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Well that was pretty gloomy, wasn’t
it? In the gospel passage (Luke 21.5-19) Jesus spoke of beautiful things being thrown down;
good people being led astray; wars and insurrections; nation rising against
nation; arrest, persecution, betrayal, family breakdown, hatred.
It sounds gloomily familiar. We’re going
to hell in a handcart?
It’s hard, watching the news at the
moment, not to wonder what on earth is happening to our world.
On a global level the rules based
order of international affairs is being undermined by newly dominant powers,
and not helped by those trying to hold on to their place in the world: walls
figurative and physical are going up; trust is going down.
Nationally our country has got itself
in a terrible stew about over how our common future might be shaped; the less
said about General Election campaigns, perhaps, the better.
In families the pressures of finance,
be it from Universal Credit or the drive to work more and more for diminishing
returns, is corroding the bedrock of society and social wellbeing in the family.
And in many individual lives the
stresses and strains of navigating life in a complex and overwhelming world can
lead to huge anguish, poor mental health and questions and bewilderment over
identity.
And on every level those in power and
in positions of influence seem desperate to meet our desires by promising that
we can have it all without any cost. We don’t need an election campaign to have
politicians, the advertising industry and sophisticated algorithms all telling
us what we really want; and yet it is never quite within reach.
It seems, then, that Jesus’ words are
less gloomy than at first glance. Jesus unmasks the deep powers of the world
which we inhabit and then point to that which transforms the human predicament
through hope.
Hope is one of the theological virtues,
along with faith and love. As St Paul says, the greatest of these is love, and
that is beyond dispute, but love is only complete with faith and hope: these
three endure.
Hope has had a bad name because it
has come to mean the frothy optimism of the adman and the politician, those
people who try to indulge what we want which simply mask or dull our deepest
yearnings.
The hope of Christians is not frothy
optimism; it is earthed in reality and in the promises of that which endures. With
faith and love, St Paul tells us that hope also abides, lasts, endures.
The gospel passage closed with these
words: ‘By your endurance you will gain your souls’ (Luke 21.19). That is the
hope-filled promise of the way of Jesus Christ. And that endurance is not dependent
on our stamina, our own energies, our own self-belief, but is dependent on
drinking deeply from the enduring hope of God. We endure when we allow hope to
endure; if we shut out the possibility of deep hope, they we will wither and
not endure.
Christian hope is a promise that is
rooted in heaven and lived out on earth.
That hope is of the life of the world
to come; which is a life and a hope that can be lived out now. It is a hope that knows the end of the story; a hope that
knows that it is in dying we are born to eternal life. It is a hope that takes us, with Jesus, to the
cross.
Our prayer after communion today will
put it like this:
Gracious Lord,
in this sacrament you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is a prayer first and foremost,
but also a wonderful definition of hope. Hope has substance and brings us to the fullness of life
for which we long.
That hope is literally placed in our
hands. Hope is not a credit card in the hand; hope is not a mirror in the hand
to gaze upon ourselves; hope is not a smartphone in the hand which draws us
more into our selfie-ness: the hope placed in our hand today is hope in the bread
of Life, Jesus Christ.
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