I have been pulling together some thoughts about hope for an upcoming presentation on that topic. As I give thought to hope, I realize I have spent a lifetime having hopes, but never spent any time thinking about how I created hopes. I doubt that I am unusual in this. Obviously, almost everyone hopes in something and hopes for a lot of things. I know there may be a few folks who somehow have given up on hope. They know only despair. I am not sure what to offer those folks. But the rest of us do have hopes---maybe always have something for which we hope.
One of the first things to hit me was the fact that hope exists both as a verb and a noun. It is easy to say we have hopes. Those are nouns. We have hopes in our brain like we have money in the pocket. Our hopes are always future. And then at some point, that future becomes present. And we either see what we hope for materialize or we don’t. I don’t know that we have any eternal hope, although we might hope for eternity.
Verbs are the action words. I hear students say at the beginning of a semester they hope to get an A for the course. That is a noun. If they don’t do any work, then they better hope to get lucky! They need to translate that hope into a verb. They can tie the verb, hoping, to some effort. Hoping to get an A is more likely if I study and put in the effort to learn. This shows me that I can make a difference in whether something for which I hope comes true. I probably can’t guarantee it will happen, but I can enhance the chances of hopes coming true.
As I think more into the details of hopes, I remembered that German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann has become known as a theologian of hope. He writes about a theology of hope. In fact, he has a book by that title. It is a good look at how Christianity develops around this theme of hope. One of his key points is that for the person of faith, hope is always rooted in promise. For example, Moltmann says “Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God.” (20) I would like to explore this idea.
I want to identify three passages from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) which I take to be a promise of God to all of us. I purposely take these from the other testament than the New Testament to suggest these promises may be universal and not strictly limited to Christians. But that’s not the important point here. The promises are the key point. Let’s look at each one of these in turn.
The first passage comes from the creation story at the very beginning. After creating the world, animals and other things, we read, “Then God said, “Let’s make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” (Gen 1:26) This has always been a powerful affirmation for me. I like the idea that it is even a divine promise. All humans are created in the image of God. That means we all have a link to the divine---we have a connection. Of course, not all of us take advantage of this connection.
Some folks actually act about as unlike God as can be imagined. However, the promise does not say you have the promise as long as you are good boys and girls. It simply says you have the promise. Of course, you likely are going to sin, mess up---call it what you want. But you can’t mess up or eradicate the image. Sure, you can lose the likeness to God, but you cannot erase the image in which you are created. There is hope. And that’s the bottom line.
A second passage probably is another articulation of the creation account. This one comes from the pen of the Psalmist. There we read, “Yet you have made humans a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Ps 8:5) This is a good reminder that we are not God. We are God’s creatures. We are special; we can become sacred. But we won’t become God. I am relieved…not sure about you. God wants us to become the very best version of who we can be. And that will be exactly what God had in mind. In this very best version, we will image what God is like in our world. We will be “spittin images,” as my grandfather used to say.
The last passage I put forth comes from Exodus. It is the center of the story of God’s liberation of the people from the bondage of Egypt. They are freed. But the first part of that freedom is in the wilderness. They did not take a bullet train to the promised land. They were led out of bondage into the wilderness. There they would be tested. But the promise was they were to be connected to God by a covenant---a vow. Addressing Moses on top of Sinai, but really addressing the whole people, God says, “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” (Ex. 19:5)
These three passages are put forth as God’s promises to the people. Because they are given to us as promises, they become the basis for hope. Even if we find ourselves in our own wildernesses, the promise holds true. There is hope. Even if things look bleak, there is hope. Of course, the Israelites did not get all they hoped for. They wanted better food, so they complained. But the big hope was always there. They were people in the image of God, only a little lower than the Holy One itself and bound in a connection that would always be true.
That is a powerful hope.
One of the first things to hit me was the fact that hope exists both as a verb and a noun. It is easy to say we have hopes. Those are nouns. We have hopes in our brain like we have money in the pocket. Our hopes are always future. And then at some point, that future becomes present. And we either see what we hope for materialize or we don’t. I don’t know that we have any eternal hope, although we might hope for eternity.
Verbs are the action words. I hear students say at the beginning of a semester they hope to get an A for the course. That is a noun. If they don’t do any work, then they better hope to get lucky! They need to translate that hope into a verb. They can tie the verb, hoping, to some effort. Hoping to get an A is more likely if I study and put in the effort to learn. This shows me that I can make a difference in whether something for which I hope comes true. I probably can’t guarantee it will happen, but I can enhance the chances of hopes coming true.
As I think more into the details of hopes, I remembered that German theologian, Jurgen Moltmann has become known as a theologian of hope. He writes about a theology of hope. In fact, he has a book by that title. It is a good look at how Christianity develops around this theme of hope. One of his key points is that for the person of faith, hope is always rooted in promise. For example, Moltmann says “Hope is nothing else than the expectation of those things which faith has believed to have been truly promised by God.” (20) I would like to explore this idea.
I want to identify three passages from the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) which I take to be a promise of God to all of us. I purposely take these from the other testament than the New Testament to suggest these promises may be universal and not strictly limited to Christians. But that’s not the important point here. The promises are the key point. Let’s look at each one of these in turn.
The first passage comes from the creation story at the very beginning. After creating the world, animals and other things, we read, “Then God said, “Let’s make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” (Gen 1:26) This has always been a powerful affirmation for me. I like the idea that it is even a divine promise. All humans are created in the image of God. That means we all have a link to the divine---we have a connection. Of course, not all of us take advantage of this connection.
Some folks actually act about as unlike God as can be imagined. However, the promise does not say you have the promise as long as you are good boys and girls. It simply says you have the promise. Of course, you likely are going to sin, mess up---call it what you want. But you can’t mess up or eradicate the image. Sure, you can lose the likeness to God, but you cannot erase the image in which you are created. There is hope. And that’s the bottom line.
A second passage probably is another articulation of the creation account. This one comes from the pen of the Psalmist. There we read, “Yet you have made humans a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.” (Ps 8:5) This is a good reminder that we are not God. We are God’s creatures. We are special; we can become sacred. But we won’t become God. I am relieved…not sure about you. God wants us to become the very best version of who we can be. And that will be exactly what God had in mind. In this very best version, we will image what God is like in our world. We will be “spittin images,” as my grandfather used to say.
The last passage I put forth comes from Exodus. It is the center of the story of God’s liberation of the people from the bondage of Egypt. They are freed. But the first part of that freedom is in the wilderness. They did not take a bullet train to the promised land. They were led out of bondage into the wilderness. There they would be tested. But the promise was they were to be connected to God by a covenant---a vow. Addressing Moses on top of Sinai, but really addressing the whole people, God says, “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” (Ex. 19:5)
These three passages are put forth as God’s promises to the people. Because they are given to us as promises, they become the basis for hope. Even if we find ourselves in our own wildernesses, the promise holds true. There is hope. Even if things look bleak, there is hope. Of course, the Israelites did not get all they hoped for. They wanted better food, so they complained. But the big hope was always there. They were people in the image of God, only a little lower than the Holy One itself and bound in a connection that would always be true.
That is a powerful hope.
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