News and Views

From Bishop LaTrelle Miller Easterling
Episcopal Leader of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Area

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,
so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -- Romans 15:13

“I hope I can keep it!” That was my exclamation when I found the multicolored tabby on the front porch of our home in Indianapolis. She was beautiful and unabashedly cute in her friendliness. While I knew my parents weren’t keen on adopting another pet, I hoped that they would hear the plea in my voice and allow it to overcome their pledges of “we’re not getting another animal.”

“Although the prognosis isn’t good, we’re hoping that this new treatment regimen will lead to a positive outcome.” These were the words uttered to a friend’s family as they received news of a new tumor and the persistence of a disease they thought past treatments had eliminated. Although the news of the tumor’s growth wasn’t a welcome turn of events, the family remained positive because the medical team did not seem resigned to futility.

“I hope the turkey isn’t dry,” were words uttered in some variation in homes across the land last week. In that age-old tradition of preparing the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal, we hope to help create the perfect holiday experience, or at least avoid becoming a new family horror story. 

The use of the word hope in each of these instances attempts to forestall a negative or undesired outcome. The wishful thinking of a child who is overcome with emotion at the sight of a kitten; the desperation of a family who isn’t ready to say goodbye to a loved one; the desire not to disappoint hungry guests at the dinner table -- these are each deep desires, but they are not certainties. They are not built on a foundation of steadfast faith. However, hope, as expressed in scripture, is not fraught with the uncertainty of wishes. Biblical hope is a future certainty we can absolutely stand upon. It is not dependent upon the strength of our wishing or left to chance. For those who believe in the Gospel, our hope is based on the irrevocable work and words of Jesus. 

As scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann teaches, “Hope in gospel faith is not just a vague feeling that things will work out, for it is evident that things will not just work out. Rather, hope is the conviction, against a great deal of data, that God is tenacious and persistent in overcoming the deathliness of the world, that God intends joy and peace. Christians find compelling evidence, in the story of Jesus, that Jesus, with great persistence and great vulnerability, everywhere he went, turned the enmity of society toward a new possibility, turned the sadness of the world toward joy, introduced a new regime where the dead are raised, the lost are found, and the displaced are brought home again.” 

The operative phrase in Brueggemann’s statement is that God intends joy and peace. The God of all creation, the ground of our being, our Alpha and Omega, intends that creation dwells in joy and peace, and has provided all we need to experience it. Humanity continues to live in ways that run counter to God’s intention as we succumb to greed, jealousy, competition, lust, anger and hatred. And yet, God, whose very nature and name is love, will not leave us to our own devices. God loves us with an everlasting love that will not let us go. When we trust God rather than our human machinations, we learn to live above our fleshly desires and embark upon a life that seeks the welfare of all creation.

Hope born of the world or rooted in flesh and blood will ebb and flow with the vagaries of life. Some things will work out as one dreams or wishes, but many others will not. Yet our hope, born of faith rooted in Jesus Christ, is grounded, perpetual and generative. It is not dependent upon winning over our parents, the practice of medicine, the perfect melding of ingredients, or even the outcome of an election. It is built upon the proven, undeniable, relentless power of Almighty God. As the songwriter brilliantly extols, “Build your hope on things eternal.”

As we enter another season of Advent, we do so with expectation and anticipation. And, we do so actively engaging, or reclaiming if we have let it wane, our hope in the God who sent his only begotten Son that we would have life, and have it to the full. That promise allows us to rise above the circumstances of life and live in expectant hope. It also gives us the courage to join Christ in his work of love, justice and reconciliation.