Harvest hope
Commentary
Object:
An ancient Jewish writing declares, "Pentecost is the day on which Torah was given." According to the teaching, it was on the day that eventually became the feast of Pentecost that God gave birth to the Hebrew nation by speaking the divine covenant to them at Mount Sinai.
As the book of Acts makes clear, Pentecost was also the day on which the New Testament church was born. Just as God spoke through Moses to bring the nation of Israel into being at Mount Sinai, so God spoke through Peter to create the first elements of the new faith community.
It was symbolically powerful for these later events to take place on Pentecost. In its first use, "Pentecost" was essentially a nickname or label. The feast of Passover was one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish community, since it recalled the manner in which God miraculously brought the nation out of Egypt. Seven Sabbaths and a day later (7 X 7 + 1 = 50) the people celebrated this next major religious event as harvest season began in Palestine. Since it occurred fifty days after the Passover, people started referring to it as the "Feast after Fifty," or Pentecost.
Yet the real significance of the event was more clearly understood through its original name -- Feast of First Fruits. Regulations for the celebration required all Israelites to assemble at the temple in Jerusalem bringing with them the first sheaf of grain from their fields. As the time of harvest approached across the land, even before the regular reaping started, a single bundle of grain was cut on each farm and toted off to the temple.
There it was "waved" before the Lord as an offering (Leviticus 23:11) along with two loaves of bread that were baked from the newly harvested grain (Leviticus 23:17). Furthermore, to broaden the impact of the event, two male lambs were also brought from the first castings of each flock (Leviticus 23:12).
As these gifts were presented to God in the temple courts, all of the men danced around the altar that carried the smoke of the gifts toward heaven. The crowds of women, children, and elderly men too old to jump around energetically formed a large circle around these revelers and sang Psalms 113-118. According to historical reports the celebration was often wild and uninhibited.
We might ask what the purpose was behind these religious revelries. The instructions of Moses declared that the feast was a theological testimony. The nation was making a confession that no general harvesting for profit would begin until God had laid claim to the "first fruits" of the fields and the flocks. By devoting the first of the new produce to God, the people were acknowledging that everything came from God and belonged to God. Whatever benefit they might receive from the harvest that year was a direct result of God's care and providential intervention.
With that background the significance of Pentecost as the birthday of the Christian church takes on new meaning. A new era of God's kingdom began that day, as God claimed the first fruits of a worldwide faith harvest. The mission of the church began only after God had first miraculously owned the original converts from each nation represented in Jerusalem that day.
In that context the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of God, shaping the big plans God has for the world and the church. At the dawn of creation God sowed a world of hope and possibility. Evil storms and tragic seasons may have slowed the harvest of greatness on planet earth. But if anyone wants to know what the true and best harvest will look like, according to Paul as he writes about the Holy Spirit and its influence, he should check out the church.
That may seem funny to us. We would have a hard time seeing the church as a picture of God's profit margins. Too often the "sinful passions" of our baser natures come through. Yet for God, the church is the first fruits of the great harvest.
Maybe that's why we ought to take ourselves less seriously and more seriously at the same time, in the church. Less seriously because there is an awful lot of humor in what God is up to. More seriously because God's humor is the first smile of love that the rest of creation around us needs desperately to see. For that reason, says Paul, we really do need to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
Acts 2:1-21
The momentum of the stories told in the book of Acts is derived from a single critical incident that took place in Jerusalem during the Jewish religious festival known as Pentecost. Jesus' instruction for his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for a special gift (Acts 1:4) must have seemed vague at the time, but the arrival of the explosive power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made sense. This celebration was a harvest festival and a time for recalling the gift of the original covenant documents to Moses at Mount Sinai. These two themes intersected marvelously with what was taking place. First, there was the dawning of a new age of revelation and divine mission, paralleling that first covenant declaration in the book of Exodus. Second, during the Pentecost harvest festival, the first sheaves of grain were presented at the temple, anticipating that God would then bring in the full harvest. This expression of faith served as a clear analogy to the greater missional harvest of the church that was begun through a miraculous "first fruits" in Jerusalem that day.
