Easter Is Our Only Hope

I’m usually late to the party for big and popular shows or movies. My wife and I typically binge-watch shows that were popular 10 years ago, and we like that because we don’t have to wait for a year or two in between each season. The same goes with movies, so with recent trailers and ads about “Dune: Part Two” coming to theaters, we decided we should watch “Dune: Part One.”

I’m a sci-fi fan, and I grew up on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” so I was already interested in the premise of the movie. If you’re not familiar with “Dune,” Timothée Chalamet stars as Paul Atreides, a gifted and prophesied young man of great destiny who must travel to a dangerous and distant planet in the universe to ensure the future of his people even as sinister forces explode into conflict over the planet and a specific resource it has.

The planet itself is a desert wasteland. At one point in the movie, Paul’s mother asks a spiritual leader in reference to this planet and her son’s mission to head there, “Do you see so little hope?” This line resonated with me and got me thinking about our planet, the times in which we live, and those times in our lives when we may have a hard time seeing any hope.

Maybe you’re struggling in your marriage and it’s hard to see hope. Or perhaps your kids have gone down a dead-end road to self-destruction and you’re struggling to have hope for them to come to their senses. Perhaps you got an MRI result back and you got a diagnosis that offers little hope, or you’re struggling to have hope to ever beat an addiction or to have a resolution to a difficult situation. When we look at our world or our divisive politics, it’s hard to see more than a little hope.

From wars overseas still raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, to the aftereffects of a pandemic still echoing in our society, to a now almost certain presidential election rematch that most Americans have said in polls they don’t want, it's hard to see hope on the horizon. There’s almost a dread and underlying anxiety as we trudge through 2024, and if you’re like me and you’re deeply concerned about the country your children or grandchildren will grow up in, it’s hard to find any source of promise or hope for the future.

Sometimes we place our hope in a political figure or party to save us and give us hope, or we look to someone or something that can offer us even a glimmer of escape and promise from the pain and the despair we feel deep inside our souls. Yet the Bible tells us that there is one who offers real hope for ourselves, our lives, our future and for the world: Jesus Christ. Like the world in “Dune,” our planet is a mess, yet God sent his son not to some distant planet in a galaxy far away, but he sent him here, to be born in our world, to live the perfect life none of us could live, to die in our place for our sins, and to resurrect from the dead – now alive and ready to live in your heart and life if you are willing and you are ready to look to Jesus and receive him to be your hope, and to be your lord and savior.

“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4). Out of love and mercy, God offers you and I a new life through a life-changing and heart-filling relationship with himself through his son, Jesus Christ. We don’t have to settle for wishful thinking for the future; we can have a hope that is living, that is real, and that is based on the certainty that on Easter morning, God raised Jesus from the dead. And if he raised Christ from the dead, there is hope. There is hope for you and hope for me. There is hope for the future.

Because of Easter, you and I can say we don’t just see a little hope. We can say because of an empty tomb in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, we can see a lot of hope.

“Then you will know that I am the lord; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”- Isaiah 49:23

Stephen Mitchell is the senior pastor of Trinity Bible Church in Severna Park. He also is the host of a regular podcast, “Real Christian Talk with Pastor Steve,” available on all podcast platforms.