Acts 26:1-8: a reflection

1Agrippa said to Paul, “You may speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand, and made his defense. 2“I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I am to make my defense before you today concerning all the things that I am accused by the Jews, 3especially because you are expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently. 4“Indeed, all the Jews know my way of life from my youth up, which was from the beginning among my own nation and at Jerusalem; 5having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. 6Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, 7which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa! 8Why is it judged incredible with you if God does raise the dead?

Standing on trial before King Agrippa, Paul frames his entire case around a single hope. I stand here on trial, he says, for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, the hope our twelve tribes have earnestly served God to attain. And he presses the heart of it with a question: Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? Everything Paul is, everything he suffers, everything he is on trial for, comes down to this: the hope of resurrection, that God raises the dead.

Notice how central this hope is to Paul. He does not defend himself on lesser grounds; he stakes everything on the resurrection hope, the promise that God raises the dead, fulfilled and guaranteed in the risen Christ. This is not a side issue for Paul but the very center; it is what he lives for, suffers for, stands trial for. The hope that death is not the end, that God raises the dead, is the hope that defines his whole life.

That hope is meant to be as central for us. The resurrection, that God raises the dead, that death is not the final word, that Christ is risen and we will rise, is not a peripheral doctrine but the ground of Christian hope, worth staking a life on as Paul did. Is it that central for you? Do you live by the hope that God raises the dead, that whatever you face, even death itself, is not the end? Let the resurrection hope be, as it was for Paul, the center that defines your life. It is a hope worth living for, and, if it came to it, worth being on trial for.

Lord, Paul staked everything on one hope: the promise that you raise the dead, fulfilled in the risen Christ. He lived and suffered and stood trial for it. Make that hope as central for me. Help me live by the truth that death is not the final word, that Christ is risen and I will rise, that whatever I face is not the end. Let the resurrection hope be the center that defines my life, as it was for Paul. It is a hope worth living for; anchor me in it.