but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

1 Peter 3:15

This is a classic verse calling us to be witnesses to the gospel. And there is a lot to pay attention to in this verse. One quick observation from a thought this morning.

When are people going to notice hope that is in us and ask us to give a reason for it? This is going to happen when people see our situation as hopeless, in circumstances that they would not see as producing hope, yet we seem to have hope anyway. If our situation did not appear hopeless to them, then they would not need to ask us for a reason. And the word apologia, translated as defense, implies that they might even be asking in an accusatory tone. “What do you have to be hopeful about?” … with an undercurrent of, “you are a fool to have hope in your situation.”

I thought about my last blog post and the situation we face with our bodies as we age in this life. With our bodies, the ought….is gap gets wider as we age past our prime, even though we do more and more what we can to narrow the gap. So the experience that we have with our physical bodies becomes more hopeless the longer that we live.

Mark Twain wrote to a friend, “Lord save us all from old age and broken health and a hope-tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.” With our lives here on this earth, the Lord does not save us from old age and broken health. Instead he subjects us to them, just like the creation “was subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20).

The only hope-tree that is able to put out blossoms as we near the end of our lives is one that is nourished by faith in a life beyond death. So, if we live long enough, we will be in a situation where we need to give an answer for the hope that we have, and that hope will have everything to do with our faith in Christ as our Savior. That faith is our hope-tree because it produces the hope for a much better life than we are experiencing or have ever experienced. Our hope for that future is anchored in the promise of Jesus that it exists, and that He has secured our welcome into that new life for all eternity. When we share the reason for the hope that is in us while facing the hardships of growing old, we are sharing the gospel.