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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Week 25
Andre Basson, Brock University, St. Catherines, Ontario
Hope in the face of Change
25.1 Abraham’s hope: seeing what is invisible
“The Lord said to Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”” Genesis 12:1 (NIV)
Do you still remember your first day on campus? You felt so lost among all the unfamiliar faces, not to mention disoriented as you tried to find simple things like a bathroom or the cafeteria. But at least you had the chance to check out the place during a campus visit in your senior year in high school.
Now try to put yourself in poor Abram’s shoes (or sandals, if you prefer) when a God whom he didn’t know at all, told him one day to pack up all his belongings and establish a new home in an unknown land (Genesis 12:1).
Genesis does not tell us anything about Abram’s response, except that “Abram left, as the Lord had told him.”
“So what’s the big deal?” For Abram, or Abraham as he later came to be called, it was a very big deal. Remember, in those days leaving your family and tribe behind to settle in another land was almost unthinkable. Your identity derived from your ties to a particular family and a particular community. Without a family, you were a non-person. Emigrating also meant worshipping other gods, because – so people believed – every place had its own gods, and who knew what strange and terrible forms of worship they required?
So why did Abram obey? Why do so many Christians today still sacrifice family ties, home comforts and a promising career to live and work in developing countries, even in the face of the most daunting odds (increasing poverty, high infant mortality, AIDS, civil war), especially when their efforts seem to make so little difference?
Because of his faith, Abram was able to hope that God would indeed keep the promises he made to him, no matter how completely unrealistic these may have sounded at the time (make him into a great nation when his wife was already way past childbearing age, etc.), and so he obeyed. In uncertain times, our Christian faith allows us to look beyond the often harsh reality of our circumstances and to get involved in projects that may seem insignificant or futile, because, and only because, we “hope for and [are] certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).
Prayer: Lord of hope, please grant us the faith of Abram that is founded on hope for a better future for all of your creation. Amen.
Quote: “Quite simply, life without hope is a wasteland of non-fulfillment. Faith promises a different reality because hope is the inseparable companion of faith.” (Denise Ackermann, After the Locusts. Letters From a Landscape of Faith, Eerdmans & David Philip, 2003, p. 82).
25.2 Meeting the God of the future
“God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14: (NIV)
Whether it is toothpaste or soap-powder, advertise it as “new and improved” and folks will buy it instead of the brand they’ve been using for years. Want to perk up a flagging business? Just do some minor changes and hang a sign “Under New Management” in the window, and see what happens!
We’ve come to believe that if something is new, it must be better than its predecessor. This was not always so. In the ancient world, folks valued something only if it was like an item or product they already knew. In any case, so they thought, there was nothing new under the sun.
All this changed when God introduced himself to Moses as I AM WHO I AM. Another possible translation is: I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE. Unlike any of the gods known at that time, the God who spoke to Moses was also a God of the future, one who fills it with new possibilities.
For the people of Israel, God became the God of the Exodus who led them out of a life of slavery and hopelessness in Egypt and traveled ahead of them, in a cloud column by day and a fire column by night, to a land of promise and hope.
For the first time in the history of humanity, folks were able to look to the future and actually hope that things and even people could change. No longer was it true that if you were born a slave you would inevitably also die a slave.
It should come as no surprise that an important part of Jesus’ ministry was changing people. He gave men and women who seemed to be enslaved to a life of sin and who were considered lost causes by everybody else, the freedom to change and start a new life.
The good news is that through his death and resurrection he has already made us new, as Paul writes to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:17): “ … if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” History doesn’t have to repeat itself after all.
Prayer: Lord, thank you that in Jesus Christ you gave us a new beginning and a new future, full of hope. Amen.
Quote: “Christianity is wholly and entirely confident hope, a stretching out to what is ahead, and a readiness for a fresh start.” (Jürgen Moltmann, In the End – the Beginning, SCM Press, 2004, p. 87).
25.3 Keeping hope when all hell breaks loose.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1 (NIV).
Since the release of Al Gore’s movie, Inconvenient Truth, global warming has become something of a hot topic (pun intended). The film has a disturbing message, namely that unless something is done to reverse the current trend of climate change, our world faces imminent catastrophe.
Apocalyptic visions of the end of the world are not new. There are even a few in the Bible. Psalm 43, for instance, describes a disaster of global proportions that will see mountains collapse and the sea become one heaving mass of water.
However, global warming and its consequences are not the only crises that give us reason to lose hope. The AIDS pandemic in Africa and the conflicts in the Middle East, to name only two, threaten the future of everyone on this planet.
Our sense of despair is further increased by the apparent inability of world leaders and international organizations to come up with effective and lasting solutions to these crises.
