Ridiculous Hope

It's Easter Sunday and we're celebrating resurrection, life and light, victory and joy and hope. He Is Risen!

In the face of my heaviness, the sheer ridiculousness of this hope has never been more apparent. Look at us! Hope? Where?

Hope when we are steadily finding new ways to capitalize on brokenness? Hope in the face of greed that drives us to further and further depths? Hope when we pervert everything that is beautiful and good in this world? Hope in the midst of war and oppression and exploitation? It's ridiculous. Foolishness.

And yet we hope anyway. We trust not in our own selves but in the One Who has already declared victory over the darkness. He has come, He is coming, and He will come again. Alleluia!

Today we remember with the ease and comfort offered through the familiar Easter celebrations, but some days we forget. This is why we have been blessed with one another, this messy imperfect Bride of Christ, brought together that we may remind each other that hope and light and love exist.

This need echoes in my mind often these days. We have been learning to share our stories of heartache, pain, loss, unmet needs, failures, abuse - and it is Good. It is good to share, to understand, to heal. But oh, such stories. Such a steady stream of deep stories.

We need hope, too. Not instead of our stories of brokenness, but as well as. Both. Share our deep pain, always, yes, take away its power and receive comfort and bring more moments of me too so that less of us hide in shame. But the other stories, too, stories of joy and hope and beauty and compassion, stories filed with good and love and kindness - we need them. Let us not forget to tell them.

Let us show each other that this world also holds the good and holy things that we need and long for. Remind us of that ridiculous Hope we cling to, the one that says all is not lost, that darkness has already been defeated, that evil does not win and unity will one day be our song and our reality.

Proclaim your stories of hope, and in doing so buoy one another up. Hold on to that ridiculous hope, rejoicing in it not only today, but every day. He Is Risen!