From Between Cross & Resurrection by Alan E. Lewis
Due to vacation, the next devotion will not be posted until Monday, September 23.
If the gospel story, is that both kinds of scenarios (ie. we have felt the anguished trauma in the cancer ward and heard the prognosis of no more pain and suffering in the future; we have had to tolerate the gloating of the executioners and have laughed to see the murdered one vindicated and enthroned...) are serious and true,then it is in the very world of sickness, death, and sin that joy and play take place and Christ is Lord; and it is only in the context of injustice, negativity, and despair that we dare to speak of hope.
Hope is a daring action. Hope fly in the face of what may bring us down and it causes us to stand up or straighten up...and move ahead. Sometime we do not know where we are going but we are pulled forward. I like to call that power that pulls us forward in the face of death, and sickness and our brokenness...the promises of God. Traditionally we say it is an Easter message...the final word that is eternally for us no matter what other judgments might be against us. The world is never one side of a coin. We are invited to live outside the bounds of what is the "reality of the moment." Hope lifts our heads and our lives so that we can venture off into the direction of God's promises even when nothing seems to demonstrate that they are true...right now.
Connection: Yes, today may seem like all the other days. But today...today...dare to hope. Dare to trust something more than what you see or want to see or tell yourself you should be seeing.
Lord of All Hopefulness, inspire us to leap into the domain of your eternal rule that is already beginning to come to life among us. Amen.
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