Upon what does our hope rest?
The list of possible answers to that question is quite long, including people, events, ideas, wealth, health, power, and material possessions. While I think each of us realizes that it’s a fool’s errand to trust in such things, we often continue to do so at an alarming rate. But people will let us down, events come and go, ideas are soon replaced, wealth fades, health diminishes, power is usurped, and possessions decay, soon becoming obsolete. And when each of these inevitable results occurs, we are left with an emptiness which we often seek to fill with another temporal idol, thus continuing the cycle.
I wonder what it is about us that draws us to the temporal and not the eternal?
In my most proud moments, I would dispute that I ever cling to the temporal. In fact, I think I cling to God all the time: I read his word, I go to church, I’m invested in studying and writing about his ways, I seek community with other like-minded believers, I do everything we are supposed to do. Yet, on the other hand, if I’m being totally honest, I find myself dreaming about how that next friendship, paycheck, position, or possession will finally be “the one.” I look at the shiny new thing and tell myself it’s unlike all the other ones that have come before it.
As a friend of mine once said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Somehow, I actually believe the next cool thing will help me sleep at night and that it will somehow squelch my anxiety. I suppose this probably means that on some level, I am insane.
I wonder why we don’t trust the only one we know who will never fail us?
The Psalms, if they do nothing else, implicitly point to the eventual enthronement of the Son of God as ruler over the nations. Psalm 110, like many others, explicitly states it. But Psalm 110 is not only about a king sitting on his throne, it is about an active and conquering God forgiving and protecting the righteous while he judges all of the wicked people and puts them in their proper place. Finally! Someone to protect the innocent, bring justice to the wicked, and forestall the rampant rise of evil and chaos. But I would suggest you pay attention to how the psalmist describes these events occurring in Psalm 110. The psalmist separates the kings work into two days: the day of the king’s power (110:3), and the day of the king’s wrath (110:5).
On the day of the king’s power, we find his people offering themselves to the Lord, who is ruling in the midst of his enemies. The righteous are covered in robes of holiness, a holiness that is not their own, but one that comes from God, and they freely submit to God’s rule. The king does not judge them with his iron scepter, rather he takes upon himself the role of a priest and absolves them of their sin and wickedness.
In contrast, however, the other day, the day of the king’s wrath, is described quite differently. This day is reserved for those who do not submit to the Lord and his holy nature. Instead of being clothed in holy garments and offered forgiveness, note what the psalmist says is reserved for them:
He will shatter kings on the day of his wrath,
he will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses,
he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
Quite the contrast, isn’t it? On one day, the Lord is offering forgiveness and covering people in robes of holiness and on the next day he is blasting the crap out of people. Some might wonder how the same Lord can do both things, but if you think about it for a moment, you will soon realize it is a necessary absolute in the universe. For only the one who is perfectly holy has the right to condemn and judge those who are not. If he were anything other than perfectly holy, then his condemnation of others would smack of hypocrisy. If, for some reason, however, he chose to let some people slide by on a pass because they were “deep down, good people,” then his holiness, and ultimately his love would be brought into question.
In an odd sort of way, this brings me back to the question I posed at the start: upon what does our hope rest? If it rests upon anything other than that absolutely perfect and holy, just and loving God, then it rests upon a foundation doomed to fail. But if it rests upon the Lord, then even as terrifying and beyond comprehension, as he may be, we know that our hope is sure.
I am reminded of something C.S. Lewis once wrote, and with this I will conclude, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”