This momentous event was signaled by two amazing sensory explosions. First, there was a startling whooshing sound of a powerful wind, even though no hurricane blast came through town. Here is where knowledge of both the Hebrew and Greek languages is very helpful: a single word, both in the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) languages, serves to designate "wind," "breath," and "spirit." Thus the sound of a rushing wind captured the attention of all who were about to breathe in the Spirit of God.
Second, visualization of what was happening appeared when a single blaze of fire becoming multiple flames above heads. Jesus' cousin John had said that he baptized with water, but that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 1:16). This vision represented the single divine Spirit baptizing all at the same time.
Peter capitalized on these themes when he preached a sermon explaining Joel's prophecy of the "Day of the Lord." Peter tied together God's extensive mission, the history of Israel, the coming of Jesus, and the splitting of the Day of the Lord so that the blessings of the messianic age could begin before the final divine judgment fell. The pattern for entering the new community of faith was clearly outlined: repent and be baptized. The first indicated a transforming presence of the Holy Spirit in individual hearts, while the latter became the initiation rite by which the ranks of this missional society were identified (over against the badge of circumcision in its unique application to the nation of Israel, which was now being replaced -- see Colossians 2:11-12).
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be a conscious undoing of the troubles that started at Babel through the miracle of multiple-language communications at Pentecost. In Genesis 11, the human race was becoming unified against its Creator, and the divine solution to dissipate this rebellion was to multiply the languages spoken, forcing the community to become segmented into competing groups. At Pentecost this action is reversed, and the many people who communicate in their diverse local languages suddenly all hear the same message of grace and are knit together into a new common humanity of the church. Babel is undone by Pentecost!
Romans 8:22-27
One Chinese word symbol for "doubt" is a caricature of a person with each foot in a different canoe. If the waters are calm and the canoes are tied securely, it is possible for the person to stand like that indefinitely. But if those canoes are adrift on the swelling tides of the sea or scrambling down the whitewaters of a raging torrent, someone positioned so precariously would topple quickly. Paul pictures us in these canoes, in this short but powerful passage, grasping for the strong handle of hope, but tipping precariously on the roiling seas of earth's groaning pains and doubts.
The seas always roll, in life's journey, and the pounding waves beg their share of the soul's cargo. And those of us who have experienced significant doubts in the uncharted waters of our voyage find these verses in Paul's letter very harsh and most intimidating.
Certainly it is true that many Christians are single-minded and clearly aware of the brilliant sunshine of God's love, rarely deviating from paths of focused faith and purposeful existence. Yet while some folks have a "summery" sort of spirituality, according to Martin Marty in his devotional reflections on the Psalms, many of us know only or often A Cry of Absence (Harper & Row, 1983). For those who wrestle often the blasts of chilling doubt and wrestle for direction under gray and forbidding skies, the absence of God seems more apparent than his presence. John Crowe Ransom put it this way:
Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going;
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
When the absence of God shouts louder than his presence, few who feel faith can escape the winds of doubt. Fortunately these verses are not all that Paul has to say on the subject. He moves on to the brilliance and insight of spiritual confidence just a little further along in his letter of encouragement. Perhaps, even, the harshness of his assessment here will challenge those of us with wintry spirits to take a second look at our perennial insecurities of faith.
Still, the best that comes from Paul's descriptive wisdom about faith and doubt here is the intensity of his diagnosis regarding the emotional toll wreaked on hearts that waffle indecisively between trust and despair. Life is hard for those of us who linger often between two minds. Only the Spirit can bridge the gap and bring us back into the safety of heaven's hope.
