The Life-altering Encounter of Hope

Have you ever had an encounter that totally altered your state of being? Something that provided you with a new perspective on life or visions of an alternative reality that once you experienced it, you knew that you could never go back? These experiences come to us in many shapes and sizes. It could be a conversation with a friend, a movie, a book, a poem, a piece of art, etc. The medium of these encounters is virtually limitless.

I had one of these encounters this summer. Because I am a nerd, this encounter came through reading German theologian Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope. My copy of this book is old and dingy and does not appear as much to those who have never opened its cover. However, this book has provided me with a reality that I have been unable to shake ever since I began the journey through its pages. 

For those of you who regularly read my blog posts, you will know that I have posted about Moltmann in the past (you can read those posts here and here), and I apologize if you tire of hearing about him once again. However, as we approach the season of advent in the church's liturgical calendar, I once again am confronted with the reality that Moltmann stresses: there is no Christian Gospel if there is no hope. Consider here Moltmann's words on the subject of hope:

Does this hope cheat man of the happiness of the present? How could it do so! For it is itself the happiness of the present. It pronounces the poor blessed, receives the weary and heavy laden, the humbled and wronged, the hungry and the dying, because it perceives the parousia of the kingdom for them. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. Thus hope goes on its way through the midst of happiness and pain, because in the promises of God it can see a future also for that living without hope is like no linger living. Hell is hopelessness, and it is not for nothing that at the entrance to Dante's hell there stands the words: 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.' - Theology of Hope, 32.

Hope is what makes our life bearable! For even in our darkest of times, it is the hope that things will not be this way forever that continues to push us forward. And how relevant is this theme of hope for us as we enter into the season of advent.

Consider the Old Testament lectionary reading for the first Sunday of advent.

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” - Jeremiah 33:14-16

The Lord, he is coming! Imagine the hope the Messiah would bring to the nation of Israel, a nation who had been exiled, and upon return from exile, lived under Greco-Roman rule. Even when life seemed unbearable, surely the hope of the Messiah, the one who would execute justice and righteousness, would be all the encouragement one would need!

How applicable is this theme of hope for our present situation. We live in a world that quite often seems void of all hope. We hear regularly of injustices at home and abroad, and it can be easy to buy into the myth that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And this is why the message of hope is of utmost importance for Christians! We worship the one who welcomes the poor, the needy, the downtrodden, the lame, the sick, and the disadvantaged! This world does not have the final say, for that is left to the one who comes to bring life, life to the fullest.

It is my prayer that as we engage in the season of advent in its fasts and its feasts that our eyes would not turn from the hope that we see in the coming Christ. For he is the Christ who came to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free (cf. Lk 4:18). It is in him that we must put all of our hope.