Living in Two Worlds: Hope and Despair

Written for the Presbyterian Outlook blog ...

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I find myself in two worlds: hope and despair.

I think the two are related, in a symbiotic way.

I get the uneasy feeling that hope needs despair in order to be hope, in any authentic way. Hope is a part of the faith I have in Christ, a faith that confronts the "realities" of the day, without flinching, yet rises above them to claim the providence of God, God-at-work, in all things. Without despair in things as they are, hope for things as they will be seems shallow and self-serving.

Which then makes despair an integral part of my spiritual layout. Not that I'm happy about that, but I'm in good company.

I think the Prophets are people of despair and hope, and sometimes the oscillation is severe (read Isaiah). Jesus speaks of his "troubled" heart (John 12:27), as well, and then speaks of "my joy" (John 15:11). I can't have one without the other, if I understand anything about the ways of God in my life.

Paul says that hope has a lot "invisibility" to it - things unseen (Romans 8:25), and then reminds us that it's the Holy Spirit that prays within us, for us and with us, when we can't see, with "sighs too deep for words."

I live in both worlds, and maybe you do, too.

I think Matthew lives in both as he pens the opening chapters of his gospel. He begins with an affirmation of faith in God's ordering of history (Chapter 1), then moves the reader into some of the dark materials of our world (Chapter 2) and then blends it all together in Chapters 3 and 4.

The Gospels help me with despair - not to move me out of it, but to bear it, as a cross, in the name of Jesus, and bear it with hope in the providence of God.

If despair takes hold, and I live only in Chapter 2, what with the conniving of Herod and his bloodlust for anyone who threatens his throne, my spirit grows heavy.

Yet, if I try to live only in hope, with sweet nostrums piled high all about me, my spirit objects, for what right do I have to escape from sorrow and sadness when millions of human beings are condemned to mean and miserable lives, for want of justice and peace?

To follow Christ is to spend time in both realms - in the darkness of Herod's world and in the brightness of a Magi's star.

To live with Jesus shedding tears on the brow of the hill overlooking Jerusalem and with his incredible forgiveness and reinstatement of Peter after the resurrection.

I live in both worlds - maybe you do, too.

Tom Eggebeen, Interim Pastor
Covenant Presbyterian Church
Los Angeles, CA