Faith, hope and love

 

When the word "HOPE" means something

Yesterday I came across the web page for Hope Lutheran Church in Aurora, Colorado, an evangelical, confessional, liturgical, Bible-believing Lutheran church and member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It also has a web master who knows how to design an easy-to-navigate web page and a pastor with a heart for communicating the Gospel from the pulpit, from Sunday school, and with decently current technology. So many churches (and libraries, businesses and schools) seem to have cartoonists and quasi-lunatics on contract for web design with a cacophony of colors, hidden links, and wiggling widgets. I was looking through their key to the events of Holy Week, and now the names and places really jump out at me after so recently visiting Jerusalem, the Upper Room, Caiaphas' home, the Mount of Olives, and Gethsemane. There are many Christians who want to focus exclusively on a "social justice" message for Jesus, but 1) one-third of the Gospels are devoted to one week of his life, and 2) all the moral and ethical values Jesus taught had already been given to the Jews long before his birth. He wasn't needed for that message; he was needed for our salvation.

The Obamas were terrific

according to the consensus and chatter I heard at the coffee shop from the early-early crowd this morning. The girls were adorable; the speech wasn't too long. Pushed the right buttons. However, others in the crowd and on the platform left some pretty negative impressions on suburban citizens.

Aretha's song styling and hat were real turn offs.

What designer would put a classy woman like Michelle in a pea-green dress? She's got a great sense of style, but that? Oh dear! Aged her 10 years. Someone else said the press reported it as gold--but on TV it didn't look gold. I thought it looked like Queen Elizabeth's designer. Fortunately, I think these dresses immediately go to a museum.

The black preacher's prayer was racist.

Booing the president and vice-president (the crowd) showed we have poor winners, not poor losers. After 8 years of smearing and ridiculing Bush, I guess it's a tough habit to break.

The poem . . . boring and awful. Did anyone know what she was talking about? I must have gone to the restroom--don't remember hearing it.

When did Stevie Wonder get so heavy? Didn't see him.

Will the press investigate the cost of Michelle's clothing?

And not a word about policy. Aren't we a shallow bunch! Oh well, maybe tomorrow everything will change.

4916 The Hope and Change theme

Barack Obama certainly isn't the first politician to take a biblical theme and run on/with it, and he won't be the last. The Bible is full of great truths, ideas, stories, parables, miracles and romances which have been used by capitalists and kings, socialists and school teachers, writers, artists, poets, and musicians, slaves and slavers, and even Marxists and fascists over the centuries. But there is one basic truth from Genesis to the Revelation, and it's all about the HOPE.

Christianity is an Easter religion. Easter celebrates HOPE, and in order to participate in this HOPE, the individual needs to change. In the New Testament, the word HOPE refers to the future, not only the HOPE of everlasting life, but the HOPE of resurrection from the dead, the HOPE of a new body like the body of Jesus, the HOPE of being in heaven forever with the Lord. Lots of religions have references to an afterlife, but in the Christian faith, the human body is so important to God because of his intentions at the Creation, He continues to use it even after death on this planet and realm. After all political boundaries and even the earth itself have passed away, we still have this HOPE. This HOPE written about in the New Testament doesn't depend on a nebulous, vague speech of a Chicago pol scrolling across a teleprompter, but a real solid foundation of fact. Our HOPE of a heaven where we dwell with God in a physical body rests upon what happened here on earth in the person of the Lord Jesus. His resurrection is the assurance of our resurrection. Obama can't take that away from us and refashion it into a social justice, namby-pamby temporary band-aid, the hope of a different job, or a housing project that will be torn down in 25 years. It's not the change in a McCain or Gore carbon cap or exchange running after green votes which is going to diminish your life style. No, this is real change--the change that the Holy Spirit will make in the believer, grounded in the HOPE.

The future of hope

In the Baker's Dictionary of Christian Ethics, (1973) Hope is defined as

"the conviction that God will judge the evil of the world and create a new heaven and a new earth with righteousness. The Old Testament prophets tell us that the whole of history is divinely ordered, and interpreted even the most hopeless hours in the light of the coming victory of God. A new age will replace the present one and end all woe and sin."

I suspect that isn't the direction Barry and Mama Obama are taking us.

"The New Testament takes up the theme of the Old Testament idea, but elucidates, sharpens, and specifies it at the same time."

Is this where Obama comes in?

"Jesus through his life, suffering, death, and resurrection laid the basis for that final intervention of God in history and human experience. Christian hope is concerned with the future of every human being, but it does not end there. The overarching concern encompasses the new humanity or Christ's church."

So the hope is the Kingdom of God? Seems to be some disagreement even among Christians about "what is our hope?"

"The theologians of hope want to rewrite theology in terms of categories of change--a total restructuring takes place where God is seen as part of the changing process."

Hmm. Did this guy write Obama's theme speeches? Hope, future, change? This might be the most religious guy we've ever had running for the White House! Oh, wait.

"As promised in the Scriptures, [hope is] demonstrated in the resurrection of God's Son, and experienced by Christians in the past and present."

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

Obama