Hope Against Hope
Hope Against Hope by Rev. L. John Gable
March 4, 2018
Whenever a new idea or concept is introduced it is always helpful for an example to be given to better explain it. Think Sir Isaac Newton trying to explain his new theory by picking up an apple and then dropping it on the floor in front of his students. “Oh, I get it!” This is exactly what Paul is doing in the passage we’ve read this morning from Romans chapter 4. The new, and I might add revolutionary, concept Paul is trying to explain was introduced to us in the previous chapter where we read, “the righteousness of God (comes) through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (3:22), which was a restatement of the passage the Reformer Martin Luther made famous after reading in chapter 1, “the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith: the one who is righteous will live by faith” (1:17). This is exactly the point Paul is trying to drive home that we are made right with God, that we are brought into a right relationship with God, not by our good works but by God’s grace alone, and that by faith. If we understand nothing else of the Christian faith we need to understand this: no matter how hard we try we cannot earn God’s love and favor or win our salvation by our good behavior. The only way we can enter into a right relationship with God is by trusting that Jesus Christ has done that work for us, and we call that faith. “The righteous will live by faith”.
Now in order to better explain this radical concept Paul draws on an unlikely but very familiar character from Biblical history: Abraham. Why Abraham and what makes him an unlikely example? Abraham’s story would have been well known by all of his readers, particularly his Jewish readers, but he was an unlikely example because Abraham was considered the father, the prototype, of all who thought they could earn God’s favor either by being born in to the right religious bloodline or by their careful obedience to the Law, both of which Paul is going to use Abraham to disprove.
Remember the Abraham story? It is one of the oldest in the Biblical narrative starting all the way back in Genesis 12. As the story is told, for no apparent reason, that is, we are not made aware of anything Abraham has previously done to earn or deserve God’s favor, God chose him to be the father of a new nation, the Children of Israel, the People of God. In Genesis 12 we read that God made a covenantal promise to Abraham saying, “I will make of you a great nation. Your offspring will be as numerous as the sand on the shore and the stars in the sky. And I will give you a land to call your own, the so called Promised Land, and by Me you and all of your descendants will be blessed.” Sounds wonderful, right? Yes, except for several small details. First of all, this father of a mighty nation thing was problematic because Abraham was already an old man and his wife, Sarah, was barren; add to that, they were wanderers/nomads and when they got to Canaan, the aforementioned Promised Land, there were already people living there. Suddenly the promise of blessing which God had given them seemed a bit far-fetched, or put another way, if any of these promises were going to come to fruition God would have to make them happen because Abraham and Sarah certainly were not able.
And that is exactly the point Paul is trying to make regarding our salvation. If we are ever going to get into a right relationship with God then God is going to have to do it because despite our best efforts we certainly are not able to do it on our own. Abraham was made right with God, not on the basis his good works or abilities, but on the basis of his faith alone. The only thing he brought to the table was the simple trust that God was able and willing to fulfill the promises He had made, and friends, that is all that is asked of us as well. We are descendants of Abraham, not because of our ancestry or bloodline, but because we believe as he believed. As Paul writes, “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” and we must do the same. We are saved, made righteous, brought in to right relationship with God, in the same and only way Abraham was, by faith, there is no other way.
So what exactly was it that Abraham believed in that made him such a perfect example? He believed in the faithfulness of God and that God’s promises were true. He believed that God was able and willing to fulfill every promise He made. An old man who was, as Paul put it, “good as dead” and his barren wife who laughed at the notion believing that they were going to have a baby? No problem. A nomadic people believing that they were going to lay claim to a land already possessed by others? Push the easy button. Not easy for Abraham and Sarah, mind you, or for any of their descendants, but easy for God because God made this promise. That is what it means to have faith. To have faith is to “hope against hope”, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that all of the promises of God are true.
What do you hope for? I’m not talking about wishful thinking here, like winning the lottery or that your favorite team will win the series. What do you really hope for, for yourself, your family, the Church, the world? Given one wish what would it be?
She was a teenager with a happy spirit. “I don’t have much in the way of money or worldly possessions. I’m not beautiful, intelligent or clever. But I’m happy. And I intend to stay that way. I was born happy. I love people. I have a trusting nature and I’d like everyone else to be happy too.”
