Tag: hope

Apocalypse… and hope

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I wrote a post ‘Time for an update’ and Anne commented on the post. I was very struck by the comment so I asked if I could publish it here with her permission. Permission granted!

Anne commented:

I am just finishing a book titled: Apocalypse, How catastrophe transformed our world and can forge new futures, by Lizzie Wade. No not a theological perspective but an anthropological one. She examines different societies and civilizations in the past and how they survived and were changed by their own apocalypses. From climate change along the north coast of Peru to the plague in Europe. And lots of other places. She ended up writing this during the Covid pandemic, our most recent global apocalypse.

A few of her conclusions:

Apocalypses have always revealed and exploited societies’ weak points, from an unsustainable relationship with a changing environment to an overly rigid and oppressive social hierarchy. Because of that, apocalypses are also the best chance our societies have for change. . . . apocalypse can reveal the failures of old systems and inspire the creation of new ones.

We can harness the energy and potential of apocalypse to create a new world. But first we have to accept that the apocalypse, with all of its horrors, is here to stay. Only then can we see its opportunities. . . ‘

Embracing apocalypse doesn’t mean resigning ourselves to the worst-case scenario, or giving up on the idea of progress. It means believing that destruction can be a gateway to that progress, societies can and should change, and endings are also always beginnings. It means recognizing that just because we’re used to something doesn’t make it right. It means prioritizing values and ways of life that allow us to adapt and change rather than shoring up brittle social structures that crumble at the first hint of challenge or pressure. It means looking forward with clear eyes rather than scrambling backward toward an illusion of safety that has already disappeared or perhaps never really existed. It means mourning what we’ve lost while also imagining all the things we could create next. It means choosing hope, not instead of fear but alongside of it.

People have prayed the Kingdom come for millennia. Perhaps this is the moment. Not to look back and try to resurrect a structure that was ungodly in the first place – Christendom – but to look forward to connection back to community and to the land (and yes, that involves it’s history) as we face the challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

And to quote the Canadian Prime Minister in his recent comments at Davos: ‘Nostalgia is not a strategy’. It’s time to move on from what is over and find/create our new homes.

Rather than wish I (Martin) had such wisdom I am eager to learn… nostalgia is not a strategy and again I am reminded by Martin Luther’s reply to what he would do if he knew the world was ending tomorrow. He replied ‘I would plant an apple tree’. A sign of the future. The world as we have known it is ending; it will just take a little while before the powers acknowledge it. Whether the parousia takes place ‘soon’ (those words uttered some 2000 years ago) or not, we are called to sow in the light of the future. The soil has changed, the bag from which we draw the seed is different but the seed to be sown remains. Hope is within the seed and nostalgia certainly is not.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Emmaus encounter

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

The resurrection narrative that recounts how Jesus appeared to the two on the way to Emmaus has always brought me great hope (Luke 24:13-35). Two disciples that numerous historic traditions have held as being Cleopas and his wife Mary. (In Jn. 19:25 Mary is described as the wife of Clopas (Aramaic origin; Cleopas being Greek).) Let’s take it for a moment to be a married couple (my conviction, or at least Luke has written it that way to help us engage with the text).

They are not only physically walking but emotionally walking away from the place where they had been living with so much hope. They had hoped that Jesus would redeem Israel but, post-crucifixion, are now devastated. It seems that Luke is drawing on the narrative of another couple who walked devastated with what had taken place for them. Let’s jump back to that story: Adam and Eve have to walk away from the Garden. The now-unreachable promises of God bearing heavily on them, and they walk with the sentence of death on them. For Mary and Cleopas the evening hour is approaching, that hour when God would come to visit in the Garden. Cleopas and Mary are completely unaware who has come to walk with them, and I suggest that when Adam and Eve (and all those who follow generationally) left their Garden they were completely unaware that they did not walk simply as a lone couple, but a Stranger walked with them, for God did not stay in the Garden but walked also with them, sharing the ‘sentence’ of death with them. God walked it all the way to the place of the incarnation and through the cross, until Jesus becomes a ‘life-giving Spirit’. 

This Emmaus walk is one that we often take. Hopes have taken a bash or are even gone. And we don’t walk alone for we are accompanied by shame, disappointment, regret, guilt or another equally burdensome emotion. But Emmaus tells us we do not walk alone. We might use different words to ‘And it is the third day since all this happened’ to express the depth of the loss of hope. But I think heaven responds with those same words. There is a third day when he meets us on the way and invites us to take bread again from his hands.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Cross shaped hope

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

The hope that is within you. What is that hope? We read of it in the context of suffering the verses prior and after, here an extract of that passage:

Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect. Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil (1 Pet 3:15-17). 

