Category Archives: Hope

Hope: Now and Not Yet

17 Monday Sep 2012

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My foundational hope, the hope I have when all other hope is gone, is that all things in my life are brought about by God to bring me into the transformative union of likeness of God’s son, Jesus; this, of course, is through the power of the Holy Spirit, the personification of the loving relationship between Father and Son. (Of course, this assumes that I believe in God and have not strayed from following Him.) Further, one day I will be with God (God will be among us–Revelation 21:3) for all of eternity in the fully restored creation with no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. Ultimately, my hope is this: I will see God’s face and His name will be on my forehead (Revelation 22:4).

This is an extraordinary, ultimate hope. Frankly, it is beyond my comprehension (1Corinthians 2:9). It is the very definition of hope: longing for the ultimate good, the yearning that seems to be within each of us for the not-yet-being. But…what about now? The world today is filled with so much anger, pain, greed, self-centeredness, intolerance (even in its best definition), unhappiness, the list goes on-and-on. In my own world I often seem trapped inside this body that is wracked with selfishness; voices in my head, mine and others, condemn me. In my own pain I cause pain for others.

Regarding my world, it is becoming increasingly easy for me to find ordinary hope–the hope found in day-to-day living. The idea that God is drawing me into a deeper loving relationship with Him and through this love is transforming me into the likeness of Jesus is compelling. I have such a clear image/feeling in my soul of what that relationship will be like that I am increasingly willing to endure anything to experience it. Sure, I have my attention diverted from time-to-time; however, as quickly as I can refocus on the goal–relationship with Christ–then my hope returns. I have the great ordinary hope that in Jesus I am already the child of God that I am becoming.

Finding ordinary hope for the world around me is harder. Sure, I can look at the world and know that one day it will be restored and all the hardship and death will be gone; my foundational hope for the world is nicely intact. But for today…where can I find ordinary hope as I read the newspaper? I don’t think I can apart from my own ordinary and foundational hope with God.

I’m not particularly given to progressivism (theological postmillennialism), believing that the world–its human inhabitants–will get better as history proceeds. History simply doesn’t seem to support that view. So, what should I make of this world? My head tells me that given the design constraints (i.e., God wants a loving relationship with humans with free will), this is the best possible world God could have created to ensure the most (but not the majority–Matthew 7:13-14) of us fall in love with Jesus; any other created world would result in even fewer entering into an eternal life of knowing God (John 17:3). I also know that God is active in this world in His way.

I know that some try to find ordinary find hope in the perceived security of a large 401(k), or the markets (stocks, bonds, gold, commodities, etc.), or a good job, or the green movement. Some try to numb their lack of hope with drugs or alcohol or cutting; for others, the drug of choice is distraction by cars, boats, big homes, travel, busy lives, multiple sexual partners, etc.

Apart from God I cannot see any ordinary hope for this world. Certainly not all of the things in the paragraph above are bad if experienced rightly within their proper context; however, none can provide hope as defined as moving toward the ultimate good, becoming better, progressing as not-yet-beings as the ancients defined hope. At best these things are temporal, failing to provide any real hope. I think we humans are quite resourceful in the ways we concoct to find ordinary hope in the face of the reality of this world.

The only hope, ordinary and foundational, that I can find for myself and the world around me is the hope of knowing Jesus (Philippians 3:7-16). If this is true, then maybe we Christians should stop shouting, “Thou shalt not…” at the world, being just another shrill voice in the din of angry voices in a world full of hate. Just maybe we ought to offer a positive voice asking the gentle question, “Where do you find hope?” But we need to know just where we find our own hope so that we can offer t freely to others (2Peter 3:15).

I’m going to begin asking people this question, where do you find hope? I’ll let you know how it goes.

Children of God

10 Monday Sep 2012

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But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God—John 1:12

So, I have been asking myself that same question I posed earlier in this series of blogs on the theological virtues…what is the Good News of Christ for me? The elementary things I mentioned earlier, repentance, faith toward God, resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment have all had their day, their time of primacy, in my thinking about the Good News for me. Because they are foundation, they remain very important. But, they are no longer enough. The question:

Isn’t there something more?

has continued to plague me.