So how can the overall optimistic tone of Psalm 46 say anything to us today? Like a refrain we hear, God is our refuge and strength (verse 1), the Lord Almighty is with us (verse 7), the Lord Almighty is with us (verse 13).
Clearly, the psalmist is fully aware of the reality of what could happen to his world. In fact, he doesn’t hesitate to imagine the worst case scenario: nations are in turmoil and everywhere it is utter chaos. Yet it is precisely because of his realistic outlook that he realizes that no human agency would be able to save the situation. His one source of hope in the face of all the doom and gloom is what God has done and is able to do (verse 8).
Christian hope is therefore by no means naïve. If anything, it is profoundly aware that all life on earth is pretty precarious, here one day, gone the next (Psalm 90:5). At the same time, all Christian hope is based on what God has done not only in the history of Israel, but also – and above all - in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is therefore a hope that dares to see the dawn of God’s kingdom even when circumstances demand that we only despair.
Prayer: Lord, thank you that no darkness can overcome your light, no matter how terrible and hopeless our circumstances. Grant also that we may reflect a little bit of your light in this world. Amen.
Quote: “As long as people share hope beyond reason, religion will persevere.” Scott Attran, In Gods We Trust. The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.
25.4 To dream the impossible dream
“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth …” Isaiah 64:17
It’s hard to find a television newscast these days that does not include graphic scenes of destruction and human suffering from somewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan. We have become almost accustomed to seeing people whose daily life has become one long hellish nightmare, filled with endless tragedy and despair.
Imagine if one day, someone were to appear in the midst of these poor souls and promise them a future without war or famine, a time that will last forever when everyone will live to a ripe old age and no child will be neglected? To make this kind of promises to folks in a desperate situation is extremely cruel.
At first, this is what God seems to be doing to the people of Judah through his prophet Isaiah! It was a dark period in Judah’s history. They found themselves in a country laid waste by war.
Then, right in the middle of all the devastation caused by the Assyrian invasion, Isaiah brings God’s message of a new heaven and a new earth, of a time when crying and weeping will cease, when infant mortality will be unheard of, when folks will live to a ripe old age, when no one will be deprived of his property.
What makes Isaiah’s prophecy sound even more like a utopian dream is the idea that the wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox (verse 25).
Yet, isn’t faith about dreaming the impossible dream, about imagining a world where there will indeed be justice for all, where humanity’s relationship with God and with the rest of creation will be restored?
It’s hard to imagine a world more devoid of hope than the Nazi concentration camps of WW II. But many of those who survived the horrors they experienced there, were able to do so, studies found, because they kept on hoping that one day they would be free again.
Often we are so preoccupied with the realities of everyday living or become so content with all the wonderful things life in this part of the world has to offer, that hope becomes a luxury. When this happens, when we cease to dream the impossible dream of the day when indeed the wolf and the lamb will feed together, we begin to die spiritually.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help us to see beyond the sometimes terrible and hopeless realities of this world, and to dream the impossible dream of the new heaven and new earth. Amen.
Quote: “Keep hope alive and hope will keep you alive,” (Lewis Smedes, quoted in C. Plantinga, Engaging God’s World: A Christian Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living, Eerdmans, 2002, p. 11).
25.5 A special birthday and a new beginning
“… and Mary gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She … placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:7
There is the story of the little boy who played the role of the inn-keeper in his school’s Christmas pageant, but just couldn’t bring himself to turning Joseph and the pregnant Mary away. So, just after telling them that unfortunately every room in his inn was already taken, he departed from the script and asked them, “But wouldn’t you at least like to come in for a drink?”
I’m sure if we had any say in the matter, we too would have changed the script of Jesus’ birth, just as the little boy did. After all, one does not expect the dawn of God’s hope for the world to begin among barn animals and to be steeped in suffering.
Not only was Jesus born in very humble circumstances in the most backward region of the Roman Empire (not to mention Joseph’s secret decision to abandon his family after Mary’s child was born nor the infant sons of Bethlehem who were killed because of Herod’s bloodthirsty paranoia), he also ended his life executed like a common criminal in the most shameful manner imaginable in those days.
Why did it have to be this way? It had to because it was God’s radical alternative to the culture of despair and violence of the Roman Empire. Consider the prevailing culture of our world today with its firm belief in the power of progress and technology, a culture in which economic and political interests are more important than ethics or morality.
It was in opposition to this kind of culture that God established his Kingdom in Jesus Christ. In every respect Jesus’ life and work made manifest the characteristics of this kingdom.
