other times, however, this joy will break through the earth with a mighty rush and become joy “inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8) — filled, in other words, with something of the glory to come. Then we may feel the truth of G.K. Chesterton’s words, Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent
HOPE WITHOUT SHAME We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2) We do not see such glory now, of course. For now, we “groan inwardly as we wait” (Romans 8:23). Yet here in the groaning and the waiting, hope lights up the darkness like a grand constellation. “We hope for what we do not see” (Romans 8:25), yes — but with a hope that “does not put us to shame” (Romans 5:5).
A million other hopes will put us to shame. A million hopes will take our hearts and break them clean in two. A million hopes will crucify our dreams and fail to resurrect them. But this hope will not put us to shame. And why? We could
In Jesus Christ, we have tasted a love that cannot lie.
pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half- holiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live. (Orthodoxy, 169)
say because God has never put to shame anyone who has hoped in him — and we would be right. But here Paul gives another reason: “Because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). In Jesus Christ, we have tasted a love that cannot lie. This love, poured into our hearts like a river, flows to us from Calvary’s fountain, where “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). And if Christ’s love found a way to forgive all our sins, even the ones that felt unforgivable, then surely he will find a way to cure all our sorrows, even the ones that feel incurable. So, no matter how heavy the stone that has entombed you in sorrow, you are no fool for hoping it will roll away one day. As surely as Jesus has loved us, it must roll away when glory arrives. RIVER OF JOY We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:2) Hope cannot bury our sorrows — only the coming glory can. But hope can give us such confidence in the coming glory that we find ourselves rejoicing even now. What kind of joy is this that sings among the ruins of our suffering? At times, this joy may run through our souls like an underground river, invisible and perhaps barely felt. At
Joy will be the fundamental thing in us soon. Yet even now it can be. Even now joy can outrun and out-sing our griefs — not by ignoring them, but by fixing our sight on the day when “sorrow and sighing” will not just disappear, but “shall flee away” (Isaiah 51:11), just like the fugitives they are, from the face of Almighty and Everlasting Joy. Hope in God Some talk of Christian hope as if it were a simple matter. But let us speak clearly: hoping in God through suffering may be the hardest thing we ever do. Far easier to resign yourself to the pit than to keep waiting and trusting, singing and believing. Far easier to embrace cynicism than to go on hoping against hope. But those who hope in God join a great cloud of witnesses. They join Abraham and Sarah as they hoped for a son, Isaiah as he hoped for the suffering servant, Jeremiah as he hoped for new mercies over Jerusalem, Mary as she hoped that nothing would be impossible with God, and a thousand other saints whose lives proved the promise true that “hope does not put us to shame.” And even more, they find that hope has a way of making broken hearts bigger. If we will say to our souls, “Hope in God,” then suffering will not leave us embittered and brittle. Suffering will rather shape us into the image of the Man of Sorrows himself, whose hope bore the burdens of the world.
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