On Christian Hope

Where are the philosophers? Where are the experts? And where are the debaters of this age? Do you not see how God has shown up human wisdom as folly? 1 Cor. 1:20

As I sit in a crowded, dark chapel with a life sized photo of a man and his son illuminated at the front I recognize his agony. A week prior, I would not have known this Adam if I ran into him at the grocery store or while getting my oil changed, but in this dark room I know him. I see his final moments, whatever pushed him to the edge, it's the same hopelessness. It is the same isolation. I cry. I experience anger. I can't help myself. His family, in the front, in tears and silent. Why? We all experience these moments in life where we find ourselves on an island, in despair, separation, surely no one has been here before? Mostly we wait for another day. He didn't. Human wisdom has no words. What is there to say?

I was at the funeral for his mother. I knew how the conversation would go, "I'm sorry. We are here for you." I expected the encounter, but was not prepared for sitting in the back fighting tears. Why the connection? I know where he was when his life ended. I do not know how he got there. But with the human heart, the why's manifest in a million different ways. What matters is knowing his brokenness. I know the way we find ourselves on an island. The isolating belief that no one cares. A grain of sand in a sea of despair. I know the experience.

The Wounded Man

The man who has spent many hours trying to understand, feel, and clarify the alienation and confusion of one of his fellow men might well be the best equipped to speak to the needs of the many, because all men are one at the wellspring of pain and joy. - Henry Nouwan

As I sit in the back of a vacant, lit chapel with the crucifix and an empty tabernacle illuminated in the front I recognize Christ's agony. What led me here was one of a million experiences, nonetheless I was seeking deliverance from the same isolation as every Adam and Eve had experienced before me. Instead of a way out, though, I was given a way through.

And on this Good Friday there was no Mass. No Eucharist. Christ has died. I looked at the empty tabernacle, and then at the crucifix, and back at the tabernacle. Christ has died. In the manner of seconds, the heaviness of the whole Christian message came hurtling from nowhere and hit where it hurt. I sat there in tears, feeling His death unfold. And as one of a billion Adam's, I recognized that I was with Him, on a cross but of my own device. In this moment is where I first understood the mysterious connection between sorrow and joy. Now, almost a decade later I find myself in the back of a dark chapel hemorrhaging grief for the loss of a man I had not personally known. But unlike the revelation on Good Friday years ago, no joy was to be found.

The Capacity of Christian Hope

Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. -Thomas Merton

I wept for this Adam because I am him. My nature finds me grappling with my own littleness, isolation, and sinfulness. I am but a grain of sand with fleeting control over which direction comes the tide. I seek to bridle my nothingness. Time and again I am thwarted by impotence, but here is precisely where our stories diverge. Mine takes a different turn because, in a chapel on the day we mourn the death of Jesus, I was blessed to find my nothingness was cause for celebration. Without a word, I encountered the powerful message of Christian hope. It understands the darkness of the Cross through the light of the Resurrection. It reconciles our fragile dependence and our inscrutable inheritance. It makes kings of paupers and paupers of kings. Christian hope is rooted in the knowledge of God's ability to transform water into wine, death into life, and maybe most miraculously an unworthy heart into a worthy one. And I sat in the back of the dark chapel overcome with an unshakable sadness. This tragedy is avoidable. Time and again it happens, and at its root the same reason. We are human. And most of us have no clue how to manage the gamut of emotion that comes as a package deal. Some of us are saved by the Grace of God while some others leave behind loved ones to carry the added burden of self doubt. And this is the most difficult revelation of that afternoon. That he left behind his loved ones without ever understanding that his inherent value is not one of skill or possession, but of being a child of God.