A Moment Aside ---- 22 September 2020
Sometimes it occurs to me that
hope is a slippery fish. I realize that this may not make much sense to some.
Let’s think about it.(If you need to, look at the fish-and-bear carving above.)
Hope is something that can
easily escape us. We hope for someone we care for to regain good health. We
hope for someone who far from us to return. We hope for our team to win. We
hope for ice cream after dinner. If those things don’t come to pass, we are
disappointed and even possibly angry. The fish has slipped out of our hands and
the current has taken it further downstream. Like a fish in a fresh stream,
hope can be difficult to hold on to. In truth, we may have to struggle with
such hope all our lives. It can be a real wrestling match. Hope can be slippery
and there are not hand-holds. We might also be afraid of crushing what we hope
for.
We might also see that hope may
not lead to exactly what we are hoping for. Hope for a cure might find itself
faced with a long course of therapy. Hope for our team to win the championship
might result in lowering our expectations to “learning from our mistakes”, more
training, new players, and “better luck next season.”
True hope does not lead to us
always looking on “the bright side of life” or finding an interpretation that
some other people might refer to as “Polly-Anna.” (I think all who read this
might understand that reference.) Seeing hope as a slippery thing can lead us
beyond that “bright side” and “Polly-Anna” type of hope.
Hope is sometimes referred to
as one of the “theological virtues” – which are faith,
hope, and
love. These are virtues that are directly related to the Kingdom of God,
often more than virtues like patience, perseverance, or reasonableness,
although these are advantageous to have. Faith, hope, and love are necessary
for life in the Kingdom. Hope has to apply to something greater than our small
hopes that project our desires into the future.
I don’t wish to appear to
degrade the hopes we all hold for people, things, and events in our lives. Hope
as a “Kingdom virtue” goes beyond those things, reaching out for what the
Kingdom of God means to us, both now and in what is to come. There is where the
hope I’m speaking of resides. This Hope (in capitals) takes us beyond ourselves
into the very life and grace of God.
And that Hope will not be disappointed.
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