Like Flowers At The Touch Of The Sun

Waiting for a bus one day near my home, I saw a man standing nearby. He was noticeably intoxicated, but his speech was clear enough to understand. He said to me, "I wish the bombs would start dropping." I told him that I was doing what I could so that they wouldn't. We got on the bus, and he sat across from me. He leaned over and said again, "I wish those bombs would start falling." I asked him why, and he replied, "Then I would die and go to heaven, and I wouldn't have to worry anymore."

His comment was at once hopeless and hopeful: he was hopeless about avoiding a nuclear disaster, but hopeful about his future once the bombs started dropping. I doubt that he had weighed all the suffering that might come between the dropping of the bombs and his going to heaven.

The hope of a life beyond the one here, where broken ties with loved ones and friends will be renewed, is a sustaining belief for me. I do not fear dying because I believe that physical death means spiritual fulfillment, but I do fear how my physical death will come about. Whether or not my intoxicated friend had considered it, the means of one's death is certainly humanity's haunting fear as we face the real possibility of a nuclear holocaust.

For a Christian, Jesus is the supreme sustainer of hope. He went about everywhere kindling hope; in his presence it sprang up in human hearts like flowers at the touch of the sun. His advent was like the sunrise in a world where people were traveling in the dark.

It is one thing, however, to have reason to hope. It is quite another to live each day in a mood that is cheerful and hopeful. Two-thirds of the earth's population is destitute. Tens of millions of people are starving; A computer error could trigger a nuclear holocaust and reduce the good earth and all living things to a radioactive cinder. Kidnappings, death squads, violence, and bloodshed multiply! How do we hold on to hope while living in a world like this? How can we translate our beliefs about hope into living consistently hopeful lives?

Jesus said, "Give, and it will be given to you" (Luke 6:38). These words apply also to the giving and receiving of hope. Over the years I've known many people in prison. For most, their situation seemed hopeless, but hope was kept alive in some cases because of one person who cared enough to write and visit. And as we help keep hope alive in someone else, we keep it alive in ourselves.

Soon after John XXIII became pope, he visited a Roman jail and said to the prisoners, "You couldn't come to me, so I came to you." Going to people who can't come to us—the ill, the elderly, the prisoner—and seeing their faith and courage renews our spirits and undergirds our hope. How fortunate we are to have those who add so much to life's reservoir of courage and hope, from which the rest of us can draw.

An ancient Greek philosopher was once asked, "When will justice come?" His reply was, "Justice will come when those of us who are not injured are as indignant as those who are." If we do all that we can to lift the physical and emotional burdens of those injured in our society and, at the same time, consistently and untiringly do our share in removing the causes of their injury and suffering, we will find our spirits buoyed up, and it will be easier to hold on to hope.

Ammon Hennacy was a pioneer in the peace and justice movement. One day while he was carrying a sign in the street, someone called to him, "Hey, Mister! Do you think that you are going to change society by carrying around that sign?"

Hennacy's quick reply was, "I don't know if I'll be able to change society, but I'm determined that society is not going to change me."

In our efforts to maintain a hopeful spirit, we should always remember our humanity. We are subject to moods, perhaps at times to periods of depression. A woman who had had more than her share of illness, along with many family problems, was asked how she managed to keep such a cheerful and hopeful outlook on life. Her reply was, "When the going is rough, I remind myself that the Bible always says, 'It came to pass.' It never says that it came to stay."

Despair is the cardinal sin, because it is upon hope that all the other virtues rest. The writer of the book of Hebrews says to us, "Do not throw away your confidence" (Hebrews 10:35). A modern translation puts it: "Don't throw away your trust." Paul told his friends at Philippi, "I have learned, in whatever state I am, to be content" (Philippians 4:11). The word "content" comes from two Latin words, con and tendere, meaning literally "to hold together."

For one despairing moment on the cross Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). But his hope was restored with these words of self-commitment: "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!" (Luke 44:46). We will hold together if, like Paul, we have learned from our Lord this truth, "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope" (Romans 5:3-5).

Maurice McCrackin was a pastor and long-time social justice activist in Cincinnati when this article appeared.