At the end of WW2, a submarine was returning home to Newport News, VA. For some unknown reason, the sub experienced major mechanical failure and then sunk to the bottom of the bay. As coast guard divers arrived on the scene to inspect the hull, they heard the tapping from the inside. In morse code, a sailor kept asking: Is there hope?
Even if you aren’t in the midst of crisis or tragedy today, the question of hope is always before us. There’s a longing in the human heart to be grasped by something more. We were made to look to the horizon and believe that just over the next mountain goodness awaits.
Given the condition of the world, hope may seem naïve.
But without hope, all our good deeds will simply lead to exhaustion.
Without hope, the brokenness of our lives will lead to despair.
Without hope, our work will only be drudgery.
Without hope, our mortality and the frailty of our lives will only be a source of resentment and bitterness.
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The ancient theologian, Augustine, wrote a book called The Little Handbook on Faith, Hope and Love.
In it he had a lot to say about faith and love, but his shortest section was on hope. It’s short because he simply grounds hope in the idea that God alone can be trusted to work in our lives.
It’s that simple.
He says that whenever we pray it is a practice of hope because prayer presumes that God is actually listening, actually working, and is the only one worthy of our trust. So he might not have a lot to say about hope, but what he does say is pretty precise and dense.
Augustine knew each one of us was made to look to the horizon and long for something more…to believe that goodness could be just around the bend…and this intrinsic posture of hope is the gift of our Creator.
That desire for goodness is the evidence of the eternal More who is God. God has put this searching for something more in our hearts, because, in the end, this longing is a longing for the infinite horizon and inexhaustible goodness that is God.
The same Augustine elsewhere described it thusly:
You awaken us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
Hope is not simply sanctified optimism. It’s the confidence that God is always working and we can trust God and will fully find our rest in God’s goodness and love.
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As always, for me, Jesus is the key to that confidence. He’s the irrefutable proof of God’s goodness, the ultimate revelation of God. He’s the center when it comes to my faith. I have no hope apart from Jesus.
The bible says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
(Colossians 1:15)
Elsewhere, Holy Scripture proclaims:
The Son (Jesus) is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being…(Hebrews 1:3)
So what does this Jesus say about hope? What does this Jesus reveal about God’s own heart of hope?
Look at Luke 13:
Now some were present at that time who told him about the Galilaeans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And in response he said to them, “Do you think that these Galilaeans surpassed all Galilaeans as sinners, because they suffered these things? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts you will all perish likewise. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they surpassed all men dwelling in Jerusalem in guilt? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts you will all perish likewise.” And he spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and came seeking fruit on it, and did not find any. And he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find nothing; cut it down. Why does it even waste the soil?’ But in reply he says to him, ‘Leave it this year too, until I can dig around it and spread manure, And see if indeed it produce fruit in future; but if not, you will cut it down.’” (Luke 13:1-9)
The disciples were basically asking if God is punishing people when catastrophe strikes. It’s the same question we hear over and over again during this year of pandemic and riots and upheaval. It’s the same question many people asked me in 2005 when 20 kindergarteners in Newtown CT were shot in their school, or when hurricanes kill their neighbors, or when out of nowhere a medical diagnosis turns a life upside down.
It’s an understandable question.
Is God punishing me?
And the theological answers that most people give end up, in the long run, doing more harm than good.
It’s normal for us to look to explain the world like these disciples, and try to secure ourselves with knowledge and neat tidy religious answers for a life and a world that is not even close to tidy.
But that’s no basis for hope, because life is always going to throw another curveball that can disrupt our temporary answers.
We often think if we can identify “the cause” of tragedy then we can in some sense control our level of vulnerability, and thus really put our hope in our own strength, wisdom, and preparation.
But Jesus says that in the face of tragedy, it’s not time to double down and trust in ourselves. And notice Jesus doesn’t try to defend God and give easy answers.
And Jesus also doesn’t teach people that God is glorified in the death of ancient anti-imperial freedom fighters, an ancient tragic building collapse, or tragic deaths of hurricane victims or the preventable deaths of shooting victims in our own day.
No. Instead we see Jesus directly call each of us to repentance; he calls us to see tragedy as an invitation to cry out for God’s mercy. Because crying out to God, even through tears, for help and mercy is in reality an act of hope.
With Augustine, we’re throwing ourselves on the One who is there, and is for us. It might not feel like it in the moment, but crying out to God in desperation is itself an act of hope when all hope seems gone.
And to drive it home in this conversation, Jesus tells a story that illustrates the heart of God toward vulnerable, broken people like you and me, living in a beautiful and broken world.
He shows us that we can hope in a God who is full of hope for you.
I tell you, but unless you change your hearts you will all perish likewise.” And he spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and came seeking fruit on it, and did not find any. And he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find nothing; cut it down. Why does it even waste the soil?’ But in reply he says to him, ‘Leave it this year too, until I can dig around it and spread manure, And see if indeed it produce fruit in future; but if not, you will cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9)
Some people want to identify Jesus or God with the owner of the vineyard.
