A Thrill of Hope

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

I have been thinking a lot about the word "hope" lately and not just because it has been plastered on Christmas cards with enough glitter and Hallmark sappiness to choke a unicorn. I have been thinking about it because it seems to have been so allusive in my life right now. 

But in all honestly it doesn't sound like something a truly spiritual Christian is supposed to have. "Hope" sounds like a wishy-washy naivety that isn't grounded in reality and just keeps up a glass half full kind of lifestyle despite all evidence to the contrary. I want "faith"- that big audacious trait of super Christians that can throw mountains into the sea for fun. 

I have discovered over the last few years that faith can be hard to muster up when it is missing the key ingredient of "hope." Frankly I never really understood the difference between the two and I was surprised to find that difference best illustrated in that ever so pleasant and uplifting Bible story we call "The Fall of Man." 

Here is the setup. 

God makes Adam and Eve and puts them in literal Paradise with free reign to do whatever they want to do- with one minor exception. God says they can eat from any tree they want in the massive Garden He has built for them except one. If they eat from the tree with the ominous name of "Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil" they will die. No due process or chance for defense. Just death.

I try to wonder what they would have thought when they heard God say that. When you or I hear the word death we have a lifetime of experiences which tell us death is the thing to be feared above everything else. But Adam and Eve were never kids who had to flush their dead goldfish down the toilet and ponder the existence of an aquatic afterlife. They never had to see people they loved grow old leave this life behind. They never even saw a plant wither away from lack of nourishment. 

What would the threat of death mean to them? 

I am sure that God took some time to help them understand the finality of what He was talking about. Whether or not they fully grasped it (I mean who fully grasps death anyway?) I am sure that they came to understand that whatever this death thing was it was bad and should be avoided.

But that understanding was not enough for them to refrain from the beckoning call of curiosity mixed with cleverly targeted deception. They ate the fruit, hid in their shame, and waited for the inevitable. 

Can you imagine what it felt like behind that bush? 

Can you imagine what it would be like to have to process feeling shame, embarrassment, remorse and utter fear for the first time all at once?

Adam had to be thinking this was it. His short life in the garden would be all that he would ever know. God- His creator and first companion- was coming and He was carrying the big scary death word with Him. Then God starts asking questions that Adam is sure He must already know but he answers the best he can anyway, sure that each answer will be the end of all that he knows. 

"Is it going to hurt? What does it even mean 'to hurt'? What happens after we are gone? Who is going to take care of all of this after we die? This regret and shame that I feel- does God feel that now about me? But it wasn't my fault! The Woman made me-no, God sees through that. He made me responsible and I blew it. Does that mean my death will be worse than hers?"

God calls the Man and the Woman out from behind the bush and is about to address them when He turns His attention to the serpent that got them into this mess. He starts telling him that he is going to be cursed among all the other animals and that one day his head will be crushed. But God says "her offspring" will be the one who does it- does God mean this Woman?

Then he addresses the Woman and Adam is probably thinking that God is saving His harshest words for him. He is thinking about how awful it is about to get for him. If only God would just get on with it and strike them with death...

But then Adam hears a phrase that gets his attention. "Pains in childbearing."

Can the dead bear children? 

Then God moves on to Adam. He must be waiting to strike them dead until after He has listed out their crimes.

"Cursed is the ground because of you."

It's me. All this is ruined because of me. The plants, the animals, the Woman- all get death because of me. 

"Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life."

God then begins to list out how awful life is going to be from here on out and we the reader nod our heads in familiarity. We know that every bad thing that has ever happened to us, every sickness, every violent crime, every natural disaster, every tyrannical dictator and abusive parent, has grown out of this one single event. The last thing we typically find in this passage is hope.

But somewhere in the midst of this discourse of malediction the first Man has a revelation. 

"We are not going to die today."

These curses sound terrible but we will live another day to see them. This is not the end. 

This revelation isn't just speculation on my part, we see it clearly in Adam's immediate response to all that God is saying. He doesn't try to pass off the blame again. He doesn't thank God for delaying punishment or accuse God of being unjust and making a silly rule in the first place. 

Instead, he looks at the Woman beside him who is still burying her head in shame and says "I am going to name you Eve because you will become the mother of all the living."

Now, it is not surprising that a husband would come up with a new name for his wife who just single handedly ruined humanity but that's a different matter.

What is surprising is that we forget that this Woman was not called Eve until this point. We forget that "Woman" was her actual name given to her by Adam and not just a vague adjective. Adam named her that because he woke up and saw her and knew that she had come out of man.

Here is where hope rises to the occasion. 

I think hope can be defined as that same simple revelation that Adam had in the garden: "I'm not going to die today." 

It's the revelation, the immense optimism, that we will live to face tomorrow no matter how hard it will undoubtedly be. We will live to fight another day. This is not the end.  

Adam was saying that this Woman would no longer be defined by where she came from because what came out of her would be more important. 

Read that last line again and let it sink in. 

"Hope" doesn't always sound spiritual enough for us as Christians. Saying "I hope something happens" is usually a nice way to mask your pessimism in thinking that whatever it is is actually unlikely to happen. "Faith" though is a big strong word. "Faith" can be strengthened and seeks to be unshakable. "Faith" is what separates us from everybody else. But the strength of faith rests more in Who the faith is in than who has the faith itself. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. It proves nothing if hope does not come first. 

If you are like me you probably lament your apparent lack of faith in trying seasons. You don't want to admit to yourself that you have started to doubt God's promises and the things everyone says about Him. You know you are supposed to have faith but it seems like the hardest feeling in the world to pull out of yourself. You can fake joy and peace but faith is always the one that alludes you. 

Hope says this isn't all there is. Hope says there just might be more to this story than you have heard just yet. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. Faith comes after hope. The certainty of things not seen comes after the revelation that there is more than what you see right now.

Hope is what happens when your team has been down the whole first half but makes a great play and reminds you that a win is still possible. It causes you to stay tuned despite previous disappointment because victory is still possible and you would hate to miss it. Hope is enough to keep you in the game until faith shows itself as your strength.

It's OK to go to God with just a hope. It's OK to say "I don't yet have the faith that I know you want me to have but I just have this hope that things are going to get better. I have this hope that I'll live to fight another day. Now give me the faith to be sure until it all comes to pass."

Stop lamenting the curse of the hard times you know are ahead and rest in the hope that you will live to see them. 

As you go into a new year and a new season may you feel the thrill of hope that keeps you fighting another day.