To Hope or Not To Hope
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Sunday Reflection
Read Tamara Hiscock’s reflection, titled, “Where the Hope Is” from Sunday’s worship service. You’ll find it in the Sunday Reflections blog.
Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 1:3 – 13 (NRSV)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
A week ago, late at night, I got a call from a close friend. She was at the hospital. Her 17-year-old son had just died. He was a healthy, strong young man. And then, for no apparent reason, his heart stopped. No one knows why. Next Tuesday, friends and family will gather together to share their stories and their grief. It won’t be a typical memorial service where everyone sits quietly and listens while people at the front of the room speak. The boy who died couldn’t sit still and listen at the best of times. So to honour him, there’ll be lots of snacks and mingling and moving here and there and everywhere. People have been invited to wear jeans and t-shirts, ideally with images from the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. I expect it’ll be an exhausting afternoon. But it’ll be a good afternoon, because it’ll be a place set apart to remember, to celebrate his life, to grieve his death, and to ask hard questions.
Some of the questions we’ve been asking have answers. Some don’t. It’ll likely be a year before we know if the autopsy yielded any explanation for his heart stopping. Could anything have been done? Is someone to blame for not getting him help earlier? Where’s the justice in this death? How do his parents and his brother and sister face the rest of their lives without him?
I spent a couple of days this week with my friend. She told me that a cousin had asked her if she’s angry with God. He lost his child to leukemia less than a year ago. She told me she’s not angry with God. She told me, instead, that she has this peace grounding her or covering her. She described it like she’s enclosed in a glass box in the middle of the ocean. Waves and wind are pummeling away at the box, but inside, she’s secure and safe. It’s the peace that passes understanding, to quote the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
I tell you all this because this week I’m thinking about hope. I’m thinking about hope because I believe that being a Christian requires us to be people of hope, but I also believe that being a people of hope is one of the hardest things Jesus asks of us. It’s not hard when everything’s going well. It’s not hard when we have resources and skills to fix things that are wrong. But it sure is hard when the bad things come and when we’re powerless to do anything about them. And yet, that’s exactly when hope is required. As I sit with my friend, there’s nothing I can do to change the tragedy of the last week. There’s nothing I can say to make it less awful. But as we sat together, planning her son’s celebration of life, sharing our stories, we found ourselves also talking about the truth that her son is now with Jesus. This is hope. It’s not wishful thinking to dull the pain; it’s real and it’s true and it’s everything.
As you prepare for Sunday, I invite you to spend some time considering hope. What are the things that stand in the way of your ability be hope-ful? Do you remember a time in your life when you were grounded in hope, even though the situation around you seemed hope-less? How are you a person of hope in others’ lives? Also, as you prepare for Sunday, I ask for your prayers for me and for my friend. May I be able to be hope in her sorrow. And may she never lose that peace that fills her with hope that is keeping her alive right now.