BY JOHN B. WONG

ODERN HUMANS ARE OBSESSED with health and health-related research. And of late there has been a growing interest (and much research) as regards the linkage between the state of the mind (positive emotions, stress, depression) and our immune system. It is the immune system that functions in the maintenance of health (the control of cancer, for example, and AIDS and other life-threatening diseases).¹

Depression, in which hopelessness is often a dominant characteristic, affects 57 percent of older adults for some period of their lives, and it is correlated with poor immunity.² Research has linked positive emotions, hope being one of them, to heightened levels of attention, cognition, and action, and to enhanced physical, intellectual, and social resources.³ In a longitudinal study of 180 nuns from different convents in the U.S., researchers observed that experiencing positive emotions, such as happiness, hope, and love, in early adulthood can lead to a longer life.⁴

Hope is what keeps us alive. It is no less essential than the air we breathe or the water we drink. Wartime stories indicate that prisoners of war who lose hope also lose the will to live. The experience of the survivors of the World War II Bataan death march is a good example. Without hope, emotional death soon set in, followed by physical demise. Sociologists tell us that 20,000 to 50,000 young- adult suicides in the United States were all preceded by depression and hopelessness.

For those who hold the Bible as the Word of God, hope is certainly not a strange word. It endures with faith and love when other gifts come to an end (1 Cor. 13:8-13).

In both the Old and New Testaments hope is a major recurrent theme. It is a coping resource in the face of discouragement, despair, defeat, disaster, and death. Hope bridges the suffering and imperfection of this world with the glorious eternal life yet to come.⁵

We read in 2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17, "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word" (NIV). And in Romans 15:13 Paul proclaims, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (NIV).

Thus we see that all three persons of the Godhead-God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit-are sources of our hope. I call this the trinitarian hope, a heavenly gift that brings us encouragement, strength, peace, and joy.

Let us now examine the anatomy of Christian hope and study some of its components.

1. The word "hope" in the biblical context
There are a number of Hebrew words for hope, among them qawah (Isa. 40:31): "Those who wait on the Lord [or those who hope in the Lord] shall renew their strength" (NKJV); and yahal (Ps. 42:5): "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God" (NKJV). Other words (hakah, sabah, betah, tiqwah) have meanings of waiting, or trusting, or security and assurance. The most frequently used Greek word for hope or expectation is elpis, as in Colossians 1:27: "Christ in you, the hope of glory"⁶

Now, there's a difference between "wish" and "hope." "Wish" refers simply to a person's desire that is expressed with only a mild degree of certainty that it will ever become a reality. Hope, on the other hand, carries with it a forward posture with an ardent desire and reasonable confidence that what is expected will be realized. Hope has the power to arouse in us, like nothing else can, a passion for the seemingly impossible. Most of the monumental achievements in history have been made possible by those with vision and hope.

2. Is linked with happiness and healing
In The Ministry of Healing, page 165, Ellen G. White quotes from Paul in Romans 8:24: "We are saved [healed] by hope." Healing is defined as restoring health, making whole what is broken and shattered. Healing brings happiness to the healer as well as to the healed. The Greek root for "save" is sozo, which is also the word for "heal," to make whole. Matthew 9 records the story of a woman who'd been bleeding for 12 years. "If only I can touch His garment," she said to herself as she followed Jesus, "I will be healed." It was an expression of hope. In verse 22 Jesus turned and saw her. "'Take heart, daughter,' he said, 'your faith has healed you.' And the woman was healed from that moment'" (NIV).

Faith was the basis of this woman's hope, and the realization of her hope in an upward spiral also increased her faith. The fulfillment of her hope convinced her that indeed Jesus was the healer and Savior. Thus hope can heal us and save us. But God's healing extends even beyond the physical realm. Its scope encompasses our whole being; its duration reaches to eternity in our resurrected body.

In Romans 5:2 Paul says, "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God" (NIV). Now, what is the glory of God? The word "glory" comes from the Greek doxa. It can refer, among other things, to God's power, majesty, goodness, holiness, righteousness, perfection, love, justice, wisdom, freedom, and infinity. I believe that the glory of God also includes the ultimate fulfillment of His plan for the universe, as well as His purpose that we will be wholly restored to His own image. But Paul goes on to say in verses 3 and 4 that we also rejoice in suffering, because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, does not disappoint us. Why? Because this hope is grounded in God's love. As he says in verse 5, "because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us" (NIV).

Because of God's love we can be assured of His forgiveness and grace even while we are yet sinners, and we can also have this glorious hope of total healing of our brokenness. Thus our hope rests in God's glory and power and goodness, not in ourselves or in other human beings. This gives our hope a solid foundation.

In our human experience, hope resting on things, people, and circumstances often ends in disillusionment. But not so with the Christian hope. We know whom we have believed, and are convinced that He is able to guard what we have entrusted to Him for that day (see 2 Tim. 1:12, NIV). God is faithful. He has the power and resources to deliver what He has promised. And He is all love and goodness. We can count on the fact that what He is going to deliver is for our good and for our joy.

