Abide – Hope
Welcome, everyone. Welcome to Abide. We're going to take these 30 minutes to unplug a bit from our normal responsibilities and maybe even ways of thinking, and we're going to pull away into our secret spaces or our closed doors as Jesus invites us to do, over and over and over again, to come and sit with him, to sit at his feet and be reminded of what is the most important thing, the one thing, which is him.
I'm reminded how Jesus walks through the streets and comes to the temple and he cleanses the temple, so because it's a house of prayer and I think of our own bodies, our beings, they’re temples, they’re homes, where God lives. And sometimes we need to just, they need to be cleansed, they need a, they need a run through of Jesus, of the Spirit, just walking through, making space, cleaning up things, refreshing spaces.
And so that's my prayer and our prayer for this time. We are in the Christian virtues, and this is our last virtue that we’ll be studying this semester, and the virtue is hope. And as we said before, the first 4 virtues were cardinal virtues, and now we're moving into the theological virtues with last week, faith and this week, hope, where the object is God. And typically, hope is a virtue or a feeling, an expectation and a desire for certain things to happen, or outcomes to occur. And today's practice, I'm hoping to get into something even deeper than that, bigger than just hoping for circumstances and conditions to change or shift, but an abiding hope within.
And so let's begin. Get settled in your seat or in your commute or on your walk. Just beginning to relax the body, with a nice steady breath in. And exhaling out. Slowly but surely, getting settled into this space and this time, and letting go of the things you just were a part of, and the things that you'll soon pick up. Just allowing yourself to let go of those things, to begin to relax the face, the muscles of the shoulders, the back. Just begin to notice your body, and allow it to grow quiet, become more settled and still.
And just be reminded today that God created you. He wanted you in this world at this time. He gazes upon you and he says this is really good. And allow that love to rest on you. We are so in need of this love; I often think of us like a solar panel that we need to be in God's presence and in his stillness to sort of recharge, we need the sun to come in and we need to soak in it so we can be energized to live and to bring light and life into the world. And so, in this present moment, we're just soaking in that our Creator gazes upon us with this warmth, with his love, with his embrace, afresh today.
With this reality of his love, I can't help, but then feel grateful, for life, for God, for how he's working in my life. And so today we're going to begin to reflect on the last few days or weeks. A time that you might have felt hopeless or discouraged, or down, or lost.
Just take a moment to review different hours of your day, different days in your week and find a moment, find a time where there was a hopelessness, there was a heaviness.
You can sit with Jesus knowing he knows that, that moment, he knows that circumstance, he knows that situation. And I'm wondering if in this time of you bringing forth this, the scene with Jesus again, if you can see any help or leaning in of God, his hand in that moment. Where were you met? With a word or a phrase? Our sensation within? How were you able to sense God meeting you in that time of fear or despair or hopelessness?
For me personally, I had such a day that moved into the evening and I remember having a conversation with a friend that I hadn't maybe shared before some of my grief. And she listened. And she affirmed. She sat with me. Or I even think sitting next to my son with my own tears of overwhelm and him not really knowing what's going on with his mom, but just his presence with me. No need for words or even a quick fix, but just a presence, sensing God’s friendship.
Lord, we just say thank you. Thank you for knowing us, and where we have experienced hopelessness, sorrow, confusion and fears, and how we have sensed you leaning in in small ways, in big ways. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
With these grateful hearts, I'm going to bring us into a time of reading three different Scripture passages, three little vignettes, three stories, three people, that are experiencing in life hopelessness. And we're going to listen to a bit of their story, and we're going to listen to where hope comes from in them. And so, the three passages of Scripture are Habakkuk 3:17-19. And then we'll move into John 4:13-14. And then finally, Job 19:25-26.
So our first vignette from the prophet Habakkuk:
“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.”
John 4:13-14, Jesus is in a conversation with the woman at the well: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
And finally Job 19:25-26:
“I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God.”