It is certainly bigger than the hope of ‘not going to hell’! There are warnings about the wrath of God to come but the majority of those texts are following the biblical trajectory of earthly judgement of powers in this age. (My objection is that such language as above is in the negative and reduces salvation to being ‘safe’… and there could be other objections brought in too.)

It is not ‘I will go to heaven’. Hard to find a clear Scripture that suggests that beyond pulling out a few isolated texts.

Somehow it has to tie with ‘the way the world is now is not the future’. Our hope is that Jesus died and as the resurrected one is the firstborn of all creation.

Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what one already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom. 8:24,25).

That hope not yet seen Paul sets in the context of freedom, a freedom that will liberate the whole of creation.

Back to Peter he sets the instruction to ‘be ready to give a defence’ in the context of suffering and particularly of suffering unjustly. That makes the hope more stark and all the more likely to provoke the question ‘why the hope (optimism on speed)?’ If one is suffering unjustly and one sings ‘this world is not my home’ one could be singing as a means of escapism from the harsh realities that are present, but if one is singing with the meaning that this world, as we experience it now, is not my home we have a different expression all together.

Suffering… not to be deified or idealised but when it is ‘in Christ’, ‘with Christ’ is redemptive, it is participating in the sufferings of the one who has walked this path before and is sowing into the future. No one looks for suffering but when affliction comes our way our response can ‘hasten the day of the Lord’.

Give an answer. What answer? Well maybe the BIG story of ‘God created, we messed up, God has always entered our mess and has swallowed up the mess in Jesus so that the way things are will be totally transformed… God living with us… no more death etc…’ But probably not the big story. But we find a way of telling of our hope because of who God is – the God who is just like Jesus. If I have seen Jesus I will have hope. If I tell the Jesus story others might understand why I have hope, they might find some hope. We need that more now than ever. One before me used the phrase ‘I have a dream’ and one before him used a similar phrase: Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν.

Whatever the words we first must find the hope that Scripture bears witness to that is Jesus-centred.

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Europe is dying?

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Flew back to Spain a few days ago and with a few hours to spare in the airport I went for a quick peruse through the book store. I saw this book ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ which caught my eye, but quickly moved on. At the other side of the shop I had this strong impression – go back and buy that book. So I picked it up and bought it. If I had skimmed through it I probably would not have done so, it is not exactly on my page!! Glad though I have read it, and if one follows the trajectory laid out, the destination does seem to be ‘the death of Europe’. Of course, I am of a different persuasion (and biased) that Europe is being privileged and carrying a responsibility to open a whole new path regarding the kingdom of God. I with faith / optimism / delusion hold to the rebirth of not simply Europe but of the globe with the seeds sown from the first Century truly coming to fruit… a ‘reformation’ (not sure that is the right word) beyond that of the 16th Century. Also given that reading is a challenge for me, let me get in to it!

Why will Europe die? Murray draws the three strands together that are in the sub-title: immigration, identity and Islam. We cannot afford to allow immigration as is happening to continue, for the identity of ‘who / what is Europe?’ will be radically altered. Europe will no longer be Europe, compounded by the incredible increase of Islam eroding the shaping foundation of the Judaeo-Christian values and faith will further mean that no longer will Europe be connected to its roots and in an embrace / appeasement of Islam Europe as Europe will simply no longer exist. This death of Europe has started and the final outcome is in sight. Facts, figures and stories abound in the book, and I suggest if we project from here to the not-too-distant future his thesis is indeed compelling.

I could argue of course that what we have is a far-right perspective and so say ‘typical’ (OK maybe I cut the post short now and simply say that!), but what really provoked me was what might a faith response look like? Murray is a ‘Christian’ atheist, one who does not believe in God but in the core values of the Judeo-Christian tradition (as he sees them), hence the projection from the past is important, and the only framework he has. Across the pond the same appeal seems to be being made, hence the trajectory there can be seen in what takes place here. Re-birth becomes possible if faith is involved, otherwise we should simply begin to write the obituaries now, and write them without hope. We could slow the death, and really make re-birth difficult with (my opinion) the ‘between the lines’ appeal by Murray. Stop the immigration, restore sovereignty to the nation-state, legislate from the centre…

He is no fan of any form of identificional repentance, nor sees the validity of Imperial seed sown and the reaping of that later. Confessing guilt for the past, for colonisation, trampling over cultures has no place and only adds guilt and the accommodation of foreign cultures and values. He does not accept that what has been sown is coming back to be reaped. And of course on Christendom, this is where he as a ‘Christian’ atheist and myself part company. This is not to suggest that society has no benefits from that era of dominance, much like the fall involved in the monarchial institution in Israel was not without its benefits, but those benefits being due to God being willing to go where we go, and certainly not due to God’s approval of either monarchy nor Christendom.