3. Is creative and proactive
Hope leads us to think of life's different options, whereas hopelessness (with depression) narrows our perspectives and blinds us to potential realities and possibilities. Hope is creative, proactive, ever on the lookout for possibilities. In hopes of searching for a cure for rabies, Louis Pasteur invented the rabies vaccine. Not satisfied with the then-existing political situation in America, Abraham Lincoln used the civil war that was being waged as an opportunity to abolish the evils of the slave system. The list can go on.

I believe that there is in hope an active element and a passive one. Passive hope comes in an ordinary manner, such as seeing the sights promised by a tour brochure. But making a decision to continue to hope for a medical breakthrough or a miracle by God in the face of terminal illness constitutes what I call an active hope-a hope against hope. The journalist Norman Cousins put it this way: "Don't deny the diagnosis, but defy the verdict."

4. Is patient and persistent
Life consists of waiting, doesn't it? If we do not have hope while waiting, waiting can be torturous and can breed depression. Hope is a powerful antidote against the anxiety and anguish of waiting. It keeps us optimistic.

Joshua's army was defeated at Ai right after a triumphant victory in Jericho (Joshua 7:4, 5). In utter despair and deep depression Joshua fell facedown to the ground, complaining to God. The Lord said to him, "Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?" (verse 10, NIV). I can almost hear the Lord saying to Joshua, "Possess yourself, think creatively, be patient with your defeat and obstacles. Persistence will win the day." In Isaiah 40:31 the prophet proclaims, "Those who wait on the Lord [or those who hope in the Lord] shall renew their strength . . . they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (NKJV). Hope buoys up our vision of the achievable goal.

5. Points to the beyond
Hope beckons Christians to a transcendent vision of eternal life with God, the eschatological consummation.

In everyone's life, sooner or later, there will be disappointment, discouragement, depression, and despair. All our existential hopes amount to nothing. Even if the best we could hope for should come true in every respect (that in itself is unlikely), illness, old age, sorrow of one kind or another, and eventually death will haunt us. That is a given if the Lord should tarry. Our ultimate hope against life's futility and meaninglessness must rest on an infinite, all-powerful God, who can gift us with a resurrected body.

Go with me to the hills of Golgotha that Friday evening. What could be more hopeless than to see Jesus dying on the cross? God, who was to save us, is hanging on the cross, and the world goes back to doing its own thing. All the followers have left by now. All you hear is the howling of some wild animals. Where is God? Does He care? Why doesn't He speak? Why doesn't He do something? Where is justice? What is love? Quo vadis-where do we go from here?

The Sabbath intervenes with only the silence of God-and there is only hope to combat the seeming hopelessness. Then comes Sunday morning, and, hope against hope, He is risen. Risen indeed! He lives, and so shall we. Hallelujah! Faith conquers, hope triumphs!

Paul writes, "Faith, hope, and love abide" (NRSV). It may not be coincidental that Paul mediates hope between faith and love. We are to be grounded in our faith, buoyed up by our Christian hope, and only then can we truly love. In faith we hope for His soon return and for the consummation of the cosmic conflict. As Christians we long for that eternal rest and our resurrected body, while in the interim we engage in loving service to others.

Thus our hope is not idle, wasteful, or Pollyannaish. It is constructive, purposeful, steady, sure, secure. It is so because the basis of our hope is Jesus, who cannot lie. The Christian hope does not make us ashamed, because our God, the grantor of hope, is faithful and will not renege on His promise. Our hope is authentic and affirmed, because its guarantor is the Holy Spirit, who is ever present with us and provides us with the inner confirmation that our hope is real and that God can be trusted.

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¹ See Phil Evans, Frank Hucklebridge, and Angela Clow, Mind, Immunity, and Health: The Science of Psychoneuroimmunology (London: University of Westminster Psychophysiology and Stress Research, 2000). See also Michael Irwin, "Depression and Immunity," in Psychoneuroimmunology, 3rd ed. (New York: Academic Press, 2001), vol. 2, pp. 383ff.
² Journal of Abnormal Psychology, February 2002, dealing with research by Dr. Lynanne McGuire of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Dr. J. Kiecolt-Glaser and R. Glaser of Ohio State University College of Medicine.
³ Barbara Fredrickson, "Cultivating Positive Emotions to Optimize Health and Well-being," Prevention and Treatment 3 (March 7, 2000).
⁴ Deborah Danner, Ph.D., et al., "Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings From the Nun Study," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80, no. 5 (2001).
⁵ Ps. 39:7; 42:11; 43:5; 71:5, 14; 119:116; 146:5; Prov. 10:28; 13:12; Acts 23:6; Rom. 4:18; 5:5; 8:24; 1 Cor. 13:13; Col. 1:27; 1 Thess. 2:19; Titus 1:2; 3:7; Heb. 6:19; 1 Peter 1:3.
⁶ We also find other Greek words for "expectation" and "waiting for." See E. Hoffman in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, Harper Collins, 1986), vol. 2, pp. 238-246; Walter Bauer, William Arndt, Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), pp. 252, 253.

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John B. Wong, M.D., a vascular surgeon, also holds a Ph.D. in theology and ethics and is a member of the adjunct faculty of religion at Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California.