Exercise Hope

The course of human events is so blasted unpredictable, it is maddening! Each of us would like to have major pull, certain influence, or, in our deluded moments, real control over big things. But we don’t. We have what we have, and no more. When it goes well for us, we are happy; when it goes poorly for us we are vexed. When we are content, we don’t need any word, really, from anywhere. When we are downcast, it seems no words of comfort can actually relieve us.

The truth is that reliable matters of the good, the true, and the beautiful are rooted not in the course of human events, even if they do flower there. They are rooted in God. The truest joy and the truest righteous indignation are found in God. We are asked by scripture, when we read the whole of scripture, to point the eyes of our faith heavenward for the good of our earthly existence.

This time of the year, the Sunday Bible lessons direct us to look at the sovereignty of God, and the course of divine events, including the end of time and the final judgment. The word we use for the end of the divine plan, the end of the world, is the Greek word, the eschaton. Eschatology comes front and center in our listening to the Word. When the apostle, Paul, or the Hebrew prophets use the phrase, the “Day of the Lord,” they are talking about the powerful consummation of things and the judgment of God. The prophet Amos says in effect, “Oh, you want the day of the Lord? Trust me, you do not want the day of the Lord; you’re not ready.” Listen up this Sunday and you will see. (Or, better, look ahead for yourself:  Amos 5:18-24)  Amos seems very unnervingly to assert that we may think we are set and prepared in our little patterns of belief and our little rites and ceremonies, but we are not set. We are not prepared as we need to be.

Similarly, Paul, when writing to the Christians in Thessalonica declares that God’s trumpet will be taken up by the archangel, and the Lord will descend to earth inaugurating the final things. In these matters, our only hope is in God, in Jesus, who died and rose. In the turmoil, which is an accurate way in every generation to describe the course of human events, our hope is to be set in the gift of the eternal, which comes surely by faith and comes fully in the eschaton. Paul insists that the Christian is one whose hope is anchored in Christ:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.   —1 Thessalonians 4:13-14

Let’s look at our human experience—we are tossed to and fro in this world.  In a grand context of fear, smaller elements of threat can prompt heavy anxiety. If a person’s entire landscape is dressed in despair, every element of loss can trigger grave hopelessness. It works in the other direction as well: When the big picture is one of hope, then every small instance of hope is a boost. If your deepest trust is in ultimate benevolent strength, every experience of strength in life points to that overarching strength. Maybe I am making too obvious a point. I am saying that our attitude about the prospects for life can spiral down and can spiral up, and it hinges on our sense of the big picture and the final things. I think every person has carried in the breast, great pessimism at times, and great optimism at other times. This is why the phrase, “You’ll see, it is all going to be okay in the end” is sometimes taken as comfort and sometimes feels empty.

I really think they have to exercise hope like a muscle is exercised. It is not just there, ever strong. It has to be worked. It helps when people set a goal to get themselves moving. Looking forward to something that demands your efforts can be a reliable way to exercise hope. We look to the Holy One the Author of hope who will bring the grand purpose of love about. In that large and cosmic context, we all must work toward it with our personal hope and plan. There is just something powerful about having a goal for the good toward which you are working. You have heard of the phrase, “think globally, act locally?” well, in the New Testament vein of things, I think we must think cosmically (with the purpose of God in mind) and act locally. We have work to do, and the work itself will strengthen our hearts.

Let me use the metaphor we will look at tomorrow, anticipating a parable of Jesus: let’s get busy filling our lamps with oil and bring an extra oil flask too. We will cope with the difficulty of watching and working by being fully prepared. Fuel up, and light your lamps, and may your hearts be full of hope.