Without the larger context of grace binding the fraying edges of our souls, more ships of self would visit Davey Jones' locker than would reach the Haven of Rest. Fortunately the One who stilled the storms on the Sea of Galilee is able yet, through his Spirit, to tame the troubling tides for those who cry out in winter's night. I know it experientially.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
One day in l748 the hymn writer Charles Wesley was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
In that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley. He was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck, and in a flash the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Everyone needs a refuge, a place of retreat when the going gets rough. Behind the school where I taught in Nigeria was a high mountain. Circling its upper slopes were the remains of a centuries-old stone wall. This landmark was a symbol of hope to the Tiv people from ancient times. When marauding Hausa and Ibo and Udam raiding parties swarmed the Benue River basin, local farmers fled up Mkar Mountain till safety returned below.
The wilderness fortress of Masada served as similar protection for the first-century Jews in their desperate struggle against Rome. The stores and provisions laid up there, combined with the virtually unscalable walls of rock, created a standoff that lasted for years. And in Ireland today, the Irish Round Towers still dot the landscape. They are small stone castles with a single door positioned high off the ground. When the ladder was pulled in and the heavy door bolted shut, everyone inside felt safe from the hostile Scottish scavengers.
We know that our religion is more than just a refuge. It should be a shaping influence on all that we do or say or think. After all, that's what our Lord himself said when telling us that we should love God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength.
Over the centuries we've tried to tell Freudians that their limited perception of religious faith is inaccurate. Religion is more than just some complex childhood fixation. We know that Marx was wrong too when he called religion the "opiate of the masses." And a modern "God of the gaps" who takes over only when we can't find the answers through science or technology isn't anything like the personal creator and redeemer of the scriptures either.
Still, as Jesus knows and testifies to his disciples in his farewell discourse, if our religion doesn't bring comfort in times of struggle, if it doesn't keep us sane through periods of sore distress, if his God isn't at least a "God of the gaps" whose unfailing presence can be counted on when life falls apart, then our religion is worthless. This is why Jesus promised, and we need, the Paraclete, the Comforter, the living spiritual presence of Jesus in a sometimes very threatening world. As Charles Wesley put it:
Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed, all my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing.
Application
A young girl lost her playmate Jennifer in a tragic auto accident. The day after the funeral, she disappeared for hours. When she finally came home, her mother asked her where she'd been.
"I went to Jennifer's place and comforted her mommy."
"What did you say to her to comfort her?" asked the mother quietly.
"Well," she answered, "I didn't know what to say, so I just crawled up into her lap and helped her cry."
The essence of biblical religion is comfort -- comfort that takes the sting out of pain and death, comfort that encourages in the darkness, comfort that reinvigorates for a new lifestyle.
That comfort is forward-looking. History is not an endless cycle of downs and ups and more downs. Rather, it's a movement toward a climax. It's a promise and a hope of God's next earth-shaking appearance.
When that day comes, the name that is snubbed now in practical atheism by a self-serving world will be shouted in worship of the King of kings, and the Lord of lords!
An Alternative Application
Romans 8:22-27. A friend of mine was awakened suddenly on a Saturday morning by a telephone call across three time zones. His brother had been injured and was hospitalized in the critical care unit with a cracked skull and a swelling brain. My friend langored in helplessness. No airplane could get him to his brother's side before either the injury might prove fatal or the swelling would subside and the emergency pass. Enforced patience drummed him with nervous fret, a burden he did not want to bear.
Hope is a tough virtue, slipping from our grasp in the moment of demand. It always races with Road Runner while we are stymied in the dust with Wile E. Coyote, never catching up no matter what Acme technology we employ. Stephen Winward says that at his mother's knee he learned a poem that has proved perennially true:
Patience is a virtue: possess it if you can!
Seldom in a woman, and never in a man.
My own parents used to tell us, "All good things come to those who wait." While that may have been true in the past it hardly seems to apply any more. We seem systematically to have beaten the need for waiting. We buy instant foods, and "nuke" them to serving temperature in microwave ovens. Our satellite dishes and internet search engines bring immediate access to news and information from around the world. We pop pain killers to evaporate our aches so we don't even have to deal with the whys of our hurts. If we see something we like, instant credit grants us immediate possession.