Allow these three scriptures to rest in your space wherever you are with the presence of Jesus near. I'm wondering if you've picked up on these three individuals and the way in which they're experiencing the virtue of hope. We often think of hope, as “I hope I do well in my exam.” “I hope I pass my courses this semester.” “I hope the doctor gives us a good report.” “I hope I can go visit my friend for Christmas.” So there are things we desire and outcomes and circumstances and conditions that we are longing for and hoping for. But the hope that we're reading about in these scriptures is different and Cynthia Bourgeault, in her book Mystical Hope, really opens up this kind of hope that I'm wanting us to focus on today. And she gives us three characteristics of this kind of mystical hope, or I like to call it the abiding hope, and so let's listen in on these three characteristics: “Mystical hope is not tied to a good outcome, to the future. It lives a life of its own, seemingly without reference to external circumstances and conditions. #2: It has something to do with presence— not a future good outcome, but the immediate experience of being met, held in communion, by something [intimately] at hand.” And a third characteristic of this hope: “It bears fruit within us at the psychological level in the sensations of strength, joy, and satisfaction: an ‘unbearable lightness of being.’ But mysteriously, rather than deriving these gifts from outward expectations being met, it seems to produce them from within.”
So in light of those three characteristics, let's once again read these three vignettes together and soak them in again and learn from these beautiful individuals and how this abiding hope manifests in them.
Habakkuk:
“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights.”
Now, if you know the book of Habakkuk, he's a prophet that is seeing so much heartache and injustice. And he has to do this hard deepening work of hoping in this sovereign Lord when he doesn't see circumstances or conditions changing for the good. So he is our teacher today about an abiding hope. In these challenging circumstances he's discussing, he's talking about, he reminds us that God is his strength, not the circumstances. And that with the strength of the Lord, his feet are like those of a deer – light, gentle, swift – and enables me to go on the heights. This is an abiding hope from within. This is a mystical hope that comes from God and his spirit.
John 4: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Now we know the woman at the well, she doesn't have the best circumstances. She's getting water mid-day in the heat so she won't be seen or bothered, and Jesus meets her there. He knows the challenges of getting water regularly, so he starts talking to her about living water, living hope, eternal life. And that this is possible right in the midst of her circumstances and her conditions, and she's so ready for it. She goes home and tells all of this living water, this spring of water welling up inside her.
And Job, he writes:
“I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God.”
We see in Job a single-heartedness for God alone, beyond family and wealth and health. Even in the midst of all of his hardship, he says, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”
And so let us have a moment with Jesus and with these three beautiful souls: Habakkuk, the woman at the well, and Job. And you're in this circle too. And we need some lessons from these individuals on hope, on a single-heartedness in God and toward God alone. A connection, a celebration, an assurance that goes beyond what we can see, that goes beyond our circumstances. Somehow these individuals have like a wellspring within that never runs dry.
So in this safe moment, I want us to give God and share with God an area in our life presently that seems hopeless. The grief is too great. The mountain is too high to climb. We've prayed for so many years, seen no change. And so, just as these individuals in these scripture passages have been open to God, let us now be open to God around these circumstances and these conditions and these relationships in our life that we don't see any fruit being born. We don't see any healing. We're not experiencing any growth that we know of. And so just describe your situation to Jesus now, openly, knowing that Job is there, and Habakkuk is there, and the woman at the well are there, and Jesus is there, and we can freely share our own heartache, our own darkness, and be held here.
And after you've expressed this situation, this circumstance, I want us to just have time to be silent and still for a moment, knowing that we’re heard and loved and we can make space here for a moment, for silence in the midst of great teachers.
And out of the silence, wondering if we could all ask Jesus for this living hope. He knows where it is and he promises that we can drink from it. We can ask God about these abiding places of life and a wellspring, as Job and Habakkuk and this woman were able to access. So Jesus, we ask for this mystical hope, this hope that's not tied to if we get the good grade or if the cancer is cured or if our friend lives or dies. We long for something that's deeper that lasts and it’s you. It's a relationship with you. It's knowing you are our sovereign Lord. You are our Redeemer. You're our Saviour. So we ask for a taste of this water.
And Lord, we know that you'll meet us in our grief. We know that this abiding hope will bubble up inside of us, maybe through some of the finer vibrations of life. Maybe it won't be loud or for all to see or maybe it won't be exactly what we wanted. But help us to have eyes and ears to see the small, to see the helping hand, to hear the assuring voice, the tenderness of yourself with us, in us, right in the midst of our circumstances and our conditions. For this we ask, for this abiding hope. So to close this time of prayer, friends, we're just going to gently place our hands on our hearts if you're able to. And just know that this hope that we seek is within and that we can drink from it as God continues to teach us about it. And take your hands and place them out in front of you, ready to receive this hope and to offer this hope to the world that's so in need of it. And then we raise our hands toward our God, our King, our Redeemer, offering our lives once again to him that we would follow after him faithfully, beyond circumstances and conditions, and that we would cultivate this virtue of hope more and more each day.
Go in peace, my friends.
