Source
Today, a great effort is needed to find the reasons for hope. Those who place their trust in God, have the responsibility "to give an answer to those who ask you the reason for your hope"
(1Pet 3,15).
It is up to them to grasp what the hope relates to faith, contains in the specific and to be able to live it.
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Source of Hope
If hope looks to the future, it has roots in the present day of God for the Bible, since the source of hope is in God who is love. A love that tirelessly seeks and loves us.
God, through the Holy Scriptures, makes himself known to men and calls them to establish a relationship with him through a covenant. The Bible establishes the characteristics of this covenant: "The Lord, God of piety and mercy, slow to anger and rich in grace and truth" (Ex 34: 6). He continues: "All his paths are mercy and faithfulness" (Ps 25,10). Again: "Your mercy and your truth continually guard me" (Ps 40:12). It ends: "Mercy and fidelity embraced each other, justice and peace were kissed" (Ps 85,11). These Words show that God is infinitely good, kind, caring, diligent, caring and never abandons those who call to themselves.
The hope according to the Sacred Texts must rest on a good, immutable and caring God in those who believe in Him. Through faith it is therefore possible to hope in a world that evolves according to the will of God and through love.
Hope in the Bible is often related to the promise. This promise begins with the story of Adam: "I will bless you, God said to Abraham, and all the families of the earth will be blessed in you" (Gn 12,2-3). The promise is rooted also through the relationship with God that speaks to me now, and invites me to make concrete choices in my life. Saint Paul says: "all the promises of God are already a reality" (2 Corinthians 1,20). It is not a Word resounded in Palestine two thousand years ago, but still valid today, because Jesus Christ is Risen: "I am with you every day, until the end of time".
(Mt 28,20).
St. Paul in another text is even clearer. "Hope then does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rom 5: 5). Far from being a simple wish for the future, Christian hope is the presence of divine love in person.
Christian hope does not project into a life made of dreams, or the desire to dream in a better world where human hopes are projected, but to see in this world the seeds of God grafted by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a hopeful source of energy and vigor that attracts people to live on the values of love and not on possession or competition, which is now fashionable in our corpulent societies.
The Bible does not ask us to passively witness the fulfillment of the divine promise. God said to Abraham "Go from your country and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you".
(Gn 12,1).
Abraham is called to make his life a pilgrimage, to live a new beginning to enter into the promise of God.
Saint Paul evokes the suffering of the creation that is waiting and compares them to the pains of childbirth. And he continues: "Even we who possess the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly" (Rom 8: 18-23). Faith does not make the believer a privileged place outside the world, but we groan with the world, sharing its pain. We live this situation with hope, knowing that in Christ: "the darkness is disappearing and the true light already shines".
(1 Jn 2.8).
To hope is to discover the depth of today, a life that goes beyond. Here and now there are already seeds of a renewed world which at the right time will grow and bear their fruit. In the future the divisions will be overcome in order to live as brothers and sisters, without selfishness or abuse, in one big family in God. This is the great hope that can ignite the fire of love on earth.
It is necessary to follow the teachings of our Lord to live in love and trust in him: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man".
(Jer 17,5).
