A single word has a lot of power.

Many people like to choose a goal word as they start a year or a campaign. This word brings focus to their goals and dreams. Now, sometimes these don’t work out; perhaps the most blatant example was the “2020 Vision” catchphrase last year. By the end of the year, people were using quite different words to describe the experience!

Sometimes it goes the other way though. Easter is a prime example. On the day Jesus was crucified, His disciples might have summarized their feelings with dark words: Despair. Failure. Heartbroken. Abandoned. Misled. But give it three days, and the Saviour who died was alive again, His promises were true, and His mission moved onward. What had seemed like defeat was actually victory. A new word filled everyone’s heart as they looked to the future: Hope.

Over the past year, we at Beacon have seen hope come to the forefront as well:

• when Beacon was forced to cancel our Summer 2020 plans, our camp family stepped up and donated enough funds that we were sustained through an entire year without being able to host families on site!

• our dream of an online camp was met by the joy of the almost 400 campers who joined us for 8 weeks of Beacon Unlimited virtual camp. Some of those campers even came to know Jesus in a saving way for the first time!

• messages, emails, phone calls and words of encouragement from young and old, reminding us that that this too shall pass.

These small reminders gave us something that helped our staff carry through a very quiet season: hope. As we approach Easter, I’ve been struck by how much hope matters. When we have hope, we can push through difficult situations. When we have hope, we look for opportunities instead of impossibilities. When we have hope, we feel that we can overcome.

Being on “this side” of the cross, we already know that there is hope for all those would cling to that cross and call Jesus their Lord. It’s usual that we observe a period during the last few days leading up to Easter Sunday of quiet and reflection. If the past few years have been any indication, this period of observation is somewhat somber and gloomy. Then when Easter morning comes, we can turn that somberness into joy!

Perhaps, with all the loss that we've felt over the last year, this isn’t a year to hold sadness and gloom. We know that Jesus died, but we also know that He rose! So, we thought we would preemptively (proactively?) focus on the hope of the resurrection.

As we’ve done in past years, we’ll take a break from “camp” stuff over the next few days, so that we can help remind you of our hope. As we post the verses, the backgrounds will slowly form an image that points to our ultimate hope - but we’ll leave that until the end of Sunday, when you can see the whole image collected on our Instagram feed.

As we journey through the next few days together, remember: hold on to hope. (Or… #HoldHope, because it’s the 21st century and hashtags are cool.)