Uncancel-able Hope--March 19, 2020

Uncancel-able Hope--March 19, 2020

"And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us." [Romans 5:3-8]

"Hope does not disappoint us."  Hmmmm.  

I've been rolling those words over in my mind, not quite sure what to make of them.  They have long been some of my favorite verses in the New Testament, words that come back to me in times of stress and strain.  That whole chain of ideas that moves from suffering to endurance to character to hope, it gives me a sense of purpose and usefulness in times of stress and strain.  I hear echoes of the poem my grandfather used to read to me (which I now read to my son and daughter) that goes, "If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve their turn long after they are gone/ And so hold on when there is nothing in you, except the will which says to them, 'Hold on!'"  So, there is much in me that wants to cling to these words from Saint Paul about how hope does not disappoint.

But then... I look around.  And there is so much disappointment.  There are so many things folks would surely have called "hopes" that have been frustrated, put on hold, thrown up in the air, or outright cancelled.  Just on a regular day without a pandemic, there are lots of things we would call "hopes" that don't pan out--will my kid get an A on the spelling test (maybe), will that strained relationship recover (no), will I get the stack of work finished by the end of the day (Magic Eight-Ball says unlikely).  But add to that the way we are seeing so much of what we used to call "normal life" cancelled and brought to a grinding halt.  And beyond the mere inconveniences of having stores closed or kids home from school, of having to make contingency plans for everything from two weeks to six months, or of worrying how much toilet paper will be around when I need it, there are the bigger worries of, "Will I have a job still at the end of all this?"  or "Will I lose someone I love to the sickness?" or "What will happen to our local community if all the small businesses have to shut for an extended time?"

I don't know what to call all of those things but disappointed hopes.

So what do we do with the promise that "hope does not disappoint us" when we feel like we are closed in on all sides with letdowns and broken plans?  How can Paul say that "hope" doesn't disappoint?

Maybe this is a time to be clear about the difference between a hope rooted in God versus the vague, sentimental optimism we often call by the same name.  Because, yeah, those kind of "hopes" get shattered all the time.  They are as fragile as glass, and just as painful to muddle through the shards of.  All kinds of things we wish for, want for, dream about, or plan will not come about.  If we have misread Paul to make it sound like anything you wish for is "hope," we are setting ourselves up for a LOT of disappointment.

But notice the direction Paul takes things here.  He doubles down on the certainty of hope, but he doesn't include in the list of things he hopes for the day-to-day ups and downs of his wish-list.  Paul sees authentic hope as something rooted in God's character, God's faithfulness, and God's love.  That's what makes hope in Christ uncancel-able.  

Paul says the reason he is sure that hope will not disappoint us (the Greek literally says something closer to "hope will not put us to shame," in case you were keeping score) is that "God's love has been poured into our hearts." And from there, he goes on to make a case for why you know God's love won't flake out or bail out on us.  He says that God's love was shown to us in the utter extreme of death--Christ's death for us on a cruel Roman cross.  And tripling down on God's love, Paul says that Christ died for us, not when we were well-behaved good little girls and boys, nor when we were Respectable Religious people, but exactly at the point that we are weak, ungodly, sinful, and even--gasp--enemies of God.

This is what makes hope uncancel-able: it doesn't arise from how the markets are doing or when you can go back to dine at your favorite restaurant.  It is grounded in the love of God--and there is no limit to what God will do for the sake of loving us, nor are there conditions God imposes for how good we must be to earn that love.  It was given, all the way to death, when we were dead-set against God.  Grace does not wait until we approach God first or promise to love Christ or ask Jesus into our hearts first--God loved us when we were 180-degrees turned away from God, and God has never given up on us since.  There is nothing you can do to lose that love.  There is nothing the world can throw at us which will postpone or cancel that love.  There is nothing that can happen in this whole universe which will loosen the grip of grace on you and me.

And if that is true, well, then, I can deal with an awful lot of other things changing in my life.  I can deal with changes in schedules, cancellations of plans, and uncertainty in the rest of my world... because I am rooted, not in shallow optimism, but in the deep rich soil of hope.

Go be hopeful today, dear ones.  You will be held.

Lord God, be your faithful self to us and let us not be disappointed in you, even while so many other things in the world right now feel like they are letting us down.