Now I find the Good News–my foundational hope–is in the promise of God that has been increasingly revealed over thousands of years. Seems like a no-brainer, but it hasn’t been for me. The promise started with God’s promise of land and becoming a great nation made to Abram (Genesis 12:1-3). It opened up more as a promise of kingdom with God’s man always on the throne in the promise made to King David (2Samuel 7:8-17). With the later prophets there were glimpses of something more, an early marriage metaphor (e.g., Hosea 1:2) and of God delighting in us (Zephaniah 3:17).

Yet, I was confused. With the person of Jesus came the doctrine of the Trinity formulated by the early church fathers: “God is three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit); Each person is fully God; There is only one God.” In the context of the Trinity there were many metaphors: friend of Jesus (John 15:14), slave (bond-servant) of Jesus (Galatians 1:10), bride of Jesus (Revelation 21:2), child of God (John 1:12), united with God (John 14:23; 17:21), sibling of Jesus (Romans 8:29), and our being filled with the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17). As I moved past the elementary things of what God had done for me, I found I had an identity crisis regarding who I was as a Christian. Each of these metaphors gives a different relational image between me and God…which is it?

Over the past five or six years and with the help of many men and women past and present, each much smarter than I am, the promise of God has been slowly dawning on me. Here is how I see it at this point in my journey with Jesus:

I am being united with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit; Christ brings me into oneness with our Father (not in the pantheistic sense). Though it doesn’t conflate all of the above metaphors, I think it happens like this:

For more than 40 years I was a son of Satan (John 8:44). It was an abusive relationship, a sick distortion of love as with any abusive relationship; this one masquerades as father-son but is truly master-slave in the worst sense. When I turned to Jesus, all I knew was slavery and abuse disguised as love. While I believe that at that moment I actually became God’s son, I didn’t know it nor did I understand what it meant. So, I acted as I knew how, as a slave of Jesus.

It is much like any human who has been abused. It takes a long time for him or her to begin to trust someone who genuinely loves them. As Jesus’ slave, I was always waiting for and expecting the abuse; my image of God was a God who tallies mistakes and punishes capriciously. As I began to believe God could be trusted, we became friends and we interacted as friends. And, over time, as sometimes happens with human friends, our love as friends began to deepen into something more.

Along with some theologians I believe that the Holy Spirit is the personification of the loving relationship between Jesus and His Father. Their relationship is so real is has personhood. That same personified love is helping me to become one spirit with Jesus (1Corinthians 6:16-17; the two become one, the marriage metaphor). As I learn to cooperate with the Spirit in me to become increasingly purified through my obedience and God’s help and discipline, I draw closer in unity with Christ. (St. John of the Cross used a window metaphor: the purer the glass the more light shines through.) So in Christ, to use St. Paul’s phrase, I am actually God’s child even now. God the Father looks at me with the same loving gaze as He looks at Jesus. With Christ in me, another of Paul’s phrases, and the work of the Holy Spirit, I an actually becoming one with Jesus, taking on His characteristics (the so-called fruits of the Spirit of Galatians 5:22-23, and I gaze upon our Father with the gaze of a truly loving son, the gaze of Jesus.

St. John of the Cross says this (Ascent of Mount Carmel):

Love effects a likeness between the lover and the loved.

Love is the transformative agent for humans into the likeness of God as we were first created to be (Genesis 1:27). It should be no surprise; after all, God is love (1 John 4:8) and knows us only through love (1Corinthians 8:3). Therefore, as I love Jesus more deeply I find I increasingly become like Him; the two of us becoming one through the power of Love personified, the Holy Spirit.

So, this is the promise of God for me, it is the basis of my fundamental hope: that I am united with Jesus in love through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus will lead me into oneness with our Father. It is the greatest not-yet-being kind of hope, the only real hope for me to become who I really am and was created to be.

