Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Hope smiles from the threshold

In this era of excessive celebration and muted statements about our beliefs, what would the world make of this little guy out on an island of his own?

It was, an is, a tiny Greek island, this Patmos. Still has less than 3,000 folks living there. About halfway up the mountain, along the road that separates the communities of Chora and Skala is a cave, a grotto, that is supposed to be the one in which John the Revelator, the writer of the last book found in the Biblical Canon, did his best work. Call it an early That's Life, if you will.

I can only imagine. John the Revelator, banashed apparently from his loved ones, his friends, even his own past, having the vision that would settle into our lives like a friend we never understood but never forgot. While there, he had a vision that he recorded. The controversy began probably soon afterwards. Was the vision of the apocolypse for then, for now? What do we do with this? What is the code for all these images? How do we understand this whole piece?

I'm in the I don't know category there.

But I'm in the this is the most hope-filled of the books after the Gospels to make the Canon category, as well.

In the 22nd chaper, the last by the way, we read this:

"Then the Angel showed me Water-of-Life River, crystal bright. It flowed from the Throne of God and the Lamb, right down the middle of the street. The Tree of Life was planted on each side of the River, producing twelve kinds of fruit, a ripe fruit each month. The leaves of the Tree are for healing the nations. Never again will anything be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. His servants will offer God service—worshiping, they’ll look on his face, their foreheads mirroring God. Never again will there be any night. No one will need lamplight or sunlight. The shining of God, the Master, is all the light anyone needs. And they will rule with him age after age after age."

Through it all, through it all there is hope. Not a flimsy hope, but a hope that surpasses all the stuff we go through.

Emily Dickinson said of hope, “Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.” 

At the time the writer of Revelation wrote, people were "truly" being persecuted. Death was often a real deterent to vocalizing what one believed. Banishment to an island wasn't far behind. That isnt' what we in this country face. We're still able to worship. We're still able to speak. If someone makes fun of those choices, so be it. That can never stop hope. You think John Wesley, speaking to hundreds out in a field, didn't get some who said he was daft?

But to have hope, when the world seems hopeless and unsavable is, well, the ultimate courageous statement, I would think.

Alfred Tennyson said, “Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...” 
Sometimes that's all we have, you know? But in the darkest of nights, all we need to do really is look up and see the stars of the Creator. I believe God is the ultimate true source of hope. I believe that God has made it possible for us to hope. I believe that's what politics squeezes out of the conversation. Hope. Real hope.

How do we hope things turn out for our children and their children is a question every single person in the country should ask themselves, and take our own unworking solutions and political beliefs and start the hope over.

The answer for many, not all certainly, is to have God in our lives so that we can hope for more than we ourselves can ever possible provide. I recognize that not all will feel this way.

Someone once wrote, "When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is dire and bleak, there is always hope.” 

I think that's what John saw. Dire-ness and bleakness all around him, the day-to-day gone bad, but when all seemed lost for the early church, how great thou art.

I think all of us need a little hope this morning. I offer this as my share.
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier'...”
Alfred Tennyson

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