September 5, 2020
“Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”
by Matt Boswell / Matt Papa / Keith Getty / Matt Merker / Jordan Kauflin
Oh sing, “Hallelujah!” Our hope springs eternal. Oh sing, “Hallelujah!” Now and ever we confess, Christ our hope in life and death.
Pastor George loves catechisms. So, in honor of Pastor George’s one-year anniversary of being CPC’s pastor, I’d like to discuss a song that has its foundations in a catechism question.
If you’ve been paying attention to Pastor George’s Theologs, or to the liturgy we use in our church services, you’ve probably noticed that Pastor George talks a lot about catechisms. Catechisms are basically summaries of Christian beliefs that are posed in a question and answer format. They are confessions of faith.
The song, “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death,” pulls from the very first question of the Heidelberg Catechism, which asks:
What is your only comfort in life and death?
The response is lengthy, so I’m not going to type it all out, but please read it here. The short version of it is this:
That I am not my own but belong to Jesus Christ in body and soul.
To condense it even further, the answer is simply:
Christ alone.
“Christ Our Hope in Life and Death” was written out of a burden that the Church needs to be filled with hope (by the way, it’s worth watching the story behind the song). In fact, this song was released just before America went into its season of quarantine. It’s no accident that this song was written and released when it was. The world needs hope right now—a lot of hope. We are in a time when there is so much death. People are holding more dearly to life. But it is so hard to make it through life without Christ being at the center of it. We must remember that “we are not our own but belong to God.”
When are souls are troubled, when fears arise, when we go through stormy trials, when death is knocking at our door—in all of life’s circumstances we must continue to praise God because He has given us hope through His son, Jesus Christ. As we trust in God, His hope fills us with joy and peace (Romans 15:13) and reminds us that our present sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).
The hope that helps us face this life, and gives us peace about the one to come, can only be found in Jesus Christ, in his death and resurrection. May your heart overflow with hope and forever praise God, thanking Him for this hope.
Blessings,
Bailey Ramsay
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23