All she ever wanted to be was a writer. “I know I can write. A few of my stories are good…But it remains to be seen whether I really have talent…I always used to bemoan the fact that I couldn’t draw, but now I’m overjoyed that at least I can write…but will I ever write something great? Will I ever become a journalist or a writer? I hope so. Oh, I hope so.”
Her dream came true, but not in a way that she, or anyone else for that matter, could ever have imagined. She authored a book that appears on numerous lists of the 100 Most Important Books Ever Written. But Anne Frank didn’t live to see it happen. She died of typhus at age 15 in a Nazi death camp just a few months before the end of World War II.
Anne was born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany. In the early 1930’s the Franks fled Nazi persecution and moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. In 1942 they were forced in to hiding. The Franks and another family crowded into several rooms concealed by a bookcase in her father’s workplace. That June, Anne began recording her thoughts in a journal she received as a gift on her 13th birthday. For more than two years she recorded her wry observations about the war, her adolescent emotions and struggles to get along with her parents, and her hopes and dreams about a future she would never get to experience.
Her entries ended abruptly on August 1, 1944. The families behind the bookcase were betrayed by someone who had learned of their hiding place. Only her father survived the Holocaust, and following the emancipation Otto Frank returned to Amsterdam to find that his daughter’s writing had been retrieved by a family friend. Two years later he arranged for the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl.
Anne was so shy about her journal that she had never shown it to anyone in her family. One night she wrote, in the solitude of her improvised sleeping space: “I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living, even after my death. And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift.”
Today her thoughts are known the world over and have been published in 60 languages. “How wonderful it is,” she reflected, “that nobody needs to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” (Glenn McDonald)
Anne Frank had absolutely no power to make her greatest hope a reality. Neither did Abraham. Perhaps neither do we. But hope against hope.
What do you hope for? Not the little piddly stuff, but the really big stuff that you know is beyond your power to affect, but that you know aligns with the promises of God. I’m thinking Peace. Justice. Reconciliation. Safety. Harmony. Good health. Well-being. Love. Salvation. I’m imagining a world where people get along with one another and respect one another’s differences, maybe starting in our own homes and neighborhoods. A world where children don’t die of treatable diseases, or of hunger while food is bartered for political gain, or by horrific acts of violence on their way to class. A world where nations do not threaten nuclear annihilation and tribes do not wage war over arbitrary boundaries. A world where streets and homes and communities are safe; where racism and bigotry and prejudice are no longer tolerated; where individuals are honored and respected for who they are, not discriminated against for where they come from, the color of their skin or the accent of their tongue. A world where every man, woman and child will come to know the love of God in Jesus Christ.
Is this all just wishful thinking? Sometimes it feels like it is, doesn’t it? Despite our best efforts, and admittedly there have been many best efforts, still we look at the world and think we aren’t making much progress in any of these and at times it feels hopeless.
But, we must not lose hope. These are all promises of God summed up in the teachings of Jesus about the Kingdom of God. This is what God promises life will be like when He finally has His way with us, when we finally submit to His will and walk in His way. It is for this that we must continue to hope and pray and work. This is not wishful thinking at all. It is hope against hope that one day God will bring these very things to fulfillment, not simply because we have wished for them, but because God has promised them.
One day, not by our efforts alone because we are helpless and hopeless to effect these changes on our own, but one day God will make these hopes a reality, and we have a part to play in that. We can begin living right now, today, right here, as though the promises of God are true. This is what Paul means when he writes, “Now the words “It was reckoned to him” were not written for (Abraham’s) sake alone”, no Abraham knew and trusted the promises of God. These words were written “for our sake. It will be reckoned to us who believe.”
Right here, right now, we can rehearse and ready ourselves for the fulfillment of God’s promises.
This is what we do when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
This is what we do when we recite the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”
This is what we do when we celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper: “For as often as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup we do proclaim the Lord’s death and resurrection until He comes again.”
We aren’t just going through the motions of religion. We are rehearsing the life we will one day live in the promised Kingdom of God.
This is what we do when we stand up and say, “No more. Not here. Never again.” God has shown us another way to live.
This is what it means to live the life of faith.
This is what it means to live as a descendant of Abraham.
This is what it means to live as a follower of Jesus and a child of God.
Hope against hope, this is what it means to believe that the promises of God are true.