Hope for Tomorrow

Published in the Omaha World Herald’s “From the Pulpit”

APRIL 27, 2025
Reverend Eric L. Jay

“Hope for Tomorrow”

I am sure you have all heard the expression, or maybe even said yourself, “Live like there is no tomorrow!”  It is most often said to communicate the urgency of living in and for the present moment only, usually with some level of reckless abandon and disregard for consequences, because, after all, no one is guaranteed tomorrow.  Right?

Wrong!  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead!

What if you did know that there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow?  Would you live life differently?  How would you live differently?  Perhaps more importantly, why would you live differently?

Some years back, I read the story of 62-year-old John Brandrick of Cornwall, England.  Mr. Brandrick received the news no one wants to hear from their doctor.  He had cancer and was given only six months to live.  In response, Mr. Brandrick decided that he was going to go out in style and live like there was no tomorrow, because in his mind, there wasn’t. He quit his job, stopped paying his mortgage, emptied his savings accounts, and sold all that he had except the black suit in which he planned to be buried. He then spent every dollar he had enjoying expensive dining, entertainment, travel, and other luxuries. However, as those six months went by, Brandrick’s health did not deteriorate as the doctors thought it would. A subsequent scan revealed that he didn’t have cancer at all! In an interview with the DailyMail, Brandrick said, “It was such a relief, but that wrong diagnosis has left me in financial ruin.”  Bankrupt and facing homelessness, Brandrick explored his legal options to sue for compensation for his financial loss that he attributed to the errant diagnosis.

It wasn’t a wrong diagnosis that bankrupted Mr. Brandrick.  It was his belief that there is no life after death – that there is no tomorrow.  But there is a tomorrow!  There is an eternal tomorrow through faith in Jesus Christ, who has risen from the dead just as He said.

Believing that our life is the product of chance necessarily means that there is no meaning or purpose to life. If there is no meaning or purpose to your life, if there is no life after death, then there is no hope for tomorrow, only the futile effort of doing whatever you can to try and squeeze some kind of enjoyment out of life while you survive for another 24 hours. If you do not believe that we were created from love and for love, from the love of God and for love God, then tomorrow is meaningless, and you might as well live as if it doesn’t exist.

But there is the hope of an eternal tomorrow by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.  Though we all die and though there will be an end to our tomorrows on this earth, through faith in Christ we live forever with Him in the new heavens and new earth, and that should absolutely change how we live today. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4.