Some have hopes of a reward of a big mansion in heaven (John 14:2) or to finally become holy (1Peter 1:16) or to sit on a cloud for all eternity playing a harp (that sounds more like an agonizing existence to me). I look forward to being face-to-face with the One I am coming to love so deeply, becoming one with: Jesus. This is the only reward I want: the time to know God intimately as I truly am, and, through Jesus, to be in a genuine Father-child relationship with our Father as a part of the family of God. This is my foundational hope.

I think this is the foundational hope offered by God to the world. I believe the world is desperate for this hope.

Foundational Hope

09 Sunday Sep 2012

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Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” —Genesis 12:1-3

Previously I talked about the two types of hope: ordinary hopes, those many day-to-day hopes, and a fundamental hope, that which is left when all other hopes are gone. Philosophers, theologians, and psychologists all generally recognize that we each seem to have an intrinsic, foundational hope for something better, for us as individuals to become something better and for our world in general to be better. Sometimes this hope is referred to as not-yet-being, implied in this hope is the idea of becoming, that we are each on a journey of becoming better, moving toward some ultimate good?

How does this happen? You can imagine that the answers are manifold. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, people believed that we were progressing toward this good through the sciences, both in our understanding of nature and human nature. However, the atrocities of World Wars I and II stopped this thinking. Yet, as our memory of those wars dim we seem to be moving back to that thinking, that science and now government can bring about utopia (see philosopher Thomas Hobbes 15th century writing on the Leviathan, or benevolent dictator). Even if true, this does not really address foundational hope for the individual. From where does foundational hope come?

For many, foundational hope lies beyond death, that there is something beyond this life that will be ultimately good, however we define “good.” Every religion that comes to my mind offers this foundational hope for a ultimately good existence after death. Many who have attempted suicide have reported that it was not fundamental despair that drove them to try and take their own lives. Rather, it was fundamental hope! The ordinary day-to-day despairs overwhelmed them and they felt all that was left was fundamental hope, something better awaiting a them after death.

However, there are some who believe this world is all there is (nihilists). For these, there can be no individual, foundational hope; only foundational despair can exist if they were to be honest about it. With no greater good toward which to hope one is left only with what this world offers: temporary, ordinary hopes and the distraction of busyness to keep one from the falling into the abyss of fundamental despair. Blaise Pascal put it this way:

I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am terribly ignorant of everything. I know not what my body is, or my senses, or my soul, or even that part of me which thinks what I am saying, which reflects about everything and about itself, and does not know itself any better than it knows anything else.

Just as I do not know whence I come, so I do not know whither I am going. All I know is that when I leave this world I shall fall for ever into nothingness or into the hands of a wrathful God, but I do not know which of these two states is to be my eternal lot. Such is my state, full of weakness and uncertainty. And my conclusion from all this is that I must pass my days without a thought of seeking what is to happen to me. Perhaps I might find some enlightenment in my doubts, but I do not want to take the trouble, nor take a step to look for it; and afterwards, as I sneer at those who are striving to this end…I will go without fear or foresight to face so momentous an event, and allow myself to be carried off limply to my death, uncertain of my future state for all eternity.

I began this topic by noting that the writer of the biblical book of Hebrews says that the things on which we Christians most often focus our thoughts, repentance, faith toward God, resurrection from the dead, and eternal judgment, were the elementary things (Hebrews 6:1-2); there is something much better (for mature audiences!). The writer goes on to claim that this better thing is hope (Hebrews 6:19-20):

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

This promised hope is “as an anchor of the soul.” Strong words. What is this foundational hope, this sure and steadfast anchor of the soul? It is what Christianity, Christ, has to offer us and the world. It is God’s promise first given to Abram (above) and repeated and unwrapped throughout the four millennia since. What is this profound promise and what does it offer to us and the world?

Two Hopes

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

—Psalm 42:5-6

“Hope springs eternal.” I wonder why. What is it about hope that causes it to be an integral part of the human soul such that it “springs eternal”? Bernard Schumacher, in his book, A Philosophy of Hope, says this (2):

…hope is philosophically significant by virtue of the fact that it constitutes a fundamental and central mode of human existence; it is the principle driving force of the historical-temporal human being… A human being without hope is like a walking corpse, which is both physiologically and metaphysically absurd.

