the God of hope
(thoughts on a worship service, but not necessarily!)
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)
“Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” In Dante’s Inferno, that’s the inscription over the entrance to hell.
The movie The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of two men, played by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, who portray characters locked up in Shawshank Prison in Maine. Robbins’ character, Andy Dufresne, was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. Freeman plays Red, the man who can get you almost anything.
In one scene, we’re in the cafeteria when Andy, fresh out of solitary confinement, sits down with his friends. The guys ask Andy how he was—how he was able to keep going. He speaks to them about music. In solitary, he could only have the music in his mind.
He says, “That’s the beauty of music. They can’t get that from you. Haven’t you ever felt that way about music?”
Red replies, “I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn’t make much sense in here.”
Andy responds. “Here’s where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don’t forget.”
“Forget?”
“Forget that… there are places in this world that aren’t made out of stone. That there’s something inside… that they can’t get to, that they can’t touch. That’s yours.” “What’re you talking about?” “Hope.” “Hope? Let me tell you something, my friend,” he says while wagging his spoon at him. “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.”
Skipping a lot of the movie, Andy escapes from prison. He has spoken to Red about a town in Mexico where he plans to go. Years later, Red is released on parole. He remembers the promise he made to Andy to go see him if and when he ever got out of Shawshank.
We hear Morgan Freeman’s voiceover as Red takes a bus cross country. “I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it’s the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”
In our scripture which is the theme of the Sanctuary of Hope service, the apostle Paul addresses the church in Rome. He speaks of the God of hope.
For Dante, hell is the place without hope. In our own lives, hell can be a place where we lose hope—where we are abandoned to despair. The God of hope seems like a million miles away.
In The Shawshank Redemption, Red speaks of the power of hope, how it can tantalize us and drive us mad. Still, he is converted, so to speak. He embraces hope in fleeing across the border, reuniting with his friend, finding the Pacific as blue as he has dreamed. He hopes.
But Red’s hope, his longing, isn’t the sure and invincible hope of Jesus Christ—a hope that cannot be defeated. This hope, a gift of the Holy Spirit, doesn’t depend on us or how we feel. It comes from God. It is the nature of God. In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul joins hope with faith and love (v. 13).
And yet, it might seem too abstract, too theoretical. Not based in reality, at least not in our own day-to-day reality. And that might be true, but there is something to consider. The reality of incarnation. The reality that Jesus Christ is God with us. Not some airy-fairy thing, but that the Word has taken flesh.
After the resurrection, many of the disciples had their own doubts. Thus, the appearances of Jesus had him being touched, eating food, showing his wounds—all of the frail things that come with having a body.
Sanctuary of Hope. (It’s more than a service.) It’s more than a place. It’s more than a time. True, it is sacred service, sacred place, sacred time. But it’s so much more than all of those. That sanctuary, where hope is housed—as with Jesus—is our bodies. That sanctuary is us, we temples of the Holy Spirit.
We abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.