We are returning to the theme of hope this week. Hope has been a key idea for us the past 6 months since Advent and this week we are noting that hope finds its fulfillment in the resurrection and assertion of Jesus. We can have that hope because Jesus, as the hope of the world, came and offers us the hope of new life.

If you were to stop and examine your life, or maybe just this past week so far, what do you think you have been holding on too for hope? Has it been the promise or pursuit of a pay check? Enough groceries to hold out long enough to survive this pandemic? We are presented with opportunities daily to place our hope in something. So ask yourself, what you hoping in?

Easter gives us an opportunity to question what our hope is in. And it gives us this challenge to, like Jesus’ disciples, hope in the resurrection. The find hope in new life with Christ. I don’t know exactly what this would look like for you or what it might change in your life, but I encourage you to think about that today.

Well, I said yesterday that today we would talk more about the Heidelberg Catechism. A catechism is simply a set of questions and answers that are intended to teach. We actually use a catechism in our children’s ministry. The song we have been learning, Christ Our Hope in Life and Death, is actually written as a question and response, like a catechism would do. And it is actually written to put into song the first question and answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. 

The question is “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” 

The answer is “That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.”

And the song we are learning gives us many additional questions that come from this one. Each verse has its own set of questions and answers meant to draw the listener into a unifying theme. And then each verse ends with an expressive chorus meant to lift the singer and remind them of the ultimate hope we have in Christ.

Christ Our Hope In Life And Death

Verse 1

What is our hope in life and death
Christ alone Christ alone
What is our only confidence
That our souls to Him belong
What holds our days within His hand
What comes apart from His command
And what will keep us to the end
The love of Christ in which we stand

Chorus

O sing hallelujah
Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death

Verse 2

What truth can calm the troubled soul
God is good God is good
Where is His grace and goodness known
In our great Redeemer's blood
Who holds our faith when fears arise
Who stands above the stormy trial
Who sends the waves that bring us nigh
Unto the shore the rock of Christ

Verse 3

Unto the grave what shall we sing
Christ He lives Christ He lives
And what reward will heaven bring
Everlasting life with Him
There we will rise to meet the Lord
Then sin and death will be destroyed
And we will feast in endless joy
When Christ is ours forevermore