City on a Hill.

Some saw marshy land. Others saw three big mounds. Most saw frightening weather, dangerous creatures, threatening forests and little hope that any new society could be formed, or that God-honoring life would ever prevail.

John Winthrop saw Boston, and he called it a City on a Hill.

Boston had three hills already, so the moniker fit, but Winthrop meant it for something else. He was nodding to all the symbolism that a new group of settlers striving for freedom for their faith could want.

“Ye are the light of the world,” Matthew 5:14 says. “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”

Winthrop, the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wanted Boston to be that city.

They looked for that city on Monday, the people without hope but plumb with fear.

They had seen it from above, from the sweeping view of the Prudential Tower, where the big Boston Public Library leads to Copley Square, with long Boylston Street and its shiny Apple store sneaking up on the left side.

They had seen it from the ground, when they looped in and out of the streets in the Back Bay, never knowing what curious brownstone they would find down this public alley or that.

They had run it from the south, watching the scenery grow from the trees of Hopkinton to the commerce-lined streets of the Back Bay, the stray statues and signs of the city’s great history appearing along the route.

But that city was gone Monday.

People don’t come to Boston for comfort. They didn’t come for it in the 17th century, and they don’t come for it now. Boston is a city for serious people, where the best of the best are so good that they critique even mere excellence. Boston demands champions of its sports team, presidents from its suburbs and hills from its runners.

But Boston isn’t just about crafty settlers fighting to survive, or idealistic freshmen thinking they’ll put this postage-sized city — from Paul Revere’s house down the Citgo sign — in their pocket. Boston was founded as a city of hope, and it’s that hope that can’t be forgotten as the minutes crawl away from a day everyone wants to forget.

The story of the original settlers, and the Founding Fathers, is often reinterpreted today. Schoolchildren get one version, and politicians give another, depending on how they’d like to defend the Constitution or advance propaganda.

But whatever the political views, or the fascination with tales of whether Revere or Sam Adams are as noble as people have made them to be, the reason for Massachusetts being settled in the first place is not contested. People came to this land for freedom — freedom from tyrannical rule, sure, but really freedom to practice what they believed to be truth.

The first residents of the Massachusetts Bay Colony believed in hope: “A hope that makes us not ashamed” (Romans 5:5). They believed in peace: “A peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). They believed in grace: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). They believed in a God Who keeps His promises: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).

From this original belief, and the specific doctrines to which these settlers held, has grown not only a varied city but also a vibrant state and a powerful nation. The new land began with the idea that there was a God worth counting on, and that the words He gave — hope, truth, peace, grace — had real meaning in real, difficult life.

Boston has morphed over the years into a city of its own. It’s now known for tolerance and diversity after a hiccupping couple of centuries during which its citizens battled in real-life case studies over religious tolerance, racial turmoil and increasing societal demands.

It has great pride in its universities and sports teams as well as some of the best research in the world in numerous fields. It has birthed unique political events, and it continues be a forbearer in matters of religion, even as faith in the city appears largely disfigured from what first landed on its shores.

But in becoming the city it has become today, as different as it looks, Boston has not necessarily failed to be the city it set out to be.

Boston is still a city on a hill.

Boston is a place that millions of people look to for inspiration, opportunity or guidance. It is the destination of teenagers’ dreams, it is the fulfillment of minor leaguers’ promise, and it is a haven for countless endeavors and ways of thought.

In establishing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop moved to create a city that would be a shining light to the world — a place that would speak of what could be, and that would invite new generations to make a fresh start. Centuries later, Boston does not run — save the blue laws — on puritanical rules. But it has done just what Winthrop envisioned: It has become a city that creates a space for people to see the goodness of God reflected in His creation, namely the people He created and the joy, hope and excellence with which they live their lives.

On Monday, people saw their city knocked off its hill. No longer was Boston a place to gather the runners from many nations for what many of them call the best race in the world. No longer was the marathon a proving ground for everyday men and women who wanted to inspire their communities and raise money to heal everyday pain. No longer was the city a spot where people could celebrate the beauty of God’s creation, and the good that remains in a world much wrecked by hurtful actions, mistakes and decay.

When the blasts shook Boylston Street on Monday, they took more than a race away — they also robbed the city of the hope and joy it was reflecting, and it left many to wonder whether God had disappeared, too.

A major theme — no, the only theme — of the Bible argues urgently that this cannot be the case.

Bad happens, the Bible teaches, but God redeems. Man fell in the Garden, but God provided a way to rise. Mistakes tear apart relationships, but God provides a way to bring them together. Entropy racks the world, but God promises a new creation — and He promises that it can start right now, on this earth.

But in that theme lies one very disconcerting fact: Every seed must die before it grows.

And that is how we arrive at that nasty philosophical point that is often given to try to dull the pain, but that seems horribly wrong and unnecessary. Why must the unthinkable happen for people to band together and triumph far more? Why must there be death to provide a rich life? Why must people have pain to see God in a new way?

John Winthrop can’t tell us, and even Jesus asked for a lot of faith when reconciling the wreckage of this world with the reality of fallen man and the promise of a patched-up future. The Christian doctrine, while understandable on paper, always faces the biggest hurdles when it comes to people’s gut.

But, whatever your creed, they were onto something when they stood on those principles to start this colony that became this city. Whatever your beliefs — whether you see good from God or not, and whether you think Winthrop and company had it wrong all along — know this: The tenets on which they founded this city, and the grand faith or ambition that Boston could always be a sign to the world of resilience, hope and a better tomorrow — that has never passed away.

“Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live by obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him, for He is our life, and our prosperity,” Winthrop said in 1630.

First responders rushing to the scene. Bystanders scooping victims from the blood. Citizens helping stranded runners. Police doing their jobs. The entire state standing in defiance, and promising to help and fight back.

Boston has chosen life. It may be living by many different creeds, and in a very different age, but Boston is still reflecting the goodness, joy and hope of the God for which this colony was made. Whether God is acknowledged or not, His redemption is being lived in this city, as hope swallows up hate.

Even in the darkness, Boston remains a city on a hill.