Listen to the wonderful words of the great Nobel Prize winning writer, Rabindranath Tagore: “Hope is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” 

And God knows that it’s been a time of darkness for many of us in many different ways this past year.

So how do we deal with that darkness going into a new year? 

Futile efforts

The problem seems to be that when we try and deal with the darkness, whether it’s the suffering or the uncertainty or the anxieties of the coming year, we look inside ourselves and we look to the world around us.

We put our hopes in ourselves, in our own efforts, or we put our hopes in some way that we have come up with to improve the world around us or to improve our lives.

We’re trying to make ourselves better. We educate ourselves. We use technology. We try and build up our resources to try and build up our quality of life.

And yet we seem to stumble from New Year’s resolution to New Year’s resolution, from Christmas to Christmas, from New Year to New Year, struggling to find a solution to bring about the fulfilment of the hope that we all have for a better future. 

Sing to the dawn

Maybe it’s because we spend too much time looking inwards and outwards and not enough time looking upwards, because for hope to be realised, we need something hope-worthy in which to put our hope.

Hoping for a better future with nothing to put our hope in to deliver that future is a complete waste of time.

Why does the bird sing in Tagore’s poem?

It sings while the dawn is still dark because it knows with certainty, with confident expectation, that the sunrise is coming. 

Where can you and I find that same certainty as we prepare to go into a new year? 

Hope is a Person

In the Christian message, hope is not an abstract ideal. It’s not something that we just have to try and live up to ourselves or achieve in our own strength.

It’s embodied in a Person – God Himself made real for you and me in the person of Jesus Christ, who came into the world, lived, died and rose from the dead in order to give us hope and declare and prove His hope-worthiness and His trustworthiness.

It’s in and through the person of Jesus that Hope is embodied.

And so, if you and I want to take hold of that hope in 2022, all we need to do is step into or step deeper into that relationship with Jesus.

Yes, the world does seem dark, but Jesus says to you and I at the beginning of 2022: “The world is dark and you will have problems. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Have a hope-filled New Year!

This transcript was published with permission of ThinkingFaith, watch the video here. Thinking Faith invites you to think beyond the full stop; thoughtfully speaking into the questions of faith and culture.

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