May Book of the Month: Surprised by Hope

Book of the Month: “Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright


Church,

Though it is May…we are still in the Easter season! The tomb is still empty. The risen Jesus has appeared to his disciples, breathed peace over them, invited Thomas to touch his wounds, and commissioned them to carry the good news to the ends of the earth. And yet, if we are honest, the temptation is many of us face is to move on too quickly. The lilies are wilting. The alleluias have quieted. Easter Sunday has faded into Monday, and Tuesday, and the ordinary rhythm of weeks.

That is exactly why this month’s book matters so much…and exactly why the timing feels right!

“Surprised by Hope” by N.T. Wright is an invitation to stay inside the Easter story a little longer. Not just to believe in the resurrection as a past event, but to let it reshape everything: what we hope for, what we are doing here, and how we live right now as people who follow a risen Lord.

If you are unfamiliar with Wright, he is one of the most significant New Testament scholars of our generation. He served as Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and has taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and St. Andrews. But don’t let the academic credentials intimidate you. Wright writes with warmth, urgency, and a pastor’s heart. His goal in this book is not to impress you with his scholarship. Instead, the goal is to recover something the church has largely lost, and to show you how recovering it changes everything.

Wright wrote this book out of a deep concern that Western Christianity has quietly drifted from what the Bible actually teaches about resurrection, heaven, and the renewal of all things. He argues that most Christians (whether they realize it or not) have swapped the biblical vision for a “Greek one,” trading in the resurrection of the body and the renewal of creation for a disembodied escape to a spiritual heaven somewhere else. Out of that conviction, Wright offers one of the most clarifying and energizing accounts of Christian hope available today.

Before you dive in, I want to name something. Wright is not writing to be controversial for its own sake. He is deeply committed to Scripture, to the creeds, and to the historic Christian faith. But he is willing to press on assumptions we have inherited without examining them. As you read his unpacking of what “heaven” actually means in the New Testament, don’t be afraid to sit with the discomfort. Let the Bible be authoritative over you and it may even surprise you.

Wright is honest from the beginning about the stakes. What we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present. If we think the goal is to escape this world, we will not invest in it. But if we believe, as the New Testament insists(!!), that God is going to renew and restore all of creation, then our work, our relationships, our pursuit of justice, and our worship all take on profound and lasting meaning. You are not building sandcastles that the tide will wash away (even though sand castles ARE really fun to build). Instead, you are contributing to something God himself intends to bring to completion.

“Surprised by Hope" takes this vision seriously. Wright shows us that the resurrection of Jesus was not merely a miracle to validate his divinity, but the launch of God’s new creation breaking into the old. The empty tomb is not just good news for Jesus. It is the first installment of what God intends for every one of us, and for the whole world. That is an Easter claim. And we are still in the season to feel the full weight of it.

This book is thorough (read: long!), but it is accessible. It presses on us in all the right places. It asks whether our hope is shaped more by Scripture or by cultural assumptions. It challenges a passive, escapist faith without dismissing the beauty and reality of life after death. And it offers a vision of the church as a people called to live in the present as a sign of the coming future: worshipping, doing justice, making beauty, and loving neighbors as an act of resurrection faith.

One of the main reasons I chose this book for our community right now is that it gives us a richer, more robust foundation for why what we do together actually matters. We are not just waiting to be rescued out of the world. We are, by the Spirit’s power, participating in God’s project of making all things new. In a community as diverse and active as ours, that vision gives our shared life deeper roots and deeper purpose.

And I want to say this plainly. If you have ever felt like Christianity is mostly about going to heaven when you die, this book will gently and thoroughly reframe that. If you have ever struggled to connect your faith on Sunday to your work, your relationships, or your pursuit of justice the rest of the week, Wright shows you the missing link. The resurrection is that link. And Easter reminds us, year after year, that it is not a footnote to the Christian story. It is the center of it.

Highlights from the Book

1. What Resurrection Actually Means
   Wright carefully distinguishes between life after death and what he calls “life after life after death”…the bodily resurrection that the New Testament promises. This distinction alone is worth the read and will reshape how you understand Easter, both the season and the hope.
2. The Renewal of All Things
   Scripture’s vision is not the destruction of creation but its renewal. Wright draws on Romans 8, Revelation 21–22, and the Gospels to show that God’s plan has always been to restore and redeem, not to abandon. Creation is not the problem. It is the canvas. And this distinction is incredibly important
3. Heaven: What It Is and Isn’t 
   Wright takes a careful look at what the New Testament actually says about heaven, and the results are surprising. Heaven is not our final destination. This section alone will clarify so many questions people quietly carry.
4. The Mission of the Church
   If the future is resurrection and renewal, then the church’s mission in the present must reflect that. Wright connects our hope to our calling: to do justice, pursue reconciliation, create beauty, and embody the life of the age to come in the here and now.
5. Worship, Evangelism, and Justice
   Wright ties together three things we often treat as separate: worship, sharing the faith, and doing justice.  And he shows how all three flow from a right understanding of resurrection hope.

Summary
Surprised by Hope does exactly what its title promises. It surprises you. Not by abandoning Scripture, but by returning to it more carefully than most of us ever have. Wright dismantles a thin, escapist version of Christian hope and replaces it with something far more biblical, far more beautiful, and far more demanding. He reminds us that the resurrection of Jesus changes not just where we are going, but how we live right now.

This book is especially meaningful for a church like ours. We are people from different backgrounds, different stories, and different seasons of faith. Surprised by Hope gives us a shared vision — not just of a future to anticipate, but of a present to inhabit with courage, creativity, and love. It calls us to take seriously the things that matter: worship, community, mercy, justice, and the slow, faithful work of bearing witness to the risen Jesus in every corner of our lives.

Read this book if you want to understand what the Bible actually teaches about resurrection and new creation. Read it if you have ever wondered how your everyday work and relationships connect to your faith. Read it if you want your hope to be bigger, truer, and more grounded. And read it now, while we are still in the Easter season!

Redeemer, my hope is that we continue to grow as a people who live not as those waiting to escape, but as those who carry the life of the age to come into every moment of this one…because of the risen Jesus!

Grace and peace,
Pastor Drew