The Hope That is in Us

6th Sunday of Easter, Year A - May 10, 2026

Rev Sarah Colvin

You can find this week's readings here:

"Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence."

I'm sixty years old—or sixty years young; I'm not sure how I should view my age. What I can say is that for most of the time, this very well-known Biblical verse used to pop out at me as "hey, this is important," and probably necessary. It was at least necessary in the abstract. With all that is going on these days, I don't think in living memory that the phrase has ever seemed more poignant, more meaningful: "Always be ready to make a defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you…"

Well, the first problem, or at least hurdle, then, is that we must identify the hope that is in us. For the moment, let's put a pin in this, and just hold to the concept that I do believe that we do have a hope. I promise that we will get back to it; I promise you that this is not a "fake it until we make it" endeavor.

The hope that is in each of us draws its water, draws its life, its very foundation, from the Gospel we heard today. Our Gospel is one of these that chronologically has hints at the Ascension (Jesus ascending into heaven, which is celebrated this Thursday) and also hints at Pentecost (the Spirit or Advocate coming to us), and so our Gospel is truly appropriate for Easter 6.

You perhaps know that in scripture (remembering that the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek), there are three Greek words for the different types of "love" (which we, in English, read as "love"). In the Bible, you almost never read about "eros," or romantic love. Jesus doesn't really have much, if anything, to say about that. Many times, you will read about "philia," or "brotherly love," which is where Philadelphia gets its name. Philia is friendship love. However, it makes a difference whether Jesus is talking about philia (brotherly love) or agape (sacrificial love). It is probably always helpful for us all to look at this when you see the English word "love."

Agape love, often considered the highest form of love, embodies selflessness, sacrifice, and unconditional care for others. Agape transcends mere feelings. Agape love is a sacrificial love that unites and heals. We see the love of God through the cross of Jesus Christ. This love saves and restores humanity in the face of sin and death.

Agape could be defined as charity. However, in today's world, we often think of charity as giving away money or things, which doesn't encompass what agape is about. Agape love is unconcerned with the self and instead concerned with the greatest good of another. Agape isn't born just out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attraction, but from the will and as a choice. Agape requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in return.

Agape love, in the Bible, is love that comes from God. God's love is not sentimental; it's part of God's character. God loves from an outpouring of who God is. As the first letter of John (4:8) states, "God is love [agape]," meaning God is the source of agape love. God's love is undeserved, gracious, and sacrificial.

I will give you a big tip here: in the Gospel of John (which we always read all of Easter, and in the burial rite), as well as in the letters of John, English "love" in the Koine Greek is pretty much always agape.

"Jesus said, 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments.'" And, "They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."

Now, with the overlying understanding of what agape is, we hear them this way: "If you sacrificially love others in my name, you will keep my commandments." And, "They who have my commandments and keep them sacrificially love me; those who sacrificially love me, I will show to God, because they are willing to give, to love sacrificially, and I will sacrifice myself for them, and show them myself." We don't tap into the Greek often; it may even sound unfamiliar, but once you hear it, you know it, and you can't unhear it. This sort of loving, of giving—this is the hope that is in us.

So we are to love God and others with agape love. Agape is a choice, a deliberate striving for another's highest good, and is demonstrated through action. God set the standard for agape love by sending Jesus to die for us, while we were—are—still sinners. We then are truly to be like Jesus. We are to love selflessly, because there is no such thing as deserving agape love. God in Christ dwelling in us becomes the hope that is in us. Our hope, the only hope, is that we learn, we hope, to love like Jesus loved.

Jacopone da Todi describes this hope that is in us, this agape, poetically as this:

Love beyond all telling,

Goodness beyond imagining,

Light of infinite intensity

Glows in my heart.

I once thought that reason

Had led me to You,

And that through feeling

I sensed Your presence,

Caught a glimpse of You in similitudes,

Knew You in Your perfection.

I know now that I was wrong,

That that truth was flawed.

Light beyond metaphor,

Why did You deign to come into this darkness?

Your light does not illumine those who think they see You

And believe they sound Your depths.

Night, I know now, is day,

Virtue no more to be found.

He who witnesses Your splendor

Can never describe it.

On achieving their desired end

Human powers cease to function,

And the soul sees that what it thought was right

Was wrong. A new exchange occurs

At that point where all light disappears;

A new and unsought state is needed:

The soul has what it did not love,

And is stripped of all it possessed, no matter how dear.

In God the spiritual faculties

Come to their desired end,

Lose all sense of self and self-consciousness,

And are swept into infinity.

The soul, made new again,

Marveling to find itself

In that immensity, drowns.

How this comes about it does not know.

This hope that is constantly being birthed in us, from the waters in which we were baptized, is both all that we know of God and something we cannot know. It is the sacrificial love in us being born for our neighbor. This is God's will, and our hope—agape.

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IMAGE ATTRIBUTION: Pittman, Lauren Wright. Complete Joy, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57075 [retrieved May 29, 2026]. Original source: Lauren Wright Pittman, http://www.lewpstudio.com/.