“The principle driving force of the…human being.” Imagine that. If hope is that foundational to us as humans, it seems we should be able to answer the seemingly simply question, “What is the object of our hope?”. What is your answer? Perhaps it is not so easy for you.

Philosophers often talk of two types of hope: ordinary and foundational, and their opposites, ordinary despairs and foundational despair. Ordinary hopes (plural) are those things for which we hope every day: the local team to win, get a job, find the right house, rain, sun, pass a test, make it to work on time, stay healthy, our various plans…the list can be long. When the object of an ordinary hope fails to be fulfilled, we face ordinary despair, the depths of which depend on the strength of our ordinary hope in the object. Our day-to-day lives are filled with fulfilled and unfulfilled hopes, with ordinary hopes and ordinary despairs.

Perhaps at this point it is good to make several distinctions. Hope differs from desire. I have a strong desire to one day walk on the moon; however, I have no real hope of accomplishing it. Hope finds its basis in at least the real possibility that it can be fulfilled whereas desires have no such condition. Hope differs from optimism in a more subtle way. Optimism is rooted in a positive attitude toward a positive outcome. “Things will turn out for the best,” or “This too shall pass” are common statements of optimism. The “best” or what we want to “pass” is too vague to be called a hope. Optimism sits on the surface of our soul and doesn’t penetrate deeply.

These distinctions are important. Desire or optimism mistaken for hope can lead to unwarranted despair. Continuing my example, I desire to walk on the moon; it will not happen, it is simply not a realistic expectation for me to hold. To despair over it is to live in a fantasy world of unreality. So it is with optimism. In reality we know that things don’t always turn out for the best as we want to define “best,” meaning comfort, happiness, financial security, etc.–the Disney movie sort of happily ever after world in which the animals sing and dance around us. Again, despair from failed optimism is unwarranted.

Hope, real hope, according to some philosophers, has at least six characteristics: it is at least possible for the thing hoped for to occur; what we hope for must be good in some respect; it is difficult to obtain and requires effort; it is outside of our control; the thing hoped for may not be fulfilled (uncertainty); fosters an attitude of expectant waiting.

Foundational hope (singular) is different from ordinary hopes. Foundational hope remains when all other hopes are gone. This is best imagined in an end-of-life scenario: the martyr, the dying patient, or the death row inmate with no more hope of appeal. Without foundational hope we would be like a “walking corpse.”

Foundational hope sounds interesting….

The Elementary Things

03 Monday Sep 2012

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Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. —Hebrews 6:1-2

Last time I wondered how you might answer the question of an unbelieving friend who, doing his or her comparison shopping for religions, might ask you, “What does Christianity offer to me? To the world?” We looked at how we might answer that for ourselves. I suggested that there is a deeply profound answer that the world needs now as much as any time in the past.

“Let’s get back to the basics.” Have you ever heard that phrase? Sports coaches use it frequently. When a football team is playing poorly, the coach may say, “We need to get back to the basics of blocking and tackling.” Baseball coaches talk of the basics of hitting and fielding. There are basics in everything we do: science, math, philosophy, music, art, building, electrical work, engineering, flying, medicine, relationships, and on and on. Sometimes we call these basic things “elementary” things because they must come first. Stop a moment and think of some of the elementary things of something you do…

The foundation of a house is a concrete example (pardon the pun) of an “elementary” thing. A house must sit on a solid foundation or the house structure itself may tumble. Jesus was a builder by trade and the son of a builder. He knew the importance of a solid foundation; look at his use of a building example in Matthew 7:24-27. Jesus the builder knew from experience that it was important to make the building foundation solid so that the entire house would not fall when the winds and rain and floods came.

Yet, as important as these elementary things are, as foundational as they are to our lives, we don’t often dwell on them. I rarely give the foundation of our house a second thought. When balancing the checkbook I don’t stop to recall the associative property of mathematics. Surely we should remind ourselves of them from time-to-time, and when things go haywire we are wise to quickly return to them as a likely cause of our trouble, but other than that we rarely give them a second thought, and rightly so.

