always ready to give an answer to those who ask you the reason for your hope" (1 Pet 3, 15). To King Agrippa, Paul says verbatim: "Now I am on trial for my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, the promise of which our twelve tribes, constantly serving God night and day, await completion. Hope that I am accused by the Jews: Why is it considered inconceivable among you that God raise the dead?".
(Acts 26, 6-8).

The question of the Sadducees' trap made to Jesus shows that they did not understand well what the resurrection consisted of. After telling the story of the seven brothers who marry only one woman, at last the Sadducees ask: "In the resurrection, when they will rise again, whose wife she will be, since all seven had it for a wife?" (Mk 12, 23). When Jesus told his disciples to tell the transfiguration only "after the Son of Man rose from the dead. And they kept the thing for themselves, wondering, however, what it meant to rise again from the dead". (Mk 9: 9) But the resurrection announced by Jesus is quite another thing! "Those things that eye did not see, nor ear heard, nor did they ever enter man's heart, God has prepared them for those who love him" (1 Cor 2,9) and this is the object of our hope.

What has caused such a great hope in Paul to make him change course? Paul says: «I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?» (Acts 22, 7) The three accounts of Acts state that Paul saw a light and heard a voice, a voice who calls him by name! Only after he returned to Jerusalem while praying in the temple, Paul was rapt in ecstasy "and I saw Him"
(Acts 22, 17-18).

As Saul himself said, he was "full of zeal for God" (Acts 22: 3). What had been able to generate radical change in him in such a short time? Saul understood that the hope that he cultivated in his heart had to break all the limits to embrace the eternal One. He saw that his was a possible love, not only, but also real and attingible, even if arduous.

Paul saw that God fulfilled his promises, and he accomplished them in Jesus Christ. For this reason, before King Agrippa, he could say, "Nothing else says except what the prophets and Moses declared that it must happen, that is, Christ. He would have to suffer and that, first among the risen from death, he would have announced the light to the people and the pagans".
(Acts 26, 22-23).

Saul's question: What should I do? It makes us think that hope is not passive, it is not just a wait. In fact, Paul tells the Philippians "but I try to run to conquer it, because I was conquered too by Jesus Christ. Brothers, I do not think I have reached him yet. I only know this: forgetting what lies behind me and reaching out towards what lies before me, I run towards the goal, to the reward that God calls us to receive up there, in Jesus Christ".
(Fil 3, 12-14)

The three stories of conversion see it in view of a mission. In the first the Lord said to Ananias: "Go, because he is the instrument that I have chosen for me to bear my name before the nations, the kings and the sons of Israel" (Acts 9:15). In the second, Ananias says to Saul: "The God of our fathers has predestined you to know his will, to see the Just One and to hear a word from his own mouth, because you will be a witness to all men of the things you have seen and heard "(Acts 22: 14-15). In the third, it is Jesus who says to Saul: "But now stand up and stand up; I have indeed appeared to you to become minister and witness of those things you have seen of me and of those for which I will appear to you".
(Acts 26, 16).

Great hope is given to us, but it is not given to us as a gift. Founded on faith and nurtured by love, hope becomes the driving force to speak of the beloved, and "insist on time and time" (2Tm 4,2), and always be: "always ready to respond to anyone who asks reason for the hope that is in you".
(1 Pet 3:15).

If in "In hope we have been saved" (Rom 8:24), we can not fall back into fear because we have "received the Spirit who makes adoptive sons, through whom we cry out: Abba! Father!" There will be temptations however God teaches us how to face them, and therefore we must not be afraid, because: "If God is for us, who will be against us?" (Rm 8,31). For "Now I am left with only the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the just judge, will give me on that day; not only to me, but also to all those who have looked forward to his manifestation".
(2 Tim 4, 8).

For now: "We know, in fact, that all creatures are moaning, and they suffer until now the pains of childbirth, not only, but also we, who possess the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly waiting for adoption as sons, the redemption of our body ". (Rom 8: 22-24). Our hope is based on what we have seen and heard through faith, faith is the basis of our hope.

"Be joyful in hope, be constant in adversity, assiduous in prayer" (Rm 12,12), there "The God then of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope" (Rm 15 , 13) And enlighten "the eyes of the mind that you may understand what is the hope of his call, such as the richness of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what the extraordinary greatness of his power towards us that we believe" (Eph 1, 18) and give us wisdom to "live in the present century with wisdom, with righteousness and piety, renouncing impatience and worldly desires, waiting for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of the great God and Savior our Jesus Christ".
(Titus 2,12-13).