Thinking About Hope…

Much like first-century Rome, we live in a world of spiritual hunger and thirst—a people running to and fro, looking for significance, purpose, and a meaningful existence. We open ourselves to whatever deity can deliver what we desire, and we delight in making the divine an extension of what we dream about when we think of ‘the good life.’

Enter Santa Claus, or other superhuman beings we create to bring us what we need or want. But the Christ does not come to us on our terms, nor does He come to us through the gods we have fashioned for ourselves. We cannot realize lasting hope as we unwrap a package or swipe another credit card.

It is as if we have convinced ourselves that the one-flesh union of husband and wife is created by the diamond ring rather than the intimacy they share. Significance is not discovered in another diamond or a new gadget.

Divine Encounter comes to us as the Creator of life empties Himself, becoming the poorest of the poor, so that we might begin to understand that hope is realized through surrender and sacrifice. We discover Divine Encounter as we follow the example of the God who becomes human, willing to surrender what He would not cling to in order to give us what we can never lose—God’s own Self.

John tells us of the Word becoming flesh: the God-Man. It is difficult to fathom the infinite and eternal Creator of the universe becoming a finite and helpless babe. I suspect, though I have no research to support the thought, that this is one of the major reasons people struggle with the Christian understanding of God.

When we think of God, we often imagine otherworldly, Zeus-like beings who would never voluntarily stoop to vulnerability and death. Maybe if overcome by a more powerful god. Maybe if tricked into exchanging a place on the throne for a spare room in our home. Maybe if the entire fate of the cosmos hung in the balance and Mount Olympus could only be saved by such a venture. Or maybe if offered enough money by a Hollywood producer.

But what kind of deity would subject Himself to the common cold, skinned knees and broken dreams, hunger and grief—the depths of human suffering? And all this for a depraved humanity, indifferent to His being, unworthy of His calling, and unmoved by His sacrifice? This is simply not the type of god who warrants mention at the Oscars, much less in our ‘arenas of worship.’

Yet when we pause to think beyond the boxes of human reason, setting aside human ego and a survival-of-the-fittest frame of reference, such a God might be the only God who makes any sense at all.

What is the point of power if it cannot be surrendered? What is the meaning of life if there is no hope for a better tomorrow that transcends the very best we can imagine? And what is the significance of Deity if the Divine appeals only to what we already understand?

I would submit that we should question the divine being of our choice if that being turns out to be merely a better and more powerful version of ourselves. If our imaginations could discover this being, if our books could contain this being, if our thoughts could fully grasp this being—what, my friends, would be so divine about such a one as this?

‘In the beginning God…’ (Genesis 1:1). A God who exists before time and space, whose eternity reaches beyond our understanding—now this would be truly Divine!

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God’ (John 1:1–2).

A God who exists as ever-present, eternal Being, beyond my ability to express in human language; who stretches my grammar and my understanding of nature as I try to contemplate Him; who can only be known through revelation originating in the Divine Self—now this would be truly Divine!

‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14). Or, to picture John’s words another way: the Word became human flesh and pitched a tent among us.

These words proclaim a God so moved, so connected, and so utterly in love with His own creation that He would do whatever is needed, whatever is within Divine power to demonstrate, whatever revelation can unveil, to show us a quality of love beyond our understanding.

Here is a depth of love that transcends time and space—a demonstration of love that ushers the infinite into the hearts of the finite and the undeserving.

For me, the very fact that such a Divine plan strays so far from what humans would ordinarily conceive or do is a powerful reason to take this revelation seriously. What human mind would have thought of such an inconceivable God? What human author would have penned these seemingly irrational parameters? How could we even know of such a God unless this God had revealed Himself to us?

The God of the New Testament takes the edges of human limitations and extends them into a beautiful poem of hope—one human beings would never have imagined on their own. Our stories end with ‘happily ever after,’ though we scarcely understand what the ‘ever after’ is supposed to be, or what it could become.

God’s story seems to say, ‘You ain’t even seen happiness yet! The very best you can imagine is only the beginning.’

Streets of gold? No more sickness or crying or pain? No loneliness or despair? These are the things we want when we think of hope for the future.

Yet the God of the Bible, especially as revealed in the New Testament, floods us with hope for a future that transcends the very scales we use to measure and investigate life. The newness of what God has for us reaches beyond what we can yet conceive or imagine.

You tell me: What kind of hope would you prefer from the Divine? The best dream you have ever had? Or a dream so incredible, so beautiful, so far beyond human comprehension that you cannot possibly have it…yet?