The Road that Leads to Hope

Walter Brueggemann, in a recent sermon, says that hope cannot come unless first there is mourning. Mourning, in this world of ours, is the prerequisite, the pockmarked and tear stained path that leads us to hope.

The Biblical definition of hope is grounded in the certainty of what is to come. The hope that we have, for ourselves and for the world, is rooted in the promised future just as much as it is rooted in the experienced and historical past.

When we think of who we are, we often frame ourselves in reference to our past experiences, perhaps naming key events or situations that have had a formative influence on our development. But how often do we let the promised future be a defining factor in our lives? In Philippians, when Paul speaks of “forgetting what is behind and pressing on towards what is ahead,” he models the practice of allowing his future reality (full redemption in Christ) to infuse his here and now. He is defined not by the kingdom and accolades he left behind, but by the full lordship of Christ that is yet to come.

In speaking about hurt and suffering, Nouwen says that we must let our own personal experience of pain transcend the individual and unique experiences that gave birth to it. Our pain is not to be relegated to the realm of particulars, lest we play mind games with “if only’s”, but eventually generalized and removed from specifics so that we are better able to empathize in the suffering of others. For as long as we bury our hearts in the specifics of a situation, our mourning is of limited fruitfulness to those we are called to minister to. But when we view our own cups as sharing in the greater suffering of those around us, that same hope we obtain from being sojourners on the road of mourning can then also reverberate with the mourning experienced by the world. The same staff that comforts us in our troubles will also then comfort others. And as we learn to hope in what is not yet here, so too will we be agents in bringing hope to a creation groaning in the pains of childbirth for its consummation.

This is the act of turning our eyes outwards to a hurting world even when we ourselves are licking our wounds. As the world lies broken, so we mourn as if for ourselves. As we look forward to the hope of transformation, restoration and renewal, so we take our hope and lavish it as freely to the world as love was lavished freely upon us.

And so we mourn, knowing that we mourn not only for ourselves, but for those who have much more reason to weep. And as we slowly traverse the steep paths of mourning, we somehow find ourselves walking next to others, with faith, afraid but undaunted, towards a hope that reveals itself just enough say that when all is said and done, these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love.