The incredible benefits of having hope — not just optimism — this Christmas
Poinsettia display at the U.S. Botanic Garden on Dec. 1. (Adrian Higgins/The Washington Post)
To startled shepherds an angel announced, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” I must admit, as 2017 comes to an end, I’m not sensing much joy and good news. Instead, a spirit of fear and division hangs like a cloud over the year. Where can I find the hope promised so long ago?
On the domestic front, mass shootings, natural disasters and racial strife feed our fears. Globally, North Korea thumbs its nose at the world with ongoing weapons tests, while wars grind on in the Middle East. And, of course, there is the divisive impact of last year’s presidential election. Americans have discordant opinions about President Trump and his policies, but I don’t know anyone who views him as a unifier.
[Hate saying ‘Merry Christmas’ now? Everyone has Trump on the brain.]
Yet it occurs to me that a spirit of fear and division hung over first-century Palestine as well. In those days Israel was ruled by an oppressive regime, typified by Herod’s massacre of the innocents. Common practices in the Roman empire gave moral offense to people of faith: Mothers sometimes abandoned babies to die of exposure or wild animals, Romans watched murderous gladiator games as public entertainment, and wealthy citizens engaged in pederasty with their Greek slaves.
Pious Jews disagreed on how to respond to that dominant culture. Zealots, including one of Jesus’s 12 disciples, favored violent revolution; Sadducees and tax collectors found ways to collaborate; Essenes withdrew to desert caves; Pharisees clung to separatist purity laws.
Against this background, Jesus joined history with these words of introduction: Do not be afraid, and I bring good news of great joy. A God of majesty was expressing extravagant love in the least fear-inspiring form imaginable, as a helpless baby.
To me, the angel’s upbeat message illustrates the difference between optimism and hope. We all know optimistic people who instinctively expect things to turn out well — their spirit springs from inside, a natural bent toward belief in positive outcomes. In contrast, hope places its trust in something outside or external, a force beyond our personal control.
Recently, I picked up my Bible and read again the Christmas story. In Jewish tradition, neighbors gathered after a child’s birth to sing a blessing on the home, but Mary and Joseph, far from home and huddling in a cave that served as a stable, had no such celebration. So, after the angel’s announcement, God provided a choir. Suddenly the sky lit up with a heavenly host who sang “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he used images of small things: a sprinkling of salt that preserves a slab of meat, a pinch of yeast that spreads through a loaf of bread, the smallest seed in the garden that grows into a great bush in which the birds of the air come to nest.
The birth of Jesus attracted little notice in his day, yet he ended up changing the world more than anyone in history. Today, the world lurches along under a cloud of fear and division. And yet the good news continues to transform lives, leaving in its wake joyful evidence of compassion, healing, justice, freedom, scholarship, beauty and quiet service.
[An anonymous donor gave everyone in church $100 — and 100 good deeds were the result]
There is one final difference between optimism and hope. Optimism waits expectantly for good results, whereas hope summons us to actively join the larger cause. Jacques Ellul, the French sociologist, became disillusioned with the empty optimism of politics, which promises a better world and rarely delivers. Instead, as he wrote in a memoir, he placed his faith in an external hope, that “the powers of this world have been conquered; that through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, death is conquered; that all God’s promises are inevitably fulfilled; and that we are promised the kingdom.”
Ellul concluded, “I can thus say: everything is done. Everything except history. History is no small thing, and we must make it.”
Philip Yancey is the author of several books, including “The Jesus I Never Knew” and “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/12/25/the-incredible-benefits-of-having-hope-not-just-optimism-this-christmas/
Tidak ada komentar