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Holy Week resources and reflections

Deeper hope

 

In the last line of his 2008 acceptance speech, Barack Obama went to Scripture. “Let us hold without wavering to the hope we have confessed,” he said. The ancient words rang in the air.

By now, of course, it’s all so hard to remember. Soaring presidential rhetoric. Holding hope. As the race to November heats up, the possibility of anything lovely happening in the political arena recedes.

In Hebrews, the mention of hope doesn’t come at the end of an acceptance speech; it comes after three and a half chapters of Christological discourse. Christ is the great high priest, the once and for all sacrifice, the one who takes away our sins. The promise he makes is better than the previous promise because Christ himself is its guarantor. Through him we have access to God and the Holy Spirit has access to our hearts and minds (Hebrews 10:16). In Hebrews, the mention of hope follows a heavy-duty discussion of who Christ is.

Hebrews’ hope is not the hope we speak of casually. “I hope the candidate can deliver.” “I hope you feel better.” ‘‘I hope you get the job.”

It is not a hope that a particular candidate will win or that a particular party will triumph.

It is not a hope that depends on pockets being filled and political promissories being paid.

It is not a hope that revolves around polls or platforms or prosperity or pundits.

It’s a hope based on the promises of God fulfilled in Christ.

And although no one doubts that God works through history and politics and (even sometimes, much against what we might advise God to do) through politicians, the hope Hebrews promises is something more than the hope any human entity can promise. It is a hope grounded on God’s promise and God’s person.

What is the difference? For one thing, you’d have to say it’s a deeper hope. It’s a hope that reaches deep into the human being. Political speeches may rely on human interest stories or tales of heroism to move a crowd. But God’s hope is not limited by God’s orators’ abilities to stir human emotion. God’s hope does not depend on our ability to parse it or grasp it. It doesn’t even really depend on our ability to feel it. The Holy Spirit has her own ways of getting inside human life and creating change (Hebrews 10:16). Yes, even in the innards of broken, stuck, old-enough-to-know-better human beings, change is possible. God’s Holy Spirit works in the conscious and the unconscious recesses of the lives of those who will let her to make change possible and to plant in us a hope worth holding onto.

Annie Dillard tells the story of a hiker crossing the countryside of Alaska. Coming up over a rise, the hiker saw from a distance two young Inuit girls sitting cross-legged on the ground, mouth on mouth, blowing by turns on each other’s vocal folds, producing a low, unearthly music. “We are played on like a pipe,” Dillard says, “our breath is not our own.” The hope of God’s people is a deeper hope than any human agency can give — because it depends on a God who works in us.

Oh — and one more thing. Maybe the most interesting thing about Obama’s use of Scripture was his cutting of the passage. Because you know, actually Hebrews 10:23 does not say “let us hold without wavering to the hope we have confessed.” Hebrews 10:23 says, “let us hold without wavering to the hope we have confessed for the One who has promised is faithful.” The One who has promised is faithful. That’s a hope that is wide and deep and worth talking about to everybody who will listen. That’s Hebrews’ hope… and ours.

Jana ChildersJANA CHILDERS is dean of the seminary and professor of homiletics and speech communication at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California.

 

 

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