Consider the Genuineness of your Hope

Is this the Genuine Article?

If one were to measure the Christian faith by the behaviour of the disciples right after the resurrection, one might conclude that there is nothing in it! A religious teacher is born, gathers a few followers, and dies. End of story. Let's get back to the real world – back to fishing, tent-making, high-teching, or whatever. Forget Calvary and the empty tomb! Turns out it was a hoax!

No one likes to be a party to a hoax. It's not a pleasant feeling to have been duped. Life is replete with examples of famous fakes. When the eighteenth-century forger, William Henry Ireland, successfully passed off as genuine fragments of the scripts of Hamlet and King Lear, he became even more daring and came up with a lost play of Shakespeare's. In its wake have followed Abraham Lincoln's Love Letters, Hitler's diaries, Mussolini's diaries, Jack the Ripper's diaries, and Howard Hughes' autobiography. All fakes! A century ago (1912) the Natural History Museum in London put the Piltdown Skull on display. Reputedly 500,000 years old, scientists and the public were fascinated by it. Fifty years later (1953) it was discovered that the jaw and the skull sections came from different creatures and were much younger than had been thought.

When one buys an article of clothing with a designer label – and I assume that few of us do – we expect it to be the genuine article. We don't want a knock-off. When we get our change back from the purchase, we don't want counterfeit currency. When one buys a painting by Rembrandt – and I assume that few of us have – we expect it to be the real thing. When we buy a painting by Gerbrandt, we expect it to be the real thing. We don't want an imitation.

We have a similar reaction to people whose profession of faith is stellar, but whose daily example rings hollow. We call them hypocrites. The Apostle Paul told the Christians in Rome, "Let love be genuine...." (Romans 12:9) And to the Corinthians he put it more bluntly, telling them that their speech may be impeccable, but if it is not matched by love, it sounds much like a "noisy gong or a clanging cymbal". (1 Corinthians 13:1) They may have an incredible breadth of learning and knowledge, but without love to lend it some purpose and humanity, it's worth zilch! (13:2) Any one of them may be given to flamboyant gestures and dramatic acts of devotion, but if he or she lacks love, it's nothing but smoke-and-mirrors! A show! It will put not one more gem in their much-coveted heavenly crown! (13:3) Let love be genuine.

Is your Faith Genuine? Is your Hope Genuine?

The authenticity of their faith may have been in the minds of the Christians to whom the Apostle Peter wrote his first letter. They felt just like the disciples who had cowered in their locked room, because one July about thirty years (64 A.D.) after Jesus' death fire broke out in the city of Rome, ravaging the city for three days. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (ca.56-ca.117), a senator and an historian of the Roman Empire, later placed the blame for the fire on the Emperor Nero. The emperor, however, made Christians the scapegoat, and the subsequent persecution of Christians was horrendous. Families were torn apart and Nero's sadistic thugs took delight in separating children from parents and husbands from their wives so that one could witness the suffering of the other. Twenty years ago, when our family visited South Africa, a former inmate of the infamous Robin Island prison recounted a similar experience, his tormentors making his wife watch as he was tortured! What evil lurks in the human heart!

To the Christians suffering under Nero's perverse direction, Peter wrote, "These (trials) have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, ...refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:7, NIV) A Christian faith refined by difficulties is of "greater worth than gold," and until it is tested it may be nothing but fool's gold, with all the lustre and colour of gold but of little value.

François Fénelon (1651-1715) was a theologian, poet and writer during the reign of King Louis XIV – a seventeenth-century court preacher, if you will – and one Sunday the king and his attendants arrived for worship only to find no one else there! The king demanded that the preacher explain himself. Replied Fenelon, "I had published that you would not come to church today, in order that your Majesty might see who serves God in truth and who flatters the king."

Counterfeit Christians are those moved more by flattery than be truth. Counterfeit Christians tend to be self-centred, more concerned with their individual faith than with being faithful. Bogus believers tend to be negative, heavy on condemnation, light on charity. They tend to be self-absorbed, their witness revealing more about themselves than about the God to whom they ostensibly bear witness. They rarely inspire hope in others.

The Apostle Peter wrote, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...." (1 Peter 1:3-9) The genuineness of the faith of the believers living in Rome is apparent in their ability to survive and transcend the onslaught of persecution. The power of the faith that embraced the resurrection of Jesus was amazing. It gave rise to a conviction that grew deep within the suffering community's heart, creating a hope so genuine that little could shake it. Given their deep-rooted hope, Nero's psychopathic persecution became but a temporary trial that would give way to life – abundant, full and everlasting life! They might become martyrs to Nero's madness, but their hope – the living hope of the resurrection – is imperishable, says Peter. (1 Peter 1:4)

One of the most striking and enduring images of Christian hope I have come across is the story of a group of Japanese Christians meeting in their half-destroyed church for their first Christmas after the atomic bombing of their city, singing "Joy to the World!" The image of a post-nuclear holocaust Christmas Carol boggles the mind! It also bolsters the spirit. No place, however devastated, can keep out Christian hope. No person, however deep the despair, is immune to Christian hope. No relationship, however deep the fracture, is beyond the hope of healing.

C.S.Lewis acknowledged that the Christian faith began in dismay, thinking, I imagine, of the confusion immediately following the resurrection, but he said: "Christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable hope." It means that we will never find ourselves in an absolute cul-de-sac. There is always the possibility of a new future. There is always the possibility that grace will transform human folly and sin.

The Apostle Peter is an amazing example of the power of hope. He was so eager to give Jesus the right answer but so often got it wrong. He tried to approach Jesus on the water, but sank immediately. He denied Jesus three times, and wept bitterly about it, but about three months later we find him in Jerusalem, having regained his confidence and telling the people there: Yes, Jesus was crucified – he died – "...but God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power." (Acts 2:24) If death could not hold Jesus, it also appears that disgrace could not hold Peter in its power.

What a difference the power of the resurrection makes! Thus the New Testament declares, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ...I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)

AMEN