Still, there are things that we can't control and these keep the fires of desire burning the paper house of hope in our souls. It is the ache of loneliness and the pain of frustration that too often hold us aloof from hope. Recently I received a letter from a wife whose life has been turned up-side down by a marriage gone sour and the complicated pains it causes each day. "I'm so lonely," she shouts in print, punctuating her cry with exclamation points. I've spent time in her impatient circle. You have too.
Paul indicates that hope is a religious matter and ties it to our understanding of time and eternity. The church in first-century Thessalonica was trying to be "patient until the Lord's coming," and Paul had to tell the people to get back to work (2 Thessalonians 2-3) rather than constantly scanning the horizon. Others in the early church fully expected Jesus to return before the elderly apostle John died. After all, Jesus had hinted at that possibility in his final seaside morning picnic with his disciples (John 21).
This is the religious dimension of hope that Paul urges and we find hard to manage. Our world is imperfect with corners that bump knees and scorpions that poison hands. We get lonely, we get pained; we struggle to survive and are old in body before our youthful ideals get a chance to catch up. We try to find a little comfort and come away addicted to work, booze, drugs, or sex always far short of heaven.
The hope of waiting is tied to our understanding of how time will get resolved into eternity. If there is no God outside the system, we are stuck with cycles of repetition, crushed beneath recurring tasks, and tedium that never ends. If there is a God who has promised to interrupt history with healing and hope and harmony, we wait with expectation.
My friend's brother died from his head injuries. Now my friend waits with the hope of Paul for the coming of Jesus. He is confident that then he will see his brother again, according to the promise of scripture. Without that promise he could not be patient. In an impatient world his is a remarkable hope. A religious hope.A patient hope.
As the book of Acts makes clear, Pentecost was also the day on which the New Testament church was born. Just as God spoke through Moses to bring the nation of Israel into being at Mount Sinai, so God spoke through Peter to create the first elements of the new faith community.
It was symbolically powerful for these later events to take place on Pentecost. In its first use, "Pentecost" was essentially a nickname or label. The feast of Passover was one of the most significant holidays in the Jewish community, since it recalled the manner in which God miraculously brought the nation out of Egypt. Seven Sabbaths and a day later (7 X 7 + 1 = 50) the people celebrated this next major religious event as harvest season began in Palestine. Since it occurred fifty days after the Passover, people started referring to it as the "Feast after Fifty," or Pentecost.
Yet the real significance of the event was more clearly understood through its original name -- Feast of First Fruits. Regulations for the celebration required all Israelites to assemble at the temple in Jerusalem bringing with them the first sheaf of grain from their fields. As the time of harvest approached across the land, even before the regular reaping started, a single bundle of grain was cut on each farm and toted off to the temple.
There it was "waved" before the Lord as an offering (Leviticus 23:11) along with two loaves of bread that were baked from the newly harvested grain (Leviticus 23:17). Furthermore, to broaden the impact of the event, two male lambs were also brought from the first castings of each flock (Leviticus 23:12).
As these gifts were presented to God in the temple courts, all of the men danced around the altar that carried the smoke of the gifts toward heaven. The crowds of women, children, and elderly men too old to jump around energetically formed a large circle around these revelers and sang Psalms 113-118. According to historical reports the celebration was often wild and uninhibited.
We might ask what the purpose was behind these religious revelries. The instructions of Moses declared that the feast was a theological testimony. The nation was making a confession that no general harvesting for profit would begin until God had laid claim to the "first fruits" of the fields and the flocks. By devoting the first of the new produce to God, the people were acknowledging that everything came from God and belonged to God. Whatever benefit they might receive from the harvest that year was a direct result of God's care and providential intervention.
With that background the significance of Pentecost as the birthday of the Christian church takes on new meaning. A new era of God's kingdom began that day, as God claimed the first fruits of a worldwide faith harvest. The mission of the church began only after God had first miraculously owned the original converts from each nation represented in Jerusalem that day.
