Real Hope

It must be Spring. I can tell.

It’s not just that the days are getting longer and, finally, warmer, even though they’re still punctuated by occasional blasts of chill winds and snowy squalls. Nor is it only that Sandhill Cranes, baby calves and newborn lambs are arriving as expected. Red is busy shearing the ewes. I still have one more lamb to tag, vaccinate and dock.

The long and somber season of Lent is rushing toward its climax. Today begins the Triduum, the Three Days (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday) leading to Easter.

It’s all these signs, and yet it is something more.

As I wrote for our local paper and church newsletter earlier this week, a particular word from the Lord has been rolling through my thoughts this last week:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jer 29:11 (NIV)

Greeting cards bear these words to convey encouragement. You can find this verse on refrigerator magnets , wall plaques, and even computer screen-savers. Jeremiah’s words convey what human hearts long for: Assurance in the midst of apprehension, hope for times that seem all but hopeful.

Jeremiah’s words do convey all these things, and yet they say much, much more.

The Lord gave this word to Jeremiah as part of a message of divine judgment. The people were all too human. They were prone to follow false prophets – slick, skilled showmen who would “… dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. 'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 6:14. When Jeremiah delivered God’s sobering word of judgment, they tried but failed to kill God’s messenger. Then, they turned to false prophets like Hananiah, who, with great skill and flair, attempted to seduce the people into false security. False prophet meets true prophet, and truth prevails. For the rest of the story, read Jeremiah 28-28.

With God, there is both judgment and mercy, law and gospel. These are God’s alone to give. And thanks be to God, they have been taken care of in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who has taken the punishment for our frailties, follies and failures – in other words, for our sin.

In truth, we humans can only give what we have received. In tough seasons of life, in those times when our human frailties, follies and failures trip us up, our human nature is to grasp for whatever sounds good, even if it is not of God. When we long for the quick fix to serious issues, when we are seduced, ever so gradually, into what is slick, shiny and showy, it’s as though we are believing the false prophets who preach “peace, peace … when there is no peace. "

Jeremiah, God’s vigorous bearer of true hope, is a prophet for yesterday, today and tomorrow. He could only give what he had first received. Pray that what we give will be what we have received from God. Pray that our souls may awaken to the true Spring, the one who springs forth from death and the grave, the Christ of our Easter hope.