“Saved By Hope”
July 23, 2023
Seminarian Henry Norkplim Anyomi
Scripture Readings: Gen. 28:10-19; Romans 8:12-25
Opening Prayer
Eternal God, You are able. We trust You like our forebears in the faith did. Thanks that no matter where we may be today, You see us and You know exactly what we need. Would You breathe anew upon us today to fortify us on our journeys? Would You send us a reassuring word to ground us afresh? We know You are here; we know You are already at work. Thanks, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Message
A lone traveller, an unfamiliar place, an overnight rest stop, a make-shift pillow … We open today with Jacob, an emigrant from Beersheba in Canaan, one fleeing from his brother’s fiery fury. Being a popular Bible passage, I’m sure most of us have read Jacob and Esau’s account many times. Often, questions of “why” and “how” are scarcely missing as we reflect on the story. In particular, we tend to wonder why Jacob may have tricked his father into blessing him instead of his elder brother, Esau. And I’m sure you may have heard many different proposed explanations highlighting Jacob’s wrongdoing and spotlighting him as villain. Let’s try and meditate on another angle of the story which I find most significant for our purposes.
The idea isn’t to celebrate Jacob’s actions, nor is it to gloss over them. But a part of me just sees the humanity in Jacob – something that makes him susceptible to miscalculation, error, and offence. Unlike how we tend to commonly perceive Jacob, per the text, God doesn’t deal with Jacob according to his selfish and crafty past (yesterday). God doesn’t even meet him in his present (today). Instead, he talks all about his potential (tomorrow).
Precisely speaking, in Jacob’s dream (and dreams are often God’s way of speaking to God’s people), God reassures him of God’s commitment to the promises made to his ancestors, reiterating God’s presence, protection, and partnership (verses 15-16). The point is that our humanness makes us want to be inward-looking instead of communal; self-seeking instead of selfless; unfeeling instead of empathetic … But once we encounter God, these inclinations are reversed because God changes the state of our hearts. Friends, shouldn’t this change how we approach God in times of distress? Our fixation mustn’t be on what we did or didn't do right; what may or may not have gone wrong; what we have or don’t have, but on the God who sees our tomorrow and not our past, nor our present. That is, the God who was present for, hedged around, and partnered with Jacob is as well our God. This God will lead us in the future that God has in mind for us.
Again, a closer look at Jacob’s story reveals one who left home afraid and “empty.” Both in this narrative and in later ones (Genesis 33), it's clear that Jacob travelled with no major supplies, literally journeying with only the clothes on his back and a walking stick. Forced out of the land he’s always known by his brother’s fury, Jacob would come to an unfamiliar terrain, away from his family’s love and abundance and into the “wilderness.” But even in this distant land, Bethel (and Haran where Jacob was headed), Isaac, his father, and Rebekkah, his mother, were convinced he would prevail because of the blessings of God pronounced over him. But how about Jacob? How I see it, Jacob knew God’s blessings were upon him, but he didn’t expect to meet God in Bethel where he had stopped to rest. Perhaps, because Bethel may not have looked like much, a transitory place, a place of lack, a means to an end, not the end in itself … “Why would God meet me here?”
Jacob may have thought to himself. Friends, here is the moral of this aspect of the narrative: not only does God deal with us based on our potential (what and who we may become), but God also is present in the here and now – with us every step of the way. Jacob’s cluelessness that God was in Bethel (verse 16), didn’t stop God’s revealing God’s plans to him.
Where Jacob saw craftiness, inadequacy, and lack (except for the clothes on his back and the blessings over him), God saw generations, a nation, a superpower, among others. His present shouted, “empty” but his future said, “full!”
In God’s unexpected meeting of Jacob in an unknown place, we, present-day people of faith, may be reassured that even unknown territories may not be off-putting to God. Our being in flight doesn’t rule us out … Though everybody else may have cancelled us and written us off, we aren’t discredited before God. It may be true that that recession set your business back; perhaps the pandemic got you laid off; or perhaps that sickness may have brought you to your knees; but God specialises in meeting us even in unknown places. God’s expertise is to reveal God’s plans to us when we appear maligned and far removed from our friends, family, and all we’ve known. God’s specialty is to bring us new hope – to reset our vision, giving us a new pair of eyes for who and what we can be. Friends, this good God is in our respective status quos, our unknown lands, our wildernesses, our “in-betweens.” Yes, God is impressed by who we will become and what we carry (the future us), but equally important to this God is our right nows. Praise be to God!
