Joyful and Holy Hope

When I served my mission in France one of my favorite hymns was the French version of God Be With You Till We Meet Again.  In the English version the chorus speaks of meeting those we say goodbye to  again with the Savior, “Till we meet, till we meet, Till we meet at Jesus’ feet, Till we meet, till we meet, God be with you till we meet again.”  The French version has a similar message, but includes the idea of a hope that guides the disciples of Jesus Christ: “O joyeuse et sainte espérance pour tous ceux qui suivent Jésus! Nous nous verrons en sa presence quand la mort, le deuil ne seront plus!”  (My translation: “O joyful and holy hope for all those who follow Jesus! We will see one other in his presence when death, mourning will be gone.”)  As we go through this life our paths cross only for a short time with many others, and often we have to say goodbye; for the disciples of Jesus Christ our hope is that we can see each other again when we are in the presence of Jesus, to “sit down in his kingdom, to go no more out” (Alma 34:36). 

I distinctly remember a moment many years ago as I visited some members I had served with on my way home from my mission with my family.  One sister took me aside and urged me to be faithful to the end so that we could all be together as friends in heaven in the next life.  In the gospel we have a joyful and holy hope that we can continue all the wonderful associations that we had on earth in the next life, only that there “it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:2).  But to have that we must “hold out faithful to the end” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:13).  In Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, he similarly urged them to faithfulness and to stay true to this hope that we have as disciples of Jesus Christ.  He wrote that they must “continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven” (Colossians 1:23).  We can be grounded and settled, “steadfast and immovable” as king Benjamin would put it, because of our hope in the glory to come (Mosiah 5:15).  Without that joyful hope in Christ both in this life and in the life to come, we would be “of all men most miserable” as Paul put it (1 Corinthians 15:19). 

             If there is any moment in the scriptures that I could imagine this song being sung, it would the scene recorded in Acts 20 when Paul was saying goodbye to the saints from Ephesus before sailing off to Rome.  He exhorted them to faithfulness to the end, telling them, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.”  He warned them of “grievous wolves” that would come among them, urging them to “watch, and remember” telling them, “I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”  He told them of how he had warned “every one night and day with tears,” and those tears were repeated by all that day as they said goodbye: “They all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him, Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more” (Acts 20:28, 31, 37-38).  Surely they held fast to their “joyful and holy hope” in Jesus Christ, looking forward to the day when they could meet Paul again in the presence of the Lord.