But a vision?

If anyone is in Christ… sight changes. I understand that when one looks at where we are, and draws the graphs forward there is little of good cheer involved. But what if we were to be crazy. What if we thought there was ‘new creation’? What if we did not despair, but any looking to the past drew great hope from the context that the small Jewish sect (followers of the way) that grew up in an obscure Roman province, and who carried a message that was offensive to their own people (crucified Messiah) and foolish to the wider audience (one crucified of countless thousands) that was not simply being branded about in evangelistic settings (raise your hand) or in revival settings (I will put my hand on you), but in the darkest, occultic, multi-faith, politically oppressive scenarios… Hope and then… a huge big ‘forget that, for I do a new thing’. Hope from the past but not shaped from the past. WOW.

Immigration. Always a sign of new stewardship coming. Multi-faith – I don’t like that – but do we have to learn about true faith. If we start with faith defined in a box it will be very difficult to find faith. This is the biggest days of opportunity, amidst chaos, and the ‘dust of death’ to see something birthed that will be incredible. Maybe ‘The Sure start of something to get on board with in Europe’ might be a good title (yes I know a little too long, but we can work on it).

The book is sobering, but it is not the content of the book that is depressing. It is for me how much we as the body of Christ just long for a return to where things were. That might be understandable for a ‘Christian atheist’. The challenge for us as believers is whether the ‘god’ we have believed in, the ‘god’ we have commanded the Scriptures to confirm, is truly the God who makes all things new or not. Maybe not ‘atheism’, but…

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink

Faith, hope… and love

Posted on
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

‘Faith is the substance of what we are hoping for’ (Priscilla’s words in Heb. 11) presents one of the relationships between faith and hope. Hope is like the mould that faith can then fill. Ultimate hope is of re-creation, the renewal of all things – that outcome is secure. What I term ‘interim’ hope is that bright outlook on the future, that expectation that something will change. That kind of hope, if it is to contribute to the future, cannot be simply (naive) optimism but has to be based on some solid foundations. If that hope is genuine faith becomes the bridge across which heaven’s values travel to our realm. From the initial hope then as faith increases so there is a shift. (Faith increasing was Paul’s prayer for the Corinthian church. They practically lacked at so many levels in their call to fill their region with heavens’ presence, but Paul narrowed down the lack to ‘faith’.)

There remains faith and hope, Paul says – and love. I have written a few times that losing hope is understandable. The issues that need changing are enormous, but we need to look to where God is at work and put our hope there. As the body of Christ recovers her destiny to be the agent of change for the world hope can develop. This does not mean that God only works through the church, but that the church’s responsibility is to change the environment so that the good (and God-given) gifts of human servanthood and enterprise can be expressed.

My hope is for a recovery of that call in the body of Christ, to understand again the political (small ‘p’ please, not NOT NOT party politics, right, left, but certainly shaking all things about political passion) nature of the Gospel. My hope is for the partnership of the body of Christ both with heaven and with the world. Yes we have a long way to go and this signals a big shift from where we have been, but that is my hope.

Hope and faith grows… And not all things are resolved as we want. Maybe we did not really have faith, maybe we did not see the whole picture. Maybe we are not as smart as we thought. Maybe we just simply failed.

Faith and hope. And love. Those three remain, but the greatest of these is love. When all else fails, when our passions do not produce what we thought, when we have prayed and stood and just plain got knocked over… there is love.

There are losses. There are times when the good of the past disappears, but if there was love in there it is stored up in heaven. It cannot be lost:

He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you… in all of this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you mayhave had to suffer grief and in all kinds of trials. (1 Peter 1:3-6).

Stored in heaven, kept safe where rust nor moth can destroy. Stored there so that it can be revealed here in the eschaton. Everything good is stored… Setbacks are for real, our hopes might have been misplaced, our faith might not have been genuine… but the greatest of these is love. When all else fails we can love, and love opens the clearest channel to heaven to deposit all the good things that will be manifest on that great day.

Time for hope, time to believe, and if for whatever reason we do not see what we hoped for… provided in and through it all love remains, somehow everything that we hoped for but never saw, had hold of but lost… will come through the fire intact.

BTW: Priscilla is as likely as it being Paul who wrote Hebrews and as she is the best known female person with ‘P’ what more evidence do I need?

SHARE ON:
Post PermaLink
Perspectives