Return to the passage above. Look at what the writer lists as the elementary–foundational–teachings about “the Christ”: repentance from sin, faith in God, instruction about ceremonial washing, laying on of hands, resurrection, and judgment. These are elementary to Christianity not in a way that is unimportant, but that by this time the writer says we ought to be so familiar with them that we can move on to more mature things. The elementary items listed by the writer of the book of Hebrews are certainly the very foundation of Christianity. And, since our writer is writing to a Jewish audience, these things would be elementary to them, too…they are the very foundation of the Judeo/Christian faith. However, the writer urges us to move past them to something more mature, something built upon this foundation, something distinctively Christian. Perhaps this surprises you, since these elementary things listed in Hebrews are the things upon which we so often dwell; yet, the writer refers to these things as milk and urges us to get on to the solid food of the mature (Hebrews 5:13-14).

This solid food, this thing of maturity, is what Christianity has to offer the world and is offered by no other religion; it is the answer to the despair of the world. It is the hope of the promise of God guaranteed by His oath (Hebrews 6:17-18). Hope will be a great topic for further thinking…

The Good News

27 Monday Aug 2012

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The beginning of the good news [gospel] of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. —Mark 1:1

Imagine that an unbelieving friend comes up to you and asks, “What does your Christianity have to offer me and the world? What has it done for you?” How would you answer?

This would not have been an uncommon question faced by the early church. People of that time were very “spiritual” as they are now; there were many pagan religions each competing for adherents, just as there are now. There were many Christian heresies, just as there are now. What did this genuine Christian religion offer that none of the others did? In our culture obsessed with marketing and packaging, this is an increasingly common question to us as people bring their shopping mindset to their spirituality.

An obvious answer is that Christianity is true and none of the other religions are. Scripture clearly calls upon us to “contend for the faith” (Jude 3); however, in my experience people often stare facts in the face and choose otherwise if what they hear conflicts with their chosen lifestyle. Beyond the bare facts of Christianity, what does Jesus offer the world? How is the Kingdom of God different from the Kingdom of Me or any other Kingdoms of the pagan gods? In other words, what has Kingdom-of-God living brought to your life?

In Mark’s first verse, above, he tells us that the next 16 chapters of his writing are all the good news of Jesus, and there is a lot about which Mark writes: healings, forgiveness, exorcisms, teachings on wise living, miracles with food, confrontations with religious and political leaders, death, and resurrection. For you, the good news of Jesus may be any or many of these things depending on the circumstances of your life and the point in your journey with Jesus.

Here is how the good news manifested itself in the life of one woman. In Luke’s recounting, there was a woman, by tradition it was Mary Magdalene the prostitute, who came to a dinner for Jesus hosted by Simon the Pharisee. We hear how the woman washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and poured an expensive oil on His head to cool it (Luke 7:40-50), Jesus remarks to Simon that the motivation for this woman’s loving actions toward Him is because she recognizes that her many sins have been forgiven. One can imagine how a social outcast, as this woman clearly was, would respond to being accepted by someone like Jesus through the forgiveness of her sins. It seems clear that the good news for her at this point in her journey with Jesus is forgiveness. So, when answering her unbelieving friend’s question, “What has Christianity done for you?”, she would likely answer, “Jesus offered me forgiveness for my past sins.” At this point in her life, she would undoubtedly go out and preach a gospel of forgiveness as her good news of Christ.

Similarly, the man born blind who has his sight restored by Jesus would exclaim the good news of healing: “One thing I know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25).

So, what is the good news of Jesus, of Kingdom living, for you where you are right now? Is it, like the woman, forgiveness? Have you been healed, like the blind man? Is it the new life promised by the resurrection of Jesus? How would you answer your unbelieving friend? What Kingdom-is-at-hand (Matthew 3:2) gospel do you preach by your words and deeds?

Any one of these things is great good news and we must be grateful for any and all of them in our lives and we must be ready to give reasons for our belief that it is from the God of Christianity (1Peter 3:15). However, I believe there is something even more profound that each of these points to, not just good news, but an overarching GOOD NEWS that is needed so desperately in the world yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Keep reading…