When human solutions to society’s problems simply repeat or even aggravate the mistakes of the past, as they so often do, cynicism sets in, followed sometimes by fear and violence. Christian hope, on the other hand, opens up the future. It is an affirmation that there can and will be a new tomorrow, different from any other, because it is based upon and guaranteed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Lord, keep us from making compromises with our modern culture of consumerism, exploitation and violence. Amen.
Quote: “What if our only hope lies in this impossible paradox: the only way the kingdom of God can be strong in a truly liberating way is through a scandalous, noncoercive kind of weakness … ?” (Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus. Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything, p. 70).
25.6 The Resurrection Hope of Easter Morning
“… if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.” 1 Corinthians 15:14
It is so remarkable that there are no eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection. No one actually saw Jesus step out of the tomb. Instead, the women who came at dawn that first day of the week only found that it was empty.
Given Jesus’ promise that he would rise from the dead, it is significant that his disciples stayed home instead of going to his tomb. It was the women who informed them that Jesus was no longer dead. As a matter of fact, according to Luke (Luke 24:11), they did not believe the women and thought they were talking nonsense.
But let us not judge the disciples too harshly. Yes, they had witnessed many of Jesus’ miracles, including his bringing Lazarus back to life. Yet, it is not hard to imagine that when they saw him dying on the cross, they believed it was all over. There was no doubt that he was dead, the Romans made sure of that.
In his book, Theology of Hope (English translation, SCM Press, 1967, p. 18), Jürgen Moltmann observes that the Christian hope is “resurrection hope” because it is firmly grounded in God’s triumph over the forces of evil in the death and resurrection of his Son.
This has nothing to do with a pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die kind of thinking. Christian hope does not try to escape from the stark realities of the present. Instead it takes the present with all its toils and travails very seriously and does not for one moment consider them to be the permanent realities of our human condition.
Because, based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it firmly believes that the future of God’s new creation is certain, Christian hope has to be in conflict with and ceaselessly struggle against whatever obstructs the fulfillment of this new creation.
Jesus already showed the way in his own life and ministry. He regularly associated with the social and religious outcasts of his day (including women!) – and by so doing came into conflict with the authorities of his day - not merely to set an example of tolerance, but also in anticipation of the final perfection of the Kingdom of God.
Prayer: Lord, help us to lead lives that will reflect to the world the lifestyle of your Kingdom. Amen.
Quote: “Hope cannot exist without the ability to imagine otherwise” (Robert P. Doede and Paul E. Hughes, “Wounded Vision and the Optics of Hope” in M. Volf and W. Katerberg, eds., The Future of Hope: Christian Tradition Amid Modernity and Postmodernity, Eerdmans, 2004, p. 171).
25.7 The hope of a new creation
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17
Father Jacques Arnould is no ordinary Roman Catholic priest. Apart from his work as an ethicist at the prestigious French National Space Centre, he has also been involved in the work of an organization that seeks to rehabilitate sex-workers and combat prostitution in France.
For a number of years now, Father Arnould has been in the habit of paying a regular visit to the heart of Paris’ red-light district, to connect with the women who work in the sex-trade, to provide informal counseling, or just to offer a hand of friendship.
In his account of his experiences, he admits that he does not know many sex-workers who have quit the profession once and for all. On the other hand, he states he knows many who have shown that they are at least able to take the first step in starting a new life, even if they continued to fail.
In one way or another, this is also the life story of every Christian. So where does Paul get the idea from that anyone who is in Christ is a new creation? Surely he wasn’t thinking of a life without sin? In the preceding verse (verse 16), Paul states that from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view.
Who can forget Jesus’ words to the woman caught in adultery, Go now and leave your life of sin (John 8:11)? Did she stop sinning altogether? It’s highly unlikely. However, in Jesus’ eyes it was as if she had never sinned before and become a new person.
Somehow, Father Arnould’s compassionate approach to the sex-workers of the rue Saint-Denis gives further expression to Paul’s statement. He considers them not as other human beings normally do, but as Christ would, in other words reconciled with the Father and so able to start a new life … They are therefore new creatures, not because they have left the sex-trade completely (which in many cases they haven’t), but because in Christ they have been given the chance to. This is where Christian hope comes in, since it sees the future of every person as filled with all kinds of possibilities – possibilities guaranteed by what became possible in Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Lord, grant that we may see others as you see them, as forgiven in Christ. Amen.
Quote: “Christian hope … thrusts us into this world, for our salvation … can only happen there where God himself became flesh and one of us” (Jacque Arnould, Accueillir la difference, Coll. Mieux vivre, Les Éditions de l’Atelier/Éditions Ouvrières, Paris, 2001, p. 135).
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