“Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard – And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land – And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Emily Dickinson’s poem captures something of the fragility and persistence of that quintessential Word of Life: hope. In the gale, in the storm, in the chilliest land and on the strangest sea, hope, like a tiny bird perches in the distraught soul, singing the wordless song of hope, singing without ceasing.
That is surely what hope is. Fragile, but never, ever giving up. Fragile but resilient. Hope tells us that God does not give up; God does not let go. God finds different ways in different times to stir God’s people and make them question and wonder and think and disagree and act.
At this stage in the lockdown, I suspect each one of us could do with something of that hope in our lives. Which is why that wonderful passage from the Book of Genesis, talking about the rainbow, remains one of the most hopeful things in the whole of the Bible.
The creation story of the flood ends not in destruction but in hope, and the rainbow is a sign of God’s hope.
The Noah story is about despair and hope. It is a parable of condemnation and redemption; of rejection and welcome. God’s judgement is overridden, the floods abate, and a hopeful creation emerges out of the chaos and judgement. Hope comes. It can be read as a parable for our time, in the relentless flood of Covid-19 and lockdown. Stuck in the arks of our homes, day after long day, night after longer night, when will release come? That’s what comes before the rainbow of hope.
Humanity is often without hope. Hope depends entirely on a move from God. God resolves to stay with, endure and sustain our world, notwithstanding our brokenness. God takes as God’s ultimate vocation not judgement but affirmation. After the unrelenting grim time, in the parable of the flood, in the present reality of Covid-19, hope will come. It is God’s way.
God makes an irreversible commitment and says, “Never again”. On this basis the rainbow sign is established. God will never again be provoked to use the weapon of total destruction against humanity. The arc of the bow Genesis describes is rooted in the earth but reaches up to heaven, connecting us in a bridge of mercy, and grace, and hope. The God Who is revealed here remains willing to accept hurt to keep hope alive. Hope will never be cut off because of us; hope continues despite us.
We are not immune to future crisis; bad times will come again to envelop the earth, but as they do, when they do, God’s hope will come again, and we will win through.
I have a picture of a scene I experienced last year in the Fens. One wet Friday afternoon I was driving through Marshland St James and I stopped the car as a fabulous rainbow appeared ahead of me. Then I noticed the name of the lane I was on: Hope Lane. Hope comes even in the middle of the darkness.
We could do with a few more rainbows in the Church. The rainbow is a symbol of hope; a symbol of our remembering God. It is a central message of God’s love and hope to us and to all God’s children. As we wonder about the possibility of the end of lockdown, whenever that comes, we need to debate our future, but we must create it in hope. Those rainbows we put in our windows last year in lockdown number one now need to be put on our churches. I’m convinced people are searching for hope.
Hope, even in a time of pandemic. Hope, not just as vaccines go in arms. Hope, not just as spring begins to appear. Hope in a new reality. As Jonathan Sacks, former Chief Rabbi wrote, “All I know is that the greatest achievement in life is to have been, for one person, even for a moment, an agent of hope.” And as the American writer Maya Angelou once said, “Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”
No comments:
Post a Comment