The days since March 2020 have been hard. The pandemic may be grinding to an eventual end, but it’s not the definitive, victorious, CLEAR ending we had hoped for in the early days.

It turns out that a pandemic – much like any other disaster – leaves all kinds of scars and altered realities in its wake. Our hospitals continue to struggle, people are burned out and thin on compassion, students are not where they should be after two years of interrupted schooling, and all the problems we had before Covid (climate change, poverty, nations that look to dominate others, violence, famine….) are still there. They didn’t magically disappear while we were all focussed on case counts and mask mandates and vaccination rates.

It’s enough to drive one to despair.

So I was grateful and greatly moved when I read this in my Facebook feed this past week:

Our hope might be beaten, might be spitting out a tooth, but DOES rise for another go.

And at this time of year, we are reminded again that our hope is Jesus. The child who comes into the world helpless, but nonetheless will overcome the world, will overcome death. A hope like that isn’t easily beaten or dismissed. And in that we know our hope rose again on the third day, and after a time, ascended back to heaven – our hope is eternal.

It’s a thought I reach for when the world drives me towards despair. And it has never let me down.

Our hope is eternal.

This season, may we reach for radical hope, and find that its name is Jesus.