Tag: hope

Fear & Hope: United by Both

Fear & Hope: United by Both

kristopher-roller-PC_lbSSxCZE-unsplash.jpg
Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

As many of you know, our youngest daughter recently passed away not quite two months ago. Her brief life and death marred us, messed with us, is still not a puzzle solved or mountain climbed. Considering this monstrous life event and alllll that is happening globally with coronavirus, I’ve been thinking about many of the things that happen behind the scenes of grief and as a result of awful life events. One such thing is fear.

How is fear first conceived? What makes it grow? How does fear develop into a fully formed, living thing with fists that can grip us, rip us to and fro, nearly control us?

I’m not talking about the fight/flight response we need when there is imminent danger like a fire or car coming toward us. I’m talking about the fear that lingers there long after any imminent danger is present. The anxious, constantly-present fear. The dormant yet- strong-as-ever fear.

I think these types of fears are founded on something true or partially true. Some piece of scientific or historical (even personally historical) information. A few facts or events that we can point to. Then, to become a fear and not just a factoid or two, our emotion comes into play. Our own sadness, anger, regret, confusion, shame. The fear grows.

But as I thought about this, I realized that beneath it, or maybe if we follow it to its end, most fears are not really that different. We may fear the rising sea levels, the pollution, the natural disasters, but the base layer of this fear is existential: the ending of life as we know it. We may fear different people groups with very different, sometimes backwards ideals coming into our cities, but the base of this fear is once again, the ending of life as we know it. We may fear our loved ones or ourselves getting hurt, sick, even dying and, once again, following that fear to its end is also the end of life as we know it. We may fear what we are taught to fear by our parents, politicians, teachers, media-outlet-of-choice, but I challenge you to follow that fear and it will most-likely end in the place the rest of these fears do.

I don’t know if thinking this way brings you any sort of comfort, but for me it’s kind of refreshing. Maybe we are not really that different after all. We all are united by our deepest fear. Perhaps that’s a bit unpleasant for you. Fear is not something we want to own. We’d rather own logic, wisdom, morality, knowledge. We’d rather think an emotion like fear has nothing to do with us. Maybe you think you just care. You don’t fear. But if this ‘care’ leads you on to the same destination, this end to life as you know it,  it may still hold a pinch or even gallon of unseen fear.

One of my greatest, most unlikely fears came true. One of those dormant-swirling fears. The kind you have automatically and must always always fight. Death. My daughter died. My physical flesh and blood, my ethereal hope and love was in this person, and she died.

The worst happened. Fear became reality.

But I don’t want to live in fear that the worst will happen again and again just because it did. Because we can probably all agree, that fearing all the time is a horrible way to live.

My fear came true. There is an end to life as I knew it. But there is something else there too: hope.

Hope that THIS isn’t it for us. This death, this imperfection, this virus, this iffy science we worship, this messy morality we cling to, this failing humanity and flailing earth. There IS something greater, more perfect, more lovely, more kind, more lasting than THIS. Or why and how can we know it deeply–feel it in the unseen places of our soul? We are built for it, and I have hope it’s still coming.

Hope. Hope can unite us too.

Lord I pray that during this tumultuous time, we are united by the hope. That fearing sickness and death is not our calling and brings no change to our lives. Take our fears that we grip on to and those that grip onto us. Replace them with hope. 

 

Romans 8:24
For in this hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he can already see?


2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.


2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.

 

 

Truth, Tears, Anger, and Grace

It’s been a blah day. Did I say day?–month. January is notorious as “divorce” month, and it is undoubtably the coldest month for northerners to endure. So yes… blah. Picture the adults from Charlie Brown kind of blah. Everything a blur of garbled words, of unconscious motion. And the sense that the -11 temp had somehow seeped into my heart. Trying to turn up it’s heat only fogged up my mind.

I needed truth and grace when all I seemed to have was tears and anger.
This lovely exposition popped up in my google search; since then, I’ve been reeling.
It’s a talk given by a speaker whom I love, only days after 9/11.

First the prayers. Individuals from different backgrounds and cultures praying for a hurting nation after the greatest tragedy since Pearl Harbor. A city and nation which prided itself with accomplishment and  power was left unhinged. And the grieving began.

And.. so did the lame-sauce “answers” for the tragedy:
1. We are being judged–for (Democrats) our lack of care for global justice (Republicans) our lack of moral values.
2. THEY are the evil ones (even subhuman.) WE are the good.

In the midst of this, the best leaders spoke not of answers.  They spoke of hope– a hope to see new life come blazing from the ashes.

And then this story

Jesus hears a good friend of His is dying. So he hits the road and on the way into Bethany, meets up with both of the sisters of his now dead friend, Lazaras. Though Jesus is intending to (and later does) raise Lazarus from the dead, he also responds very acutely to what he’s hearing from Lazarus’ sisters.

the first sister

Martha said to Him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.”

There’s the truth that no one was expecting. Jesus claims not only to hold the power to raise the dead, but claims to embody that power–to be new life for anyone who believes. But he doesn’t stop with speaking the truth…

the second sister

“Then when Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord come and see. Jesus wept. 

Truth, Tears, Anger, & Grace Why is it that out of those four all I really hear about from  Christians are the two bookends–truth & grace.
Though it’s translated “He groaned in the spirit and was troubled” the actual Greek words used refer much more to the emotion of anger. He was angry. Angry at death and the havoc it had already caused. And though he knew he would conquer it, death was still worth being mad at.
And then He was sorrowful, and in his tears he didn’t just weep out of sorrow for His own loss. I believe His own grief was for not just the temporary loss his friend’s life, but the lives of countless others before and after. The sting of death was felt by God even before the cross, and He wept.

grace, a gift undeserved

While still grieving, Jesus told the people to roll away the stone over the tomb where they’d  placed Lazarus. Four days his corpse had been rotting, so with some convincing, they consented.

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said. “Father I thank you that You have heard Me. And I know that you always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this. that they may believe that you sent Me.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice. “Lazarus come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes. Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in Him. But some of them went away to the religious leaders and told them the things Jesus did… Then from that day on they plotted to put him to death.

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead knowing  this would eventually lead to his own death– all as a prequel of what he did for the rest of humanity on the cross. He knew pain, injustice, tragedy more deeply than any human to walk this planet. And he did not stop there;  to prove that suffering is never a waste, He made a way to God through His own. He died so that real death would never have to touch anyone again.

Whether or not you can believe this story to be historical truth, the process with which Jesus grieved–truth, tears, anger & grace will always be the only complete way to find hope amidst evil, tragedy, and death.  This kind of hope doesn’t seek cheap answers. This hope weeps, curses loss, and yet rubs the joy of new life in the face of death.

**this is my own mini-recap of a talk given by Tim Keller entitled “Truth, Tears, Anger, and Grace” props to him.

the bible passage can be found in the book of John, chapter 11.