Hope not Optimism

 

The world feels quite a dark place at the moment. New atrocities are revealed daily in a war at the heart of Europe, something that few of us could have foreseen in recent times. Away from the headlines of Ukraine, the worst drought in a decade in Somalia threatens to kill hundreds of thousands of children in that poverty-stricken land. Meanwhile other wars continue, hardly noticed, such as the violence in the Congo which took another 30 lives this week. Add to that the hardship faced by many families in our own country with the cost of living increasing and it's hard to find much hope for the future. 

We Christians are not people of optimism but of hope. Optimism is the vague aspiration that things will turn out OK, that we mustn't focus on the darkness, but instead keep our spirits up by positive thinking.

Holy Week is when we are forced to look intently into the darkness. On Friday we will gaze again on Jesus on the cross – the realisation that when our Maker came to us, we killed him. That was our great sin as a human race, of which all our other petty sins are a dim echo. 

And yet while this week makes us look at the darkness in the world and in our hearts, it also ends by looking at the light which banishes darkness. Resurrection hope is not whistling in the dark, hoping that things will turn out OK, but a sure, rooted conviction that because Jesus rose from the dead, a new world is coming and there is a sure ground for hope. 

One of Horace’s Odes runs like this: 

 

                Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?

        In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebbed away.

Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.

 

Carpe Diem – seize the day. It is the essence of the Epicurean view of the world, and our world is full of materialist Epicurean sentiment. The film Dead Poets Society claimed the phrase in its hymn to modern expressive individualism. Life is fleeting, it won’t last long, so grab what pleasure you can while you can. If this world is all there is, if death is simply the dissolving of atoms into the earth, if the only hope of afterlife is in some thin idea of the circle of life where our decaying remains provide the manure out of which future plants and flowers grow, then Epicurean ethics – eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die - is really the only option. Hence the desperate search for exhilarating experiences, bucket lists, trading in a marriage partner for a better model if they cease to satisfy, acquiring the resources we need to fulfil our dream because our dreams can only be realised in this world, because this world is all we have. 

Yet if Resurrection happened, if Jesus is not a dead poet but the firstfruits of the new heaven and new earth, the first crocus of spring, heralding many more to come, then this world is not all there is, and the frantic urgency to ‘seize the day’ begins to fade away. It becomes possible not to feel the need to grasp everything, but to be content with simple things like friendship, small moments of grace, the gifts of food and clothing (1 Tim 6.8). Fear Of Missing Out is not the worst thing of all. Making the sacrificial choice to open a home to a refugee, giving away valuable resources to support those in need, sticking with difficult situations and difficult people even until the end of life – these all become possible. Babies born with disabilities, adults with mental illness, the elderly with dementia are not lesser forms of life because they are unable to ‘seize the day’ like the young and gifted. Not getting everything you want here and now is fine, because we were never meant to anyway. 

Our task this Easter, as it is every year, is to hold out this hope for our congregations, for our communities, for our world. Jesus prays for his disciples (including us) that our faith will not fail. I pray for you and value your prayers for me, that we may be faithful to this calling, and find the words and actions to bear witness to the God who raises the dead. What happens as a result of that witness, whether the church remains a voice crying in the wilderness, or the church is revived and a new form of society emerges that reflects the reality of the Kingdom of God - that is in the hands of God. Our simple task is to keep bearing witness with faithfulness and joy. 

Much of this taken from Navigating a World of Grace: The Promise of Generous Orthodoxy, by me, Graham Tomlin (SPCK 2022)