Hope

"Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”

- The Lord of the Rings, p. 922, J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve been doing a study of the Holy Spirit recently to answer a question that came up in our small group, and I came across this reference in a sermon by Tim Keller. He was describing how being filled with the Holy Spirit is like and yet totally unlike being drunk. Alcohol fills us with joy, warmth and courage, but by knocking out reality. Being filled with the Holy Spirit shows us more of reality: it heightens our understanding of life; it is like truth shining. And if we have that reality and hope, what is there to worry about? He talked about how it was like Sam, traveling with Frodo through Mordor, and seeing beyond the darkness a beauty that smote his heart. Seeing that the Shadow was but a small and passing thing; having hope.

I’ve been thinking about hope lately, because we’ve been studying through Revelation with said small group, and I think so much about the book is to give its readers hope. It’s like that story about two people in prison, one told that his family and all he loved is gone, another told his family was alive and waiting for him, and how the first died but the second lived. Or about two people screwing widgets on in a tiny room all day, one told he would be paid ten dollars per day, the second ten million per day, and how the second lasted longer in the job than the first. Our hope in the future determines how we live today.

What determines our hope? I’ve been thinking about the difference between faith and hope—faith is what I believe in. It’s what I know. But hope is an emotive expectation: it is belief mixed with will and desire. As Luther wrote, “faith resteth in the understanding, hope in the will.” I have faith that my boss will pay me tomorrow; I have hope that with that money I can go on a road trip. I have to have faith in my boss to work at all, but it is my hope for the road trip that lets me stick through tough times at work.

That’s why hope in God and the future he reveals to us in Revelation is so great. Of course, the future is full of objective truth that all of us can put our faith in, but since God created me, and knows me better than anyone, he also better than anyone knows what it is I hope for. He knows my desires and feelings; what I delight in and what I suffer through, and the more I learn about the reality of who he is, where he dwells, and what he has in store, the more I find hope that puts daily things in perspective.

We all need hope to live. Maybe that’s why God calls himself a God of hope, and why being filled with the Holy Spirit causes us to “abound in hope” (Romans 15:13). I think of Proverbs 13:12—“hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life”—and I think of the literal tree of life, the one we forfeited in Eden but that will be waiting for us in eternity.

We visited an assisted living facility with the kids today to hand out daisies from our yard. The residents were parked in wheelchairs on either side along a hallway, just staring off into space. Some of the ones we handed flowers to brought them to their faces, but instead of smelling some tried to eat them, and that oddly reminded me of Esme, who had just done the same thing. Both ends of life, but one with bright eyes and squirmy skin stretched with fat; the other with glassy eyes and paper-thin, wrinkled stillness (“I didn’t know people could be so old,” Ellie said. “Really?” I said. “Yeah,” she replied, “I thought they died before they got that old”).

My hope in heaven now is hope in a place where there will be rest, fulfillment of all aspects of who I am and what I enjoy, and intimate understanding. Since, you know, I’m in a period of life full of unpredictable sleep, no me-time, and where it takes real effort to connect with adults. But I imagine when I’m at the end of life, I’ll be hoping in a new body, in eternal community instead of loneliness. I imagine it makes all the difference, and the greater the suffering, the more difference it makes. In the end, I don’t need to distract myself with leisure or fantasy: I need to sink my teeth into the reality of scripture, the source not of distraction or defiance, but real hope.