I received a text today from a friend asking for my response to, “We live in a fallen world. It doesn’t get any better than this.”
I’ve wrestled with the idea of hope for about a year now. Hope is a word we use with little meaning. It seems little more than wishful thinking; perhaps not even worth genuine effort. Hope is looking to the future with a slight optimism, that perhaps, one day, things might, kind of, workout, maybe.
But I think this is unChristian. I believe it is unChristian to have this view of hope.
Let us first consider the nature of our world. The meta-narrative of scripture is a story of redemption. Redemption from all that is wrong and fallen. The Hebrew idea of death is less about physical death and more about brokenness. The man and woman did die after eating the fruit because their lives became broken. Life itself was contingent on the whole, unbroken relationships between God and humans, humans and one another, humans and the rest of creation, and humans among their inner selves. These relationships were severed at the fall. So the world is on a downward spiral.
Then enters the redemption process. God enacts a plan to bring order back to creation, to restore these broken relationships. God gives us Torah. (To the scholars reading this, I know the compilation date of Torah can be assessed rather late; however such an point seems rather futile since we are considering the theological meta-narrative of the Judeo-Christian tradition). Parts of Exodus and much of Deuteronomy are in the construct of a Suzerainty treaty (i.e., a treaty formed between a King and his vassals). Such a document was written to govern the relationships, to add order back to chaos. This is the overall aim of Torah; that is: revelation of God and God’s redemptive plan. Even creation was considered. Torah called for a Sabbatical Year, or Shmita. This was not only a chance for redemption among people, but also redemption of the earth. Even the earth was to have a rest from producing, a time of restoration (Cf. Exodus 23:10-11, Leviticus 25:4). Leaders enter the fold to guide Israel in this redemption process.
However, this does not accomplish full redemption for the earth. We still drift off course; we miss the mark.
Sometimes completely.
Prophets and judges enter. Kings enter. Sometimes bringing us back on course; other times failing. God is humanity choice. Consistently we chose to cause pain and suffering to one another. We are without hope in this. In the New Testament, Paul echos this, “As it is written, no one is righteous, not even one,” (Romans 3:10). We are broken, and we continually choose to remain broken.
So God sends Jesus, who speaks God’s voice to people once again (Cf. Matthew 21;37). And he is murdered. Redemption comes from the most vile crime our brokenness could bring about.
God’s redemption has been a process.
Plan A – perfect creation.
Plan B – Torah.
Plan C – Prophetic Word.
Plan D – Crucifixion of the Son of God.
Is is heretical to look at Jesus as “Plan D”? The fourth gospel and the Revelation seem to indicate that Christ death was predestined (Cf. John 1, Revelation 13:8). Perhaps, but then we run into the problem justifying the giving of the Torah and even the prophetic voices of the First Testament. This is another issue to be raised later.
For now, suffice it to say that God’s mission of redemption of humanity is extensive and exhaustive. God has gone to such great expense to ensure redemption of humanity at seemingly any and all costs. Why? Was it so allow us into a heaven in the afterlife? Was it so we could experience eternal bliss upon out deaths here? We it to give us an reprieve from the hell many have experienced while on earth?
No.
The problem with such a thinking is that is makes salvation too small. And it doesn’t remedy the problem of death (= brokenness) that our sinful condition has created. It only provides an escape. God’s redemptive act in Jesus’s death and resurrection is about so much more than afterlife. It is about redeeming what was lost at Eden. It’s about bringing us life and life in abundance. In other words, it’s about restoring the relationships of God and people and all of creation. We can’t minimalize the nature of what really happened at Golgotha.
This is why I say that is it unChristian to live with idle hope. We are to be agents of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Our world is supposed to be getting better because we are in it. Because we live reconciled to God, to one another, to ourselves, and to creation. And we spread this message.
We are to make this world a better place; we are to see redemption take hold and change lives, healing brokenness.
I have to believe that the hope Christ offers is bigger than the problems of this world. If this is not the case, the cross really has no meaning and was a waste.
I will not deny that we live in a fallen world, but rescue is coming, and has already come. Our situation would be hopeless without the redemption of all things Christ offers. But we do have hope, and we are hope.
Not idle, wishful thinking. But strong knowledge that things will get better… that brokenness can and will be healed. We are called to make the world a better place; we bring heaven here. We bring the Kingdom of God.
It is not a lost cause. We have sure, certain knowledge that Christ’s redemptive work on the cross was about redeeming all of creation. It was about true life, back-to-Eden kind of life. Abundance life starts now.
Hope is a noun we embrace.
Our world can’t afford for us to do anything less.
Have you read the shack? It’s been promoted by the marketing gurus in the Christian media market. I’ve heard mixed review about it. There are those who seem to catch the theology and hate it, and those who don’t catch the theology and love it. This seems to be the two camps of people I’ve found.
