Rob O'Lynn is Associate Professor of Preaching and Ministry and Dean of the School of Distance and General Education at Kentucky Christian University. He also teaches preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary and Johnson University, and is the minister for the Beech Street Christian Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
Full confession: I am a sucker for hope.
I think St. Paul got it wrong. At the end of his famous meditation on love, he writes this: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13, NRSV).
I do not dispute the importance that the apostle gives to these three virtues, virtues which serve as the core of Christianity’s ethical expression.
I disagree with him on which one he thinks is most important. Hope can outlast love.
Hope Outlasts Love
I think Tolkien would agree. Like me, Tolkien was a sucker for hope. His name comes from a German word that means something like “foolishly brave.” A lover of poetry, Tolkien did not just fancy mist-covered mountains and mythic creatures. Tolkien imagined a world where hope was the driving force for life.
As he grew into the storyteller we know, Tolkien’s imagination was wrought into existence through the words of characters like Legolas the warrior elf who spoke this oft-quoted line to Gimli the dwarf: “Oft hope is born, when all is forlorn.”[1] I think Tolkien was a sucker for hope.
And so was John the Revelator, that beloved disciple who received the divine vision of the Risen Christ radiating glory and speaking with a sword in his mouth (Rev. 1:12-16).
In one of my favorite passages, Christ opens the seals and reveals what seems to be a haunting scene.
John finds himself standing in the courtyard of the Temple just before the great altar. There he sees “the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God” (Rev. 6:9, NRSV). He sees them “under the altar,” a phrase which is tricky to translate from Greek to English because it is a matter of perspective.
In English, it sounds like these martyred saints are crammed under the altar like presents under a Christmas tree. However, it indicates that they have taken their place under the horns of the altar, a picture of taking refuge and crying out to God.
They beg God to answer them how much longer the blood of the innocents must be shed.
God responds by handing them a white robe and inviting them to rest, which is an image of completeness. It is an image of hope, of looking ahead to the completion of God’s mission.
As Haldir tells the council at Lothlorien, “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places, but still there is much that is fair.”[2]
I do not think I am the only sucker for hope.
Ministers: Suckers for Hope
I think ministers, by their very nature of accepting the call to pastoral vocation, are suckers for hope.
As we stand before the congregation, we invite them to hope, to believe in the impossible and to imagine the world as it could be.
“As we stand before the congregation, we invite them to hope, to believe in the impossible and to imagine the world as it could be.”
Ministers offer hope through preaching, liturgy and pastoral care. In preaching, craft sermons that articulate a theology of hope by moving from what Paul Scott Wilson calls “trouble” to “grace.”[3]
Preaching that articulates hope does not ignore pain, just as it does not ignore the crucifixion. Instead, it brings us both to the cross and into the kingdom.
In worship, develop liturgies that call the congregation to both the altar and the table. In doing so, we experience the full depth of redemption, as we transverse the story of God through hymn, prayer, reading and sacrament.
In pastoral care, provide the presence of Christ in such a way that the one being ministered to can both sit outside the occupied tomb and celebrate inside the empty tomb.
In offering the presence of Christ, we invite the other to bring their pain to Christ in order to experience a taste of the hope of resurrection.
Hope: The “Inseparable Companion”
Jürgen Moltmann, in defining hope as a faithful expectation in God fulfilling God’s promises, writes that “Faith binds man to Christ.
Hope sets this faith open to the comprehensive future of Christ. Hope is therefore the ‘inseparable companion’ of faith.”[4]
Paul may have said that the great Christian virtue is love, however I will continue to be a sucker for hope.
My faith in Christ demands it.
(Citations below.)
Sermon Camp Begins in Less Than 2 Weeks!
How is your sermon prep working for you?
Do you feel refreshed by your preaching? Or drained by it?
Are you preaching messages you believe in? Messages only you can offer?
Can you continue to prep and preach the way you are now for the duration of your ministry?
Perhaps this is the time to reboot your Preaching Life & rediscover the joy of preaching.
[1]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 859.
[2]J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, Being the First Part of the Lord of the Rings (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 339.
[3]Paul Scott Wilson, The Four Pages of the Sermon: A Guide to Biblical Preaching, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2018). For other perspectives on this homiletic theology, see Luke Powery, Spirit Speech: Lament and Celebration in Preaching (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009) and Joni Sancken, Words that Heal: Preaching Hope to Wounded Souls, Artistry of Preaching Series (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2019).
[4]Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of a Christian Eschatology, trans. James W. Leitch (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 20.