In that context the Holy Spirit is the powerful presence of God, shaping the big plans God has for the world and the church. At the dawn of creation God sowed a world of hope and possibility. Evil storms and tragic seasons may have slowed the harvest of greatness on planet earth. But if anyone wants to know what the true and best harvest will look like, according to Paul as he writes about the Holy Spirit and its influence, he should check out the church.
That may seem funny to us. We would have a hard time seeing the church as a picture of God's profit margins. Too often the "sinful passions" of our baser natures come through. Yet for God, the church is the first fruits of the great harvest.
Maybe that's why we ought to take ourselves less seriously and more seriously at the same time, in the church. Less seriously because there is an awful lot of humor in what God is up to. More seriously because God's humor is the first smile of love that the rest of creation around us needs desperately to see. For that reason, says Paul, we really do need to keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25).
Acts 2:1-21
The momentum of the stories told in the book of Acts is derived from a single critical incident that took place in Jerusalem during the Jewish religious festival known as Pentecost. Jesus' instruction for his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for a special gift (Acts 1:4) must have seemed vague at the time, but the arrival of the explosive power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost made sense. This celebration was a harvest festival and a time for recalling the gift of the original covenant documents to Moses at Mount Sinai. These two themes intersected marvelously with what was taking place. First, there was the dawning of a new age of revelation and divine mission, paralleling that first covenant declaration in the book of Exodus. Second, during the Pentecost harvest festival, the first sheaves of grain were presented at the temple, anticipating that God would then bring in the full harvest. This expression of faith served as a clear analogy to the greater missional harvest of the church that was begun through a miraculous "first fruits" in Jerusalem that day.
This momentous event was signaled by two amazing sensory explosions. First, there was a startling whooshing sound of a powerful wind, even though no hurricane blast came through town. Here is where knowledge of both the Hebrew and Greek languages is very helpful: a single word, both in the Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma) languages, serves to designate "wind," "breath," and "spirit." Thus the sound of a rushing wind captured the attention of all who were about to breathe in the Spirit of God.
Second, visualization of what was happening appeared when a single blaze of fire becoming multiple flames above heads. Jesus' cousin John had said that he baptized with water, but that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 1:16). This vision represented the single divine Spirit baptizing all at the same time.
Peter capitalized on these themes when he preached a sermon explaining Joel's prophecy of the "Day of the Lord." Peter tied together God's extensive mission, the history of Israel, the coming of Jesus, and the splitting of the Day of the Lord so that the blessings of the messianic age could begin before the final divine judgment fell. The pattern for entering the new community of faith was clearly outlined: repent and be baptized. The first indicated a transforming presence of the Holy Spirit in individual hearts, while the latter became the initiation rite by which the ranks of this missional society were identified (over against the badge of circumcision in its unique application to the nation of Israel, which was now being replaced -- see Colossians 2:11-12).
Although not explicitly stated, there seems to be a conscious undoing of the troubles that started at Babel through the miracle of multiple-language communications at Pentecost. In Genesis 11, the human race was becoming unified against its Creator, and the divine solution to dissipate this rebellion was to multiply the languages spoken, forcing the community to become segmented into competing groups. At Pentecost this action is reversed, and the many people who communicate in their diverse local languages suddenly all hear the same message of grace and are knit together into a new common humanity of the church. Babel is undone by Pentecost!
Romans 8:22-27
One Chinese word symbol for "doubt" is a caricature of a person with each foot in a different canoe. If the waters are calm and the canoes are tied securely, it is possible for the person to stand like that indefinitely. But if those canoes are adrift on the swelling tides of the sea or scrambling down the whitewaters of a raging torrent, someone positioned so precariously would topple quickly. Paul pictures us in these canoes, in this short but powerful passage, grasping for the strong handle of hope, but tipping precariously on the roiling seas of earth's groaning pains and doubts.
The seas always roll, in life's journey, and the pounding waves beg their share of the soul's cargo. And those of us who have experienced significant doubts in the uncharted waters of our voyage find these verses in Paul's letter very harsh and most intimidating.
