Pastor's Corner

When it all boils down to one thing, what is it that the gift of faith gives you? For me, it boils down to hope. Hope that God is indeed working in the world. Hope that no matter how bad (or how good for that matter) things are or become, God is at work in those dark areas, perhaps especially in those dark areas, to transform even them; to transform even me.

And what is hope other than the ability to imagine a future – for ourselves, for our families and friends, for the country, indeed for the world? Without some sort of future, there is no hope. This is what is so powerful about resurrection. Specifically, the resurrection of Jesus and the one promised to us as well. In light of resurrection the future is always open; there is endless possibility because even the grave cannot shut the door on hope any more.

This hope we are given should not be confused with optimism. As a colleague of mine points out, “Optimism involves the expectation that things are eventually going to get better, hope asserts that no matter what may come, no matter how bad things may get, yet God’s word and promise will prevail.” (David Lose, “Hope as the Heart of the Christian Faith,” fount at http://www.davidlose.net). In other words, hope can be, and is, present even when - even if - our immediate circumstances are dire and terrible.

I think of the widow who grieves the loss of a long-time spouse, the parents who stand helpless by their child’s bedside as they suffer severe illness, the many of us who live in the shadows of grief, addiction and depression. There, in that place, optimism is hard to find. But there, the Scriptures profess, hope can and does take root, because even there God is at work.

As Frederick Buechner says so well when talking about life’s unexplainable sufferings: “Christianity…ultimately offers no theoretical solution at all. It merely points to the cross and says that, practically speaking, there is no evil so dark and so obscene – not even this – but that God can turn it to good” (Beyond Words, HarperCollins Publishers: 2004, 104).

The hope that we are given with the gift of faith, therefore, goes beyond mere optimism to something that is able to transcend our worst experiences…and even our best. Perhaps Paul says it best in Romans 5: “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us”.

To be sure, this is hope for the time to come, but it is also hope for today.

Rev. Phil Misner, pastor of Peace Lutheran Church, Colfax and

Trinity Lutheran Church, Endicott