I’m finally in Bangkok! I left LAX Saturday afternoon and arrived in Thailand Sunday night. In the midst of all the crazy pre-departure business and sad good-byes it’s been difficult to have time to just sit and think in order to remind myself of the reason(s) that I’m going, that is, to remind myself why I choose to hope rather than despair.
That said, below is an adaptation of the journal entry I wrote on the plane and the morning after my arrival. The thoughts are perhaps jumbled and incoherent at times, but the point is this: the despair and hopelessness felt when looking at the state of the world is to be overcome by the thread of hope that comes through following a crucified and risen Savior.
14 September 2013
What is that which will lead you* to live a life connected with others?—In a world of fallen systems, groaning with the pain of those oppressed and those who oppress others. It seems that even in those places in which we see hope—the caring of/healing of the sick, the mending of a lonely and broken heart, the family that loves one another, the one who is gifted to pray forth miracles—there is still despair and disparity, selfishness and pride, power and privilege—those things which perpetuate cycles of hopelessness. Do hope and hopelessness dialogue with each other? Does one breed the other? Yin and Yang? After all, even the “Savior of the world” dies (a demonstration that oppressive empire reigns supreme) in (God) forsakenness on that Friday.
The following Saturday is a bleak one: hope for the hungry four/five thousand diminishes; the one who is forgiven begins to question; the poor, sick, blind and lame fear that they and those they love will continually be trampled upon by empire, violence, the wealthy, hatred and the like. That Saturday the hope for change was dead. The whirlwind of revolution ended as Jesus breathed his last. The hope of Immanuel (God with us) departed as Jesus cries out “My God, My God, why have your forsaken me?” Many saw hope come…and die.
However, I wonder if on that dreadful Saturday a certain widow thought differently about death—this same widow whose son died once, this unnamed widow whose any hope for this life lay lifeless in her arms—I wonder if this widow in the small town of Nain, who saw Jesus raise her son to life, thought differently about Jesus’ own death on that Saturday. On this hopeless day blanketed by death, did she have hope?**
The Sunday after says one would be right to hope. Resurrection bursts from that lifeless tomb; with it comes a thunderous declaration to those forces which exploit and oppress the weak, namely, that even death cannot keep God from God’s beloved. Indeed even the worst, most dehumanizing, oppression the power-loving people of the world can dish out—the denial of someone’s existence—is overcome by life which lives even in the midst of death. “Let my people go!” roared Moses; “Let justice roll down like waters,” pleaded Amos; “The Spirit has anointed me to preach good news to the poor,” cried Jesus. The hope of resurrection breaks into the present order ruled by all forms of death. The grave silence of that Saturday does not have the last word.
In this world we are not without hope. It seems to me that hope is that foolish thing that chooses to love relentlessly even when there is so little promise that things will work out. Hope is that prayer/giving thanks for the seven loaves and few small fish. Hope gives us the strength to love as we choose to endure the pains thereof. I believe we live in that Saturday—that day of silence when hope died, fears increased, and the poor remained hungry and afflicted by war and oppressive systems—with a post-resurrection Sunday hope. It is that same paradox which existed when the dead one was raised to life with his wounds still intact: wounded as though embodying the state of the world, but risen to life-everlasting.
Truth is, there are still people today being crucified and forsaken by the world. How are we to respond to this? This seemingly torturous intermingling of crucifixion and resurrection—despair and hope—is surely not desirable, is it?
And so we live in hope: “Lord, teach us to pray,” the disciples asked Jesus. “…Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread.” Jesus responded. It seems to me this prayer is something more lived and embodied than it is spoken. Indeed, the Markan Jesus says “the kingdom of God is at hand;” come join and be this prayer by bearing the crucified life with the marginalized and journeying into resurrection with one another.
Thanks for reading (my journal)! I look forward to keeping in touch!
*I’m referring to myself.
**The text I'm referring to here is Luke 7:11-17