Certainly it is true that many Christians are single-minded and clearly aware of the brilliant sunshine of God's love, rarely deviating from paths of focused faith and purposeful existence. Yet while some folks have a "summery" sort of spirituality, according to Martin Marty in his devotional reflections on the Psalms, many of us know only or often A Cry of Absence (Harper & Row, 1983). For those who wrestle often the blasts of chilling doubt and wrestle for direction under gray and forbidding skies, the absence of God seems more apparent than his presence. John Crowe Ransom put it this way:
Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going;
A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.
When the absence of God shouts louder than his presence, few who feel faith can escape the winds of doubt. Fortunately these verses are not all that Paul has to say on the subject. He moves on to the brilliance and insight of spiritual confidence just a little further along in his letter of encouragement. Perhaps, even, the harshness of his assessment here will challenge those of us with wintry spirits to take a second look at our perennial insecurities of faith.
Still, the best that comes from Paul's descriptive wisdom about faith and doubt here is the intensity of his diagnosis regarding the emotional toll wreaked on hearts that waffle indecisively between trust and despair. Life is hard for those of us who linger often between two minds. Only the Spirit can bridge the gap and bring us back into the safety of heaven's hope.
Without the larger context of grace binding the fraying edges of our souls, more ships of self would visit Davey Jones' locker than would reach the Haven of Rest. Fortunately the One who stilled the storms on the Sea of Galilee is able yet, through his Spirit, to tame the troubling tides for those who cry out in winter's night. I know it experientially.
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
One day in l748 the hymn writer Charles Wesley was in a dark and somber frame of mind. He was discouraged at the struggles Christians experience and troubled by his own weak faith.
As he walked in a small garden near his home, he watched an unusual sight in the sky above. A little sparrow was darting madly on the winds in a desperate attempt to escape the clutches of a pursuing hawk. The outcome was certain: in a moment the sparrow would perish.
In that brief instant something happened. With a last frantic effort, the sparrow angled suddenly toward Wesley. He was wearing a large overcoat, quite bulky and open at the neck, and in a flash the tiny bird dived into the comforting folds. The hawk gave an angry shriek, circled for a moment in hopes of a second chance, and then flew off to find other prey. Wesley could feel the feverish restlessness of his little friend slowly ebb away.
The imagery of the song that came out of this encounter is clear and precise:
Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly,
While the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high;
Hide me, O my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past;
Safe into the haven guide, O receive my soul at last!
Everyone needs a refuge, a place of retreat when the going gets rough. Behind the school where I taught in Nigeria was a high mountain. Circling its upper slopes were the remains of a centuries-old stone wall. This landmark was a symbol of hope to the Tiv people from ancient times. When marauding Hausa and Ibo and Udam raiding parties swarmed the Benue River basin, local farmers fled up Mkar Mountain till safety returned below.
The wilderness fortress of Masada served as similar protection for the first-century Jews in their desperate struggle against Rome. The stores and provisions laid up there, combined with the virtually unscalable walls of rock, created a standoff that lasted for years. And in Ireland today, the Irish Round Towers still dot the landscape. They are small stone castles with a single door positioned high off the ground. When the ladder was pulled in and the heavy door bolted shut, everyone inside felt safe from the hostile Scottish scavengers.
We know that our religion is more than just a refuge. It should be a shaping influence on all that we do or say or think. After all, that's what our Lord himself said when telling us that we should love God with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and our strength.
Over the centuries we've tried to tell Freudians that their limited perception of religious faith is inaccurate. Religion is more than just some complex childhood fixation. We know that Marx was wrong too when he called religion the "opiate of the masses." And a modern "God of the gaps" who takes over only when we can't find the answers through science or technology isn't anything like the personal creator and redeemer of the scriptures either.
Still, as Jesus knows and testifies to his disciples in his farewell discourse, if our religion doesn't bring comfort in times of struggle, if it doesn't keep us sane through periods of sore distress, if his God isn't at least a "God of the gaps" whose unfailing presence can be counted on when life falls apart, then our religion is worthless. This is why Jesus promised, and we need, the Paraclete, the Comforter, the living spiritual presence of Jesus in a sometimes very threatening world. As Charles Wesley put it:
Other refuge have I none; hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone, still support and comfort me.
