Hope against hope
My absolute
favorite worship service is Maundy Thursday. Even as it is about Christ’s firm and unbreakable command to love one another, there is such a vulnerability
to it, it’s amazing! There are, as well, the powerful actions that take
place,
foot washing—what can be more vulnerable
than exposing your feet to other people,
communion—sometimes for the first
time,
and the stripping of the altar while Psalm 22 is wailed out!
Psalm 22,
packed with verses that let us stay in that vulnerability
—verses that bottom out, embracing failure, holding us by the very last thread, scraping bottom
just to get by… and only at the ending, these verses we read today,
only there is anything that appears to be praise
—even here a subdued praise, “The LORD has acted!”
Psalm 22, with its cries from the depths and
dangers and sufferings of life and threats and experiences of death. This psalm
points powerfully to that phrase Paul uses today, “Hope against hope.”
This English phrase pressurizes the longer Greek,
which expands out more fully as something like “Beyond Hope and Upon Hope.” Two
separate experiences compressed together
—Beyond Hope
—Upon Hope.
Prayer
Beyond Hope, Upon Hope.
The first a Hope that we cannot reach, that has passed us by,
the second the ground and center of gravity for our being
Beyond Hope—Look you Abram and Sarai—names
themselves barren and sterile. The first and last of a new nation, a
branch upshot and withered, an inheritance passed on to nameless servants.
Beyond Hope—You Psalmists struck with awe and fear,
despised, crying out, put down by your poverty, ate by your hunger, you who
seek and do not find, you who sleep in the earth, who are dust and to dust you
have returned, for you are dead.
Beyond Hope—Paul with the promise appearing null and void,
Law made lawless, non-existence and death threatening every corner of our life.
Beyond Hope—Peter petrified, his Savior suffering, rejected
and killed. Offering crosses as footsteps to follow.
Hope Beyond hope… Reading scripture through that
lens, it’s all rather heavy…
-and for some we are struck dead—“Wait?!? I have to die
for resurrection to occur? For new life to take root?
This is terrifying, this reality of our life as Christians
and simply as human beings… we do all we
can to avoid the gloom and depths of our being and our world, but here’s
the thing, it is still there, even if you look away.
-but for others, we who are perishing, this is a powerful
promise…
yes, when you realize, “The Word of God meets me even here? Even in the depths
of my depression, at the bedside of a dying friend, at the psych unit, in the
midst of shootings at school, in the grave yard and dementia unit”… God’s Word
surrounds and encompasses, and speaks to that—to all of it!
Beyond hope…
Upon Hope too…
Upon Hope—Abraham, Sarah—those are your names, for ancestors,
multitudes. A new nation
—laugh if you want to, that which is withered will be
fruitful!
Upon Hope—You Psalmists, your awe and fear spreads out in praise and
the glorification of God.
Eat!
Be Satisfied.
Arise in the riches of holiness, see now the whole world
seeks you out, that you might help them bow down to God!
You who were once dead, now you live—those who have passed,
arise and kneel before God, and their descendants proclaim God’s goodness in
every age, and will continue to do so forevermore
—for God has acted!
Upon Hope—Paul those promises held in faith and that wrath you fear,
dissolves and disappears! God is the one who gives life to the dead and calls
something out of nothing!
Upon Hope—Peter did you not hear—after three days rise again… your
life is more precious than the whole world!
Living your life in authentic holiness will bring cross, yes,
but it is real, and sacred, and good!
Upon hope.
Beyond hope, upon hope…
Beyond hope—17 dead in Florida, students from around the
country yet again traumatized and told they are not safe where they spend the
majority of their time—in their schools. 17 dead, those kids escaping and those
kids who didn’t escape… Lord have mercy!
Upon hope—did you see them… I know some of you disagree with them
politically
—but did you see them!
Standing before state legislators and governors and even the
president
—transforming death into action
transforming an impossibly bad situation,
transforming their helplessness, into advocacy, into “Never Again,” opening up a debate about
guns
and schools,
and mental health,
A debate that had been closed since we adults allowed the
death of elementary school children to have the last word after Sandy Hook.
Beyond hope—have you seen a forest of pine on a mountain
burnt? The whole edifice blackened, like an angry lava flow, a sheet spread
over barren rock, the end of life itself, a moonscape.
Upon hope—pinecones popped open only in extreme heat, strengthened and
nourished by rich black earth, new growth where there was none, a whole new
forest forming before your eyes.
Beyond hope—apartments burnt in Elizabeth, over a dozen folk
with disabilities displaced after a lifetime of living there…
Upon hope—a groundswell response from people of good will across
central Jersey, homes found, clothing and food restored—all in the blink of an eye.
Beyond hope—the beginning of Psalm 22 and Jesus’ final cry,
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Upon hope—the ending, that isn’t an end, but instead the gospel for
us, “The LORD has acted.”
Beyond
hope… upon hope… rightly facing the reality of sin, death, and the
devil—wailing while the world is stripped bare and so are we
—vulnerable there, bottomed out, held by the last thread, yet
upheld by the truth that, “The LORD has
acted!”
Beyond hope upon hope… hope against hope.
Amen.
