Hope's for Whiners!

Neve Glacier and Snowfield Peak, courtesy of the US Geological Survey. Public Domain

There's something about the traditional name for the Saturday before Easter that kind of gets on my nerves.

I always hear people talk about HOPE, as if it's some kind of penultimate important good. Usually these people think of themselves as victims, people who believe that there hope has been stripped of them by somebody else, people who believe that unless someone else gives them their change back, they won't be able to make enough money to eat. But WHY????

And further, even if we are hopeless, helpless and hapless, (. thank You, the Holy Spirit, for language, thank You for poetry, thank You for song and thank You for beauty and feeling. Amen.) why not just keep breathing and look down the road, and appreciate all the little things in your life? Why don't we take things one step at a time, not looking back, and not really looking forward either? Why don't we just accept those who are before us, and the task and work that is in front of us, and understand that no matter what is done to us, we still have the CHOICE to make the best of it. Further, without hardship, trial and, yes, suffering, you would never grow, you would never learn, you would never become strong and learn the pride and joy that comes from strength, and you could not truly have life. And without goals of YOUR OWN that you've made for YOURSELF to do YOURSELF, you eliminate the best kind!

For me, Easter is not really about Hope, it's about Love. A loving, beautiful God who, not even asking about the cost, took from our shoulders the only thing that could truly break us, the only thing that we have no choice over, the only thing that we CANNOT overcome on our own. The thing that, by it's very definition, is outside of our control. Death, and the imperfection that, by every angle and understanding be it biological, moral or otherwise, caused it. Through Christ, all of us can truly live.

Titian, Ancona Crucifixtion, 1558