Finding Hope it Midst of Despair
Living Resurrection Hope When the News Feels Overwhelming
This morning, like so many mornings, I opened the New York Times app. Within one swipe of my finger came famine, data hacks, political unrest, ecological collapse. All the despair the world can muster condensed into pixels, headlines, and push alerts. Despair arrives not with a knock, but with a buzz in your pocket.
I’m not the only one who feels it. Preacher and podcast host Dennis Sanders wrote on Substack this morning: “I miss Substack notes of last summer. It was filled with interesting thoughts and ideas. Now I get note after note of despair.” Even in the digital spaces where we once went for creativity and connection, the shadows creep in.
And that’s where Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 15 cut to the heart of things: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile… If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Paul does not minimize despair. He intensifies it. If death wins, if despair gets the last word, then hope is nothing more than wishful thinking.
The Uselessness of Hope Without Resurrection
Paul’s honesty resonates with our headlines. If Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching, all our praying, all our “thoughts and ideas,” are useless. We are left scrolling despair.
This is why false hopes collapse so quickly. Political fixes, economic growth, new technology may ease symptoms, but they cannot defeat despair itself. If resurrection is not true, then despair has the final word, and Paul is right: we are fools to hope.
But Christ Has Been Raised
And yet Paul does not stop there. He testifies that Christ has been raised from the dead. Which means despair does not get the last word. Which means famine, war, violence, and even death itself have been broken open from the inside.
The resurrection is God’s great “nevertheless.” Nevertheless, famine will not have the final word. Nevertheless, violence will not define humanity. Nevertheless, the grave will not hold us.
This is not optimism. It is not denial. It is defiance. Christian hope is the refusal to let despair have the last word because Jesus Christ already conquered it.
Practicing Resurrection Hope
Here’s where Sanders’ lament comes back in. He longs for Notes filled again with fresh ideas instead of despair. That longing is a holy one. It is a sign of the kingdom breaking in.
Because resurrection hope does not only point to the end. It shapes how we live now. We practice hope when we forgive enemies, share bread with the hungry, care for creation, and stand with the vulnerable. These small acts are not futile. They are witnesses to the resurrection. They are previews of the kingdom.
Maybe, in a season when even our online spaces feel drenched in despair, the church is being called to embody the kind of hope Paul describes. Not flimsy or sentimental, but resurrection-shaped hope that risks looking foolish because it trusts in the risen Christ.
The Last Word
The early church greeted one another with the simple phrase, Maranatha—“Come, Lord.” Both a cry of desperation and a confession of hope.
So when the headlines tempt us toward despair, we whisper, sing, and proclaim: Christ has been raised, and because Christ has been raised, hope is not futile.
Dennis Sanders misses the days when Notes were lighter, filled with possibility. I do too. But perhaps the gift of this darker season is that it presses us to remember where real hope is found. Not in headlines or feeds, but in Christ who has already conquered despair and whose reign is coming.
I needed to hear this. Thank you.