Considering Hope and our Powerlessness at the Holidays

When I think about the word “hope,” I think about how casually it is used.   We hope for this and we hope for that. We hope for many things.

Hope is not a rational topic.  It is not about facts.  It is about feeling. 

Hope is probably best an attitude that we have or do not have.

I suppose that with some semantic finagling it could be “operationalized” in a quantitative variable for a psychological or sociological study, but it is not a tangible or measurable concept in and of itself.   It does not seem to support logical positivism where truth is only everything that is quantifiable or measurable.

Hope tends to arise out of a need. We either are hopeful or hopeless when we have a need.   The need can be small or the need can make us feel distraught.

                                                                                                             

Hope implies that we are powerless. In our powerlessness we are dependent on someone or something else to meet the need.  If we are not dependent on someone or something, then we are waiting to see how events shake out.

We are typically in some form of suspense when we have hope. We are caught between what we need and waiting to see what is going to happen.

The emotional backlash of such a need can be so overwhelming and consuming that having hope is unlikely to be initial response to the need. Hope may not be even the second or third thought in such occasions.  The initial emotional responses in cases of hope are probably more likely to be numbness, despair, or desperation.

I remember when my wife was having surgery to remove a brain tumor deep in the brain nine years ago.  I was numb and in suspense for several days between the time that the neurosurgeon said that the tumor needed to be removed and when I saw him after the surgery to get his report that the surgery was successful.  I was numb and focused on making the most of each day because the worst could happen.  After the fact it was very meaningful that a Jewish man named Kal told me that he was praying for me because he saw my plight—he did not want me to be a widower with two young children.  I was not exactly thinking about hope in the weight that December 2005 day, but looking back I think I had it.  

We all have multiple hopes dashed. We have family members who have disappointed us. We have people who have abused us. Many of us have had addicted family members who have stolen from us and crossed our boundaries. Many of us have had parents abandon us for any number of reasons. We have friends who have not followed through on their promises. We have been victims of office politics. The list could go on, but I am inclined to believe that many people who have had multiple hopes dashed become either agnostic or atheistic because they have to come up with some answer to resolve why all the bad stuff has happened and I don’t blame them.

  

As we reflect on ourselves, we may focus on our inadequacies and failures. We may dwell on how others do things better. .  We may review our regrets and replay how we would have done something differently.  Many of us wish we would have said I love you to someone who died. When we get into pity parties we can feel despair in short bursts.

In many ways, this is what the message of hope is addressing.  Despite how bad things are outside of us and inside of us, hope came down at Christmas.  Despite how bad we feel about ourselves, there is grace, the unmerited favor that God offers that started out as a baby in a manger. 

Many may struggle with God in light of all the pain experienced. Christmas does not always have to be about Decking the Halls and Jingle Bells.  It is a good time to think  deep thoughts and evaluate whether we have hope.   

And you thought your family was dysfunctional?

I have written about family dysfunction before in this blog, and you are invited to go back and read previous entries.  I think that we do grieve that some of our families are so screwed up. 

We hear other people talk about how great their family gatherings are.  We hear that they gather together at Christmas. We feel envious that our holiday is not going to be that great.

I have thought that some people I know sugar-coat how great their Christmas is, and maybe they do.  Some of the people we know are pretentious and good liars.   However, they are reporting that they are having a good Christmas, and for those of us, whose Christmas is going to be lonely or marginal, we are still going to have our sad feelings.

To me when faith is removed from Christmas, it becomes incredibly empty and meaningless.  If gathering with a bunch of irritable and dysfunctional people is the end-all of Christmas, then we should probably cancel it . . . but that is not going to happen because of how many national economies depend on retail sales of gifts.

Family Dysfunction in the "Holy Family"

The idea here in this entry is not entirely my own, but it has made me feel at least a sense of meaning and connection with my faith today in addition a new appreciation for Matthew 1 in the New Testament of the Bible.

Now, I have tried to keep things secular in this blog because I wanted to help the broadest possible audience, but I am hoping to give you a new appreciation for the essence of the Christmas story.

Anyway, Matthew 1 1-16 is genealogical listing of Jesus’ family tree all the way back to Adam.  I did not do so great in Robert Stein’s Gospels class at Bethel Seminary, but I at least learned that the audience of this book is a Jewish one with lots of references to Old Testament prophecy arguing that Jesus fulfilled them.  

The genealogy speaks to a Jewish audience since that was important to them.

Within Jesus’ genealogy, there are indications that his family had black sheep and imperfection.  There are three women named, and two of them were of ill-reputation: Rahab and Bathsheba.  Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho.  Bathsheba was the woman King David had an affair with. David then had Bathsheba’s husband killed.  Ruth actually was reputed to be a good person (who actually has book in the Old Testament named after her), but she was a foreigner and the Jewish people at that time were big into ethnic purity.

Furthermore, when you look at how Jesus was conceived and born in Matthew 1:18-25, it was not ideal and Joseph wanted to divorce Mary.   He at least listened to the angel of the Lord in the dream and in faith took Mary as his wife and followed through.

As children we did not think about the adult undertones of the Christmas story.  It was all about Away in a Manger and Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Silent Night.   Then it is about Santa Claus and presents and a break from school.  As adults we grow cynical and empty.

The Meaning for Us

That brings us back to today.  There are nine more shopping days until Christmas.  There is a sense of drivenness that stuff that must get done.  Being driven is not always bad, but it can become empty after awhile.

We are being driven to a time when all the stores are supposed to be closed on December 24 and many of us are going to be stuck alone or with some people who are not going to be pleasant to be with.  Or we are going to lament being alone because the people we would otherwise be with are just plain miserable and lead to headaches (we made the better choice to be alone than to be stuck with those miserable souls). 

The story of Jesus coming to earth is wrapped in family dysfunction and fallible humanity.  It is not really the elegant story that is portrayed in a service of lessons and carols or in the Advent wreath.  It is a real gritty story that touches us where we live. 

We live in a world of pain and heartache.  We have many feelings that we must stuff and move ahead because reality dictates that feelings do not pay the bills.  We suffer through the ongoing anger and hurt from things that should have been different.   We open up the grief again and again that people have failed us and that we failed others and ourselves.

We grieve that we have immature relatives that will throw tantrums at the slightest trigger.   It is down right impossible to identify these triggers because for an immature person anything can be a trigger.   Many of us have tried to walk on eggshells around these relatives to try and not make them angry only to feel like failures.   If these immature family members were strangers, we would have avoided them a long time ago because they give us no other motivation to bond with them.

According to the Bible Jesus came to earth in a dysfunctional life situation and died for our sins.  The prophet Isaiah foretold his emotional, physical, and mental lot . . .

Who has believed our message

    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

   He grew up before him like a tender shoot,

    and like a root out of dry ground.

   He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,

    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

   He was despised and rejected by mankind,

    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.

   Like one from whom people hide their faces

   he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

(Isaiah 53: 1-3 New International Version)

We need meaning.  Meaning helps us cope.  Meaning helps us get though.  Families are supposed to give us meaning through togetherness and acceptance, but when that doesn’t happen due to the dysfunction, the original message of Christmas can give us that meaning.  The savior who came knows what it is like to suffer like we suffer.

Should this make your holiday all better?   No.  But I hope that it will make your holiday more meaningful to look underneath the Christmas songs you have probably heard for the 200^th time and the 100^th Christmas cookie or piece of candy you have eaten.