John begins his gospel in such an interesting way. “In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed... God created…, and nothing was created…The Word gave life... It’s all past tense and talking about what’s already happened – what already was. It’s almost like John is saying, “If I’m going to tell you the story of Jesus – if you’re going to understand how hope works – I have to start at the beginning. And by “the beginning,” I don’t mean Mary and Joseph and Bethlehem and all the stuff you heard in Sunday School. I have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to the beginning of creation. The beginning of TIME. That’s where the story really begins.
John wants us to understand that hope is not a new thing that we came up with all on our own. Hope is something God had in mind for you to live in from all the way back at the beginning of time. And as he’s writing about it, John knows that it was ALL the way back there… that hope was lost. That’s where the need for hope developed. Hope is a lot older than you think. John isn’t talking about hope like you HOPE to get a new bike at Christmas. Or you HOPE you get a big bonus check from work at the end of the year.
God created human beings with certain longings for connection at our core – connection to Him and to one another. As John begins his gospel, he’s saying that those longings come out of us as individual hopes… I have a longing for connection and relationship… so… I hope I can find someone who won’t reject me. I have a longing for joy… I hope I can find it in a way that’s life-giving and not life-sucking… I have a longing for purpose… I hope I can find my calling… Do you see how this works?
Here's the reason John connects hope with the beginning of time and not the beginning of your job, or the beginning of your relationship, or the beginning of anything else in your individual life: It’s because he’s trying to tell you that real hope is older than you are. It comes from something eternal, ancient, and deep. Real hope comes from the ancient past. Everything about this passage is in the past tense… until verse 5 – where John says – The light shines (PRESENT TENSE) and the darkness can never (FUTURE) extinguish it.
That’s good news because most of the things I hope for in my life are based on what I’ve known and what I’ve seen and what i’ve experienced. My capacity for hope is very much limited by the context of my life. I’ll prove it to you:
If I’m in a relationship, and it’s not going well – could be a marriage, could be a friendship, whatever – but if I’m going to hope the relationship is going to get better, then I probably have a specific idea of what that better looks like based on the context of that relationship. I HOPE we can overcome this conflict. I HOPE we can get through this season. I HOPE we can work through these issues. What you’re hoping for is tied to what you’re struggling with! I HOPE I can overcome this addiction. I HOPE I can make it another day. I HOPE the money lasts. I HOPE I don’t screw up parenting my kids and they turn out to be ax-murderers – hope is always contextual. What I’m hoping for in my situation is dependent on what I’m struggling with.
John says that if you want to really live in hope – stop tying your hope to YOUR past, YOUR EXPERIENCE, YOUR KNOWLEDGE, AND YOUR IDEA ABOUT WHAT’S POSSIBLE IN YOUR LIFE AND START TYING IT TO SOMETHING DEEPER! HOPE COMES FROM THE PAST, BUT IT DOESN’T STAY THERE! Hope isn’t limited to what you’ve known – it’s based on what God has already done!
Some of us, we don’t even know what to hope for in our life because our hope is tied too hard to our context. You grew up in a dysfunctional home, so you’re worried you’re going to create one in your family. You struggle with an addiction, so your greatest hope is just survival to get to the next hit or high. You struggle with insecurity, so your HOPE someone will validate you and there’s no limit to the length you’ll go to in order to get it – because your hope is tied to what you’ve known in the moment. Your hope is tied to your context. John would say – you want to talk about HOPE? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO HOPE FOR YET!
God’s idea of the kind of hope you can live in is bigger than what you’ve known so far! John says, “I’m not even going to go through the whole genealogy of Jesus! I’m not even going to try to recount most of the prophecies about Jesus. I’m not even going to start this story with Bethelehem. WHY?! BECAUSE HOPE CAN’T BE TIED TO THE HUMAN PAST. THE HUMAN PAST IS STORY AFTER STORY OF ONE JACK-WAGON AFTER ANOTHER WHO LOST HOPE AS THEY WERE SEARCHING FOR IT! THEY DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR! If you want to know where HOPE comes from? It’s not from you’ve experience! And it’s not from anything YOU know. And it’s not from anything YOU THINK IS NORMAL!
John says hope goes ALL the way back – we’re going to tie our hope to what we’ve known because what we’ve known hasn’t worked. And if you tie your hope to the past, if you’re going to limit your hope to what you know today about your life… then you’re going to live a much smaller life than you were created to liv. We’ve got to connect hope to God’s imagination about our lives, not our own. We’ve got to get our hope out of our heads, and our broken hearts, and our shattered dreams, and our hurting spirits – because if that’s going to be the origin of our hopes, it’s going to hold us back from what we can become. If I anchor my hope, LIMIT my hope to just what I’ve know, then my hope stays small, and it ties me to a specific context and a past – something like:
I THOUGHT MY MARRIAGE WAS GOING TO TURN OUT THIS WAY… I THOUGHT WE WOULDN’T STILL BE STRUGGLING WITH THIS BY NOW… I THOUGHT THEY WOULD NEVER LEAVE ME… I THOUGHT THAT’S WHAT BEING A GOOD PARENT LOOKED LIKE… I THOUGHT THAT I’D NEVER LOSE THEM… I THOUGHT I’D NEVER STRUGGLE WITH THAT – HOW MUCH LONGER ARE YOU GOING TO STAY TIED TO WHAT YOU THOUGHT WOULD HAPPEN IN THE PAST? HOW MUCH LONGER HOW MUCH LONGER ARE YOU GONNA BASE YOUR HOPE ON WHAT HAS BEEN INSTEAD OF ASKING GOD WHAT COULD BE!?
Wouldn’t it be better to tie your hope to God? Because if God is really with me in my hope, then I can ask –
God, what would this relationship look like if YOU were putting it back together?
God, what would my purpose look like… if I believed YOU were calling me?
God, what strength would I have to raise my kids, or beat my addiction, or overcome this situation… if I tie my hope not to what I know… But to what YOU do?
I can’t anchor my hope to my past. It’s going to weigh me down and hold me back. I need something that’s going to pull me forward.