Burrrrrrr! Where did that cold come from?” I was just in from a foray into the frozen expanses of our lakefront lot to a steaming hot cup of Linda's coffee. “It's -30 Celsius out there! How can a winter that has been so unseasonably warm turn on us like this … and so close to spring too?”
Linda poured a cup of coffee for me and silently looked out on the lake. I knew she was worried about the birds that had been returning early due to the spring-like weather of the past few days. “I put more suet out for the birds but we're almost out of seed,” she said. “We'll have to make a run to town to pick some up. What on earth … ?”
I jumped up from the table and joined Linda at the kitchen window. Walking down the lake in the icy sunshine came two Canada geese. They walked to a place just in front of our cottage, honked a couple of times to announce their arrival and hunkered down on the ice. We knew it was old Albert and his wife Priscilla. They came back every year to sit and watch the ice melt prior to raising their brood and commencing their annual fertilizing campaign of our lawn.
“Those guys are getting earlier and earlier every year,” said Linda. “I wonder what makes them come and sit on the ice for weeks just watching it melt?”
“Hope, I guess,” I said. The truth is I didn't understand why the geese came and watched the ice melt any more than Linda did, but it sounded good. Late that night, inspired by a Norwegian feathered bed and those wonderful seminal moments just before drifting off to sleep, I realized that hope really was the reason that the geese came and sat on the ice. It wasn't that I didn't understand why they came; it was that I didn't really understand hope. That notion snapped my eyes wide open and kept me up for most of the night. It's not exactly a comforting realization for a Christian pastor to come to, especially one with as much gray in his beard as I have.
Hope has to do with the future. And hope has to do with a belief; a belief that something will happen in the future. The geese on our lake are believing geese. They believe that as sure as the sun turns around the earth (or however that works, and it doesn't really matter to the geese) spring is going to come, the temperature is going to rise, the lake is going to melt, they are going to mate, the eggs are going to be laid, the goslings are going to hatch and as a result the Webber lawn is going to be well grazed and copiously fertilized. This is the same kind of hope that a farmer has when he seeds his grain. But for a farmer, because of human reason I suppose, there are all kinds of “what ifs” that creep in as soon as the tractor is parked. What if it doesn't rain, or what if it rains too much or what if the snow comes before the harvest? Yikes, a good dose of human reason and pretty soon hope seems to get dashed. Little wonder, in both ancient and modern times, secular thinkers and philosophers who are big on reason don't regard hope as a real thing, but as fleeting and illusive. Little wonder heavy thinkers like writers and poets so often speak of human hope as “faint,” “wavering,” “frail,” “desperate” or “feeble.”
With hope niggling on me like this, I sought help from the teachings of Jesus. I was somewhat shocked to find they contain no explicit references to hope. This kind of boggled my mind at first. But Jesus teaches his disciples to consider the ravens and not to be anxious about the future because that future is in the hands of a sovereign loving God (Lk.12). Hmmm … the future and hope and faith in a sovereign loving God. Whatever hope is, it certainly has to do with the future. And from the perspective of an unknown future, how can you have hope that has any grounds to it unless you have faith in a loving God who is in control of the future? From Jesus' perspective, human hope seems to be grounded exclusively in faith; faith in a sovereign loving God in control of the future. From this perspective, the Apostle Paul was giving an accurate description of people without faith when he said they had no hope (Eph.2:12; 1Th.4:13); the fundamental reason for this being that they were “without God.”
At this point I have to confess that the Presbyterian in me kind of rebels. I think I have been taught to have a reasoned faith; faith where every aspect of it has been brought under the microscope of human reason. This is the process that Anselm of Canterbury was big on; “faith seeking understanding.” But my hopeful geese aren't big on reasoned faith. Neither are Jesus' ravens. As I think about it, reasoned faith seems to be a bit of an oxymoron (that noise you just heard was St. Anselm turning over in his grave). And as I think about it some more, faith that is dependent upon reason may be why I don't understand hope, or what's even worse, don't have a whole lot of hope. Perhaps my quest should be for a reasoned hope, a hope which finds itself growing out of a faith that is not dependent upon human reason but upon something as unreasonable as a risen Lord. This seems to be Peter's perspective when he wrote, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)
Hmmm … a reasoned hope. Hope that is founded and grounded upon faith, faith that is believing without seeing or understanding, faith that is not limited by reason or logic, faith like the Patriarchs had, faith that assures hope and provides substance for it (Heb.11:1), faith in a loving sovereign God revealed in a risen Jesus.
Hope grounded upon faith that is not dependent upon human reason. Consider the two Canada geese, sitting on the ice in front of our place. They are filled with hope and don't have one reasoned “what if” between them. Jesus says to live like that, believe like that, hope like that, be liberated by all of that, and thus be enabled to seek first the Kingdom (Mt.6:25, Lk.12:22).
This month the Record is about issues past, present and future, with regards to First Nations people. There is much in the past and present that can fill both native and non-native people with despair. I have several First Nations friends, and you know, it occurs to me that each one seems to understand the geese sitting on the ice in front of our place. Perhaps that is why to a person, these friends of mine seem not paralyzed by the past, nor impatient with the present. The future is full of hope, even when it seems unreasonable to have any hope at all. Hope after all is grounded upon faith, not dependent upon human reason. Historically, one of the classic displays of First Nations hope was with the Nishga people of the Nass Valley in northwestern B.C. In 1912, the Nishga people were the first to prosecute a legal land claim with the federal government maintaining that their land had not been given up by surrender or consent. They continued to negotiate patiently and with hope to get aboriginal title, land claims and self-government sorted out. Tenaciously they kept on when all human reason said they could not succeed. On February 15, 1996, they did succeed! An historic agreement in principle was signed with federal and provincial governments. Their example should instruct us that a persistent, patient faith-driven hope ushers in the Kingdom. From my perspective, there are few better examples of the power of a faith-driven hope in the world's history.