Let’s switch gears to our second reading now. Here in Romans 8, Paul describes the earthly journey of people in the Lord. Acknowledging the battle we wage against fleshly desires and sin, Paul encourages the Roman church, and all people of faith, by extension, that Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary and the gift of the Spirit have already put to death the deeds of the flesh (verse 13). He invites us to a walk in the Spirit which would help us live out this victory over sin and the flesh from day to day. According to him, God’s Spirit frees us forever, making us sure of the glory we will have at Christ’s reapppearing. So, throughout the passage and particularly in verse 18, Paul talks about hope. But unlike regular hope which merely desires something which may be looked forward to, God’s kind of hope for the saved is sure.
That sounds like something we know – faith. As Hebrews 11:1 stresses, our faith that we will be with God when Christ returns is an “assurance” and a “conviction.” That said, friends, we can rejoice in the fact all pain, disease, spot, and wrinkle will be subverted when we see the Lord. So, we can hold on tight as we anticipate this future in the now.
I’m, however, not unaware of how trying and difficult waiting can be. Like Jacob’s, it could be a hard place, an empty one, a lonely one … Paul actually acknowledges this, saying that we “groan” as we await this perfection and salvation of our bodies (verses 23). We are nevertheless saved by hope, he hints, one that cannot be seen (verses 25). And this brings us back to faith and waiting … Friends, the good news is that we don’t have to do this daily walk of waiting on God alone. Our post-Easter life of faith reassures us that God’s Spirit indwells us; that God’s Spirit walks alongside us; that God’s Spirit guides and directs us; and that Christ never left us orphaned. So we can rest assured that when we are down, the Spirit will remind us of Christ’s teachings; that the Spirit will help us to pray; that the Spirit will give us comfort; that the Spirit will touch others' hearts, so we may receive help and support. That’s the journey we’ve been called to, friends. Not a storm-free walk in the park, nor a forever party, but a journey of faith with meanderings, ascents, and descents. God is, however, fully onboard with us, helping us follow in Jesus’ steps.
This story of hope, survival, and reconciliation may be familiar to some of us. Douglas “Pete” Peterson served as a US Air Force captain during the Vietnam War. His plane was shot down in 1966 during a bombing raid near Hanoi and he was captured as a prisoner of war (POW). He would be with his captors for six-and-a-half years in different tight, heavily securitised cells. Describing his incarceration as a moment of “stark terror,” Pete said his decision to live and to take things by the hour helped him survive the years of capture in Vietnam: “... in a situation like that, you have to decide, frankly, if you want to be alive … The fact is that friends of mine laid down and died … They quit living.”
After his release, Pete would engage this same strong psyche of hope and resilience to become the First US Ambassador to Vietnam after the war and a member of the House Representative for Florida’s 2nd District. Acknowledging God’s saving power during his years as a POW, Pete has chosen to “not live in anger, bitterness, and retribution, but to find peace …”
Friends, the throughline in today’s reflection is that God invites us to be hopeful on our respective journeys. Be they in familiar terrain or distant land (as in Jacob’s or Pete’s), God’s presence, protection, and partnership are assured us. Even more reassuring is the fact that God’s Spirit will be with us and in us, guiding us on how we may go and reminding us of God’s promises. We, therefore, can rest in these promises and not give up. And it may be helpful to remember that this hope we have in God isn’t a mere desire for something, but an assurance and a conviction. May God’s hand rekindle this saving hope in us no matter where we may be. Alleluia. Amen!
Closing Prayer
Creator God, thanks that our hope in You isn’t in vain. Thanks that in You we have a future and an expected end. Thanks that You see us even in the here and now. In distant lands, we implore You to hold us close to Yourself. And in familiar terrains, may we not have confidence in ourselves, but in You alone. Heal us; restore us; renew us. In Jesus’ name. Amen!