In commenting on the life of Jeremiah, Fleming Rutledge (Means of Grace) writes,
The key that unlocks the hope beyond hope is the knowledge of God. No matter what the various “spiritual” experts tell us in all their various talk shows, best sellers, and expensive retreats, God is not a product of the human religious search. God is the one who was already there before we started searching for him. He was there before human imagination existed - the one who is, and who was, and who is to come (Rev. 1:8). God is the one who will reveal great and hidden things which we have not known, things that we cannot devise or create. That is the door of divine hope.
As we grasp this hope that is beyond hope, we learn to loosen our grip on our own hopes. Our idea of what to hope for is limited by our human horizons. We think we know what we want, what is best, what will make us happy, what we need. Most theologically dangerous of all, we think we know what God owes us. All of that has to go. We need a larger sense of the God who reveals great and hidden things that we do not know! Our God is so small!
When we pray, we need a larger view of the God whose thoughts, as the prophet Isaiah said, are not our thoughts, whose ways are not our ways (55:8). At the end of our services, Episcopalians sometimes hear the verse from Ephesians: “Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine” (3:20). That’s the idea.
As the Day of Resurrection approaches, we need to think about these things. The God of Abraham, the God and Father of Jesus Christ, is doing great and hidden things beyond what we know, beyond what we expect, beyond what we can imagine.
Faith in God is not faith that gives up when God seems to be silent. That would be mere human faith, grounded in human hopes and expectations - expectations that God will answer our prayers in exactly the way we want….
The God who is powerful to call into existence the things that do not exist is also powerful enough to create hope where there is no hope, faith where there is no faith, and life where there is no breath. The hope that is beyond hope is the hope that refuses to let go even when the cold clasp of death seems to be the last word, for this is the eternal God who raises the dead. “The Lord is his name.”
Prayer
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