That’s a mistake.
God is the gardener.
God is seeking to the heal the tree. God’s not giving up. God’s filled with hope for a sick unfruitful tree. This God, in Jesus, stands between us and the cruelty of a sinful, broken world and works to bring us back to life.
The story of the tree is meant to illustrate the work of repentance: Repentance means letting God’s Spirit get down to the roots, to the deep structures of who you are, and how you grow, and let this Gardener God do the deeper work. Repentance means turning to God as an act of hope when there is no hope.
Jesus shows us The Gardener God who is full of hope–the One who refuses to give up on the tree.
We can have hope, because Jesus shows us a God who never loses hope. We can have hope, because Jesus shows us a God who is willing to make the effort to heal the tree of your life.
We can have hope, because Jesus is the exact representation of a God who tenderly calls to you and me even though death is breaking out all around us, and lives are crumbling like ancient towers.
“The hope of God was never the hope of the victors and the rulers. It was always the hope of the defeated and the ground down. –Jurgen Moltmann
Through a vivid story, Jesus tells us that even if your life is fruitless, dead, torn up and exposed, covered in the muck of all kinds of terror, hurt, sin, the long-term effects of abuse, the shame and regret of your past, no matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you, God is the gardener who won’t give up hope for the broken, defeated and fruitless tree that is you, your soul, your life.
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The story ends with the gardener saying that after a year the tree can be cut down. I remember reading somewhere that a few ancient manuscripts don’t have this line. It reads more like:
Leave it this year too, until I can dig around it and spread manure, And see if indeed it produce fruit in future; but if not…
It just trails off as if the gardener can’t even bring himself to say it. In the standard text we see the gardener tell the owner that the owner will do the cutting.
Either way, the gardener clearly doesn’t enjoy the thought of losing the tree. He either can’t bring himself to say it, or he’s clearly refusing to be the one who will cast it aside.
Jesus shows us that the heart of Gardener is full of kindness and mercy.
The bible says…
But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward humans appeared in Jesus, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us… (Titus 3:4)
John 3:16 tells usFor God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (Jesus), that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
(Jesus) He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. (I Peter 2:24)
Listen. Jesus shows us that God was willing to be cut down for us, so that we would not be cut down in judgement and cast aside. That’s why we who say we love, worship, and follow this Jesus must always be a place of hope…a church that never gives up on people…a family of acceptance, embrace, and belonging.
Jesus shows us the God whose great love will not let us be consumed. This is the heart of God, and that is the kindness that leads us to repentance.
Is there hope?
YES.
ALWAYS.
Because of the Gardener God who suffers with us, the God who will never leave us, nor forsake us—the God who never gives up hope. And on that basis, we can have hope no matter what we face.
God’s mercy fashions that new creation which is the ground of radical human hope.—Jacques Ellul
The Spirit of this Gardener God creates the conditions of hope. In this story, Jesus invites you to join with him in amending the soil of your life, and plant seeds of faith, and love, and hope so that the beauty of God will flourish in your work, in your words, and even in your sorrows.
We can trust the Gardener. We can trust in Jesus.
Cry out to him, and ask him to open your heart, and you will be saved.
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I wrote earlier that given the condition of the world, hope may seem naïve.
But when we have hope, all our good deeds will enlarge our hearts and energize us to do more.
When we have hope, the brokenness of our lives will lead us relentlessly back to Jesus, the One who is our hope.
When we have hope, we slowly learn to trust again, and to open ourselves to others who may need to carry hope for us when all we see is darkness.
Hope always calls us into community.
When we have hope, our labor and daily work will be a deep source of purpose, giving us a sense of place and filling us with gratitude.
When we have hope, our mortality, and the frailty of our bodies will shape our hearts into tenderness, patience, and long-suffering love.
In short, when we have hope, we are like God.
And God’s presence is made known to others in our hoping.
Finally, when we are full of hope then we refuse to give up on anyone. And we live in the solidarity of prayer for each other and for the world. This hope means we can call each other to never forget that beyond this moment, whether filled with good or bad, that we live against the infinite horizon of God’s love.
I’ve seen this break out in a million different ways, large and small, in my life and in the lives of others.
I know deep in my bones that because of our hope in Jesus, we can see every challenge, and every tragedy, as an opportunity for life change, as a chance to pierce the cloudy gloom of people’s lives with a witness of praise, and joy, and authentic love.
Because of the hope of the Gardener God, who never gives up on us, we dare to believe that above the menacing storms, and fog of confusion, burns an eternal sun that will pierce our darkness with the light of God’s love.
God’s love revealed in Christ, is a love that bears all things, endures all things, believes all things and hopes all things. His love never fails, it never ends. And that is the unshakeable ground of hope.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, make me rest in your love. Fill me with confidence that you are working for my good, that you are turning over the soil of my heart, and amending my spirit by your Spirit, so that I may bear the fruit of compassion, hope, and peace. I will stretch toward your light, and root down in your life-giving presence, and in the space between be a place of shelter, and a tree of life. Amen.