All my trust on thee is stayed, all my help from thee I bring;
Cover my defenseless head with the shadow of thy wing.
Application
A young girl lost her playmate Jennifer in a tragic auto accident. The day after the funeral, she disappeared for hours. When she finally came home, her mother asked her where she'd been.
"I went to Jennifer's place and comforted her mommy."
"What did you say to her to comfort her?" asked the mother quietly.
"Well," she answered, "I didn't know what to say, so I just crawled up into her lap and helped her cry."
The essence of biblical religion is comfort -- comfort that takes the sting out of pain and death, comfort that encourages in the darkness, comfort that reinvigorates for a new lifestyle.
That comfort is forward-looking. History is not an endless cycle of downs and ups and more downs. Rather, it's a movement toward a climax. It's a promise and a hope of God's next earth-shaking appearance.
When that day comes, the name that is snubbed now in practical atheism by a self-serving world will be shouted in worship of the King of kings, and the Lord of lords!
An Alternative Application
Romans 8:22-27. A friend of mine was awakened suddenly on a Saturday morning by a telephone call across three time zones. His brother had been injured and was hospitalized in the critical care unit with a cracked skull and a swelling brain. My friend langored in helplessness. No airplane could get him to his brother's side before either the injury might prove fatal or the swelling would subside and the emergency pass. Enforced patience drummed him with nervous fret, a burden he did not want to bear.
Hope is a tough virtue, slipping from our grasp in the moment of demand. It always races with Road Runner while we are stymied in the dust with Wile E. Coyote, never catching up no matter what Acme technology we employ. Stephen Winward says that at his mother's knee he learned a poem that has proved perennially true:
Patience is a virtue: possess it if you can!
Seldom in a woman, and never in a man.
My own parents used to tell us, "All good things come to those who wait." While that may have been true in the past it hardly seems to apply any more. We seem systematically to have beaten the need for waiting. We buy instant foods, and "nuke" them to serving temperature in microwave ovens. Our satellite dishes and internet search engines bring immediate access to news and information from around the world. We pop pain killers to evaporate our aches so we don't even have to deal with the whys of our hurts. If we see something we like, instant credit grants us immediate possession.
Still, there are things that we can't control and these keep the fires of desire burning the paper house of hope in our souls. It is the ache of loneliness and the pain of frustration that too often hold us aloof from hope. Recently I received a letter from a wife whose life has been turned up-side down by a marriage gone sour and the complicated pains it causes each day. "I'm so lonely," she shouts in print, punctuating her cry with exclamation points. I've spent time in her impatient circle. You have too.
Paul indicates that hope is a religious matter and ties it to our understanding of time and eternity. The church in first-century Thessalonica was trying to be "patient until the Lord's coming," and Paul had to tell the people to get back to work (2 Thessalonians 2-3) rather than constantly scanning the horizon. Others in the early church fully expected Jesus to return before the elderly apostle John died. After all, Jesus had hinted at that possibility in his final seaside morning picnic with his disciples (John 21).
This is the religious dimension of hope that Paul urges and we find hard to manage. Our world is imperfect with corners that bump knees and scorpions that poison hands. We get lonely, we get pained; we struggle to survive and are old in body before our youthful ideals get a chance to catch up. We try to find a little comfort and come away addicted to work, booze, drugs, or sex always far short of heaven.
The hope of waiting is tied to our understanding of how time will get resolved into eternity. If there is no God outside the system, we are stuck with cycles of repetition, crushed beneath recurring tasks, and tedium that never ends. If there is a God who has promised to interrupt history with healing and hope and harmony, we wait with expectation.
My friend's brother died from his head injuries. Now my friend waits with the hope of Paul for the coming of Jesus. He is confident that then he will see his brother again, according to the promise of scripture. Without that promise he could not be patient. In an impatient world his is a remarkable hope. A religious hope.A patient hope.
