Advent: Embodying Hope with Honesty
Hi, my name is Matt and I struggle with hope. Am I alone in that? Pain in life can be incredibly overwhelming. I think often of Jesus’ conversation with His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane just hours before he would be betrayed by Judas and turned over to the authorities seeking to end his life. The line that I think of often is, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38).
Woah! It’s hard for me to imagine Jesus being overwhelmed, but I think here in Matthew 26 we get a little bit of a window into that very reality. I’ve often wondered what “sorrowful” meant for Him, and the emotions he was experiencing in that very moment as he was facing execution. I can only speculate, but whatever He is experiencing at that moment seems to me has Him overwhelmed to the point of wanting to die.
Equally fascinating to me is in this moment of sorrow, from which He wants to escape, is what he asks His friends to do. Matthew 26:38 continues, “remain here, and watch with me.” Woah, again! I’ve understood “watch with me” as an invitation from Jesus to come to pray with Him to His Father, but I do not believe that is what He is asking. More specifically, what Jesus is asking His friends to do is, to stay awake and be with Him. Prayer for Jesus wasn’t an escape from His pain. Hope for Jesus wasn’t an invitation for His friends to provide Him with an encouraging scripture or a cute saying that drew His attention away from His pain. It was an invitation to sit with Him in the pain.
That is a dramatic departure from the ways I’ve experienced HOPE. I’ve often experienced hope as an invitation to avoid or escape the painful realities of life. It’s been weaponized and leveraged far too often as a resolve for others’ discomfort with my pain, rather than being received as an invitation for relational presence in the midst of my pain. I think that is what Jesus is getting at. YES, we have hope, but that Hope isn’t in escaping our pain, but in being honest about in the safety of present and attentive friends and expressed in a deep trust in God the Father, who meets us in our pain. Even when Jesus appeals to His Father He prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”
Hope isn’t even about my prayers being answered as much as I believe it’s about trusting that my prayers are being heard. Jesus prays and asks specifically for a way out of this overwhelming sorrow He was experiencing, and you know what, HE STILL DIED. Webster’s Dictionary has a listing for an archaic definition of hope as trust. I think that’s the hope that we see in Jesus as he goes to His Father, asking for relief, but also declaring “nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus in the fullness of His humanity is putting hope on display, embodying it. He knows what He is feeling, and He is owning the pain of His feelings not trying to avoid it. As He owns His feelings He discovers His needs, and He takes responsibility. He makes a choice to invite His friends to be present with Him, and He goes to His Father. He is honest about where He is at, not exaggerating things to be better than they are or worse than they are, He is honest. His honesty leads Him to trust.
Embodying Hope looks a lot like this for us I’m convinced. It is not some fantasized way of escaping the pain of our story, but the very means by which we can enter into the pain of our story with courage, curiosity, and compassion. The incarnation of Jesus, God showing up to the messiness, the brokenness, and the darkness of life lived under the curse, I truly believe is another reminder that Hope isn’t found in escaping our pain, but in facing it! Hope isn’t found in rationalizing, or spiritualizing our pain, but in being honest about it!
When God the Father looked down with compassion upon His most prized creation, those who bear His very Image, living under the curse and darkness of their own sin, He didn’t let down a ladder so that we might climb out of it, nor did He speak the words for us to escape it. He entered the darkness. He put on a Human body, He walked with us, and He talked with us. The fullness of God in a body. Hope showed up, not in an escape plan, not in a quippy tweet or a sappy greeting card, but in a body! A body, the Hope for all the world, showed up in a body.
If we are going to experience hope and express hope we are going to do so within our bodies. Showing up in the painful, dark, and broken places of life bringing with us, healing, light, and beauty. The reason we can do so is that beauty put on brokenness so that the broken could put on beauty.
Jesus came in a body, Jesus developed and matured in a body, Jesus’ body was crucified, Jesus’ died in a body, Jesus rose in a body, Jesus ascended to the right hand of God in a body, the Spirit of Jesus resides within our bodies, and one day Jesus will return with a body, and call all of those bodies where His spirit is alive to forever be present with Him in bodies that are perfectly new. Hope shows up in a body. May we be people of hope as we show up offering honesty, and receiving the honesty of others in our bodies.
Submitted By: Matt Korte