Why does the Bible refer to the return of Jesus Christ as the blessed hope?

Titus 2:13 says that believers are “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

We ought to be looking more for that appearing and less at the difficulties that often assail us. Years ago I saw a little plaque on a desk that said something like this: “Every difficulty is a call to prayer.” That should be true, every time we face a difficult situation we ought to turn our eyes toward Jesus in prayer. The thought also is true, that every difficulty is a reminder to be looking for the blessed hope of our Lord’s return.

The day that our Lord returns is certainly a day we all can hope in, the day when we will finally turn our backs on the sorrows of life in this world of sin. Isaiah 25:9 declares, “It will be said on that day,“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (ESV).

It baffles me as to why we don’t hear more from our pulpits, in conversations with others, and from Christian broadcasting an encouraging word to one-another about the nearness of our Lord and Savior. It’s the only hope we truly have to look forward to, especially in terms of a global event.

In Titus we are told to look for the return of Jesus, in Isaiah we are told to wait for the return of Jesus, and 1 Thessalonians 4:18 we are told to “encourage one another” with the return of Jesus. The return of Jesus is truly our Blessed Hope.

It is also the blessed hope because the return of Jesus is going to undo the death of our loved ones. We can have the assurance of salvation because of Calvary, but His return is when we will have that ultimate deliverance from mortality and death. For on that day “the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, ESV).

Jesus has made this promise to you, saying “I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3).

That’s hope. That’s the blessed hope that we are privilege to look for, to wait on, and to encourage one another with. So in let our lips, heart, and conversations be filled with the words of John on Patmos, in Revelation 22:20, “Come, Lord Jesus!”