There is life beyond death. But not life as we have it today. Not life full of trials, despair, or let downs. No loneliness or manipulation or violence. Yes, there is life beyond death, but it will be almost completely unrecognizable to us that we will struggle to even call it life. It will be life with all the bad stuff taken out and all the good stuff amplified to the point that we will hardly be able to bear it. And yet we will know it, find rest in it, and feel as though it is precisely the thing we were made for.

The funny thing about this life, though, is that it’s a person. With a name.

Jesus.

On the night before he was crucified, Jesus told his disciples, “I am the life.” Jesus is the life that we will experience in heaven. He is the one in whom we will find rest, the one to whom we will shout in ecstatic discovery, “You are what I have been waiting for!”

This is the hope that Christians have – the hope to which Paul alludes in Colossians 1:5. It is our heaven-kept hope. Sure, we catch glimpses of it, of him, in this life, like we are peering through a keyhole into a gloriously sunlit courtyard full of blooming flowers and fruit-bearing trees. But we don’t experience the full fulness of him today. We walk by faith, not sight.

Our hope is that death is not the final sound of heaven’s door being locked and bolted forever, but rather the first rush of light in the morning, bidding us to wake from our fitful dreaming and behold the glorious reality of God’s presence. Death is not the fearful enemy, but rather the welcome transition from this life of faithfulness to the eternal life of fulness in the presence of Jesus.

It is this hope that allows us to live with such fierce love and faith today. We love because of the fulness of love that awaits us, and that we taste in parts today. We live in faith now because of the power of the presence of God that we are destined to experience in heaven. Heaven-kept hope is not simply delayed infinite gratification; it is the source and strength we need to live each day on this side of death with faith in Christ Jesus and love for all God’s people.

Naming a church is an odd process. It’s both extremely important and not important at all at the same time. Does it really matter what the church is called? Yes, it does. But, seriously, does it? Well, no.

When I planted Ember Church, I had the name picked out years before we actually even started taking the planting process seriously. The name was tied to the idea, even defining it. I could not have planted a church by any other name. But Ember’s time has passed, and now God has a new church for me to have a hand in leading. And that church has a name, too.

Hope Church.*

Christianity speaks to each of the core longings of human beings: the need to be known, the need to be loved, the need to belong, the need to be forgiven, and the need to have a hope that transcends death. The hope we have as Christians is unique in this world because it is not of this world, though it is for this world. Our hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that hope not only rescues us from the fear of death, but gives us confidence to live each day with faith and love.

Since our son Ezekiel passed away two and a half months ago, Breena and I have been often asked: How are you doing? The truth is, we’re doing well. This fact can be difficult for some to understand. After all, our 4 1/2 year old son died of a terrible disease that slowly destroyed his brain and his body for more than two years. How could we possibly be doing well after experiencing something like that?

The only answer we have to that question is that we’ve found a hope that transcends death. We’re doing well because we have hope that there is something, or someone, who is greater than death. This hope, which has buried itself deep within our hearts over the past two years, is rooted in Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. We believe that Jesus conquered death once and for all; not that he has yet eradicated it and our bodies will never die, but that he has risen again from the dead, thereby destroying the power of death. If Jesus rose again, then death isn’t final, at least not for those who follow Jesus.

Nothing else on earth offers this kind of hope. No other religion or ideology offers the kind of hope that Christianity does through the resurrection of Jesus. The cross and resurrection, the “true message of the Gospel,” gives humanity a hope that no other way of life can – a hope that strips death of its power to make us afraid and replaces it with a vision of an unimaginably glorious and good life beyond death. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15,