I was talking to a friend yesterday about losing hope. About how we can have so much hope for the things that God has shown us and told us but then as time goes on and those things still feel so far off, we can begin to lose hope that what God said will even happen.
I literally asked her, "Should I even hope anymore?"
And while I know the answer to this question is yes because I know that I serve a good and faithful God, I can't help but to sometimes be faced with this very real, honest, and hard question because as a human I have very real, honest, and hard emotions.
And this got me to thinking about the Cross. It got me to thinking not only about how Jesus felt, but how His disciples felt. And how Mary felt.
When I put myself in the disciples' shoes, I can't help but think of how hopeless they must have felt as they watched their very Best Friend be nailed to the Cross and then placed in the tomb. And how hard it must have been for them going home that night and waking up the next morning realizing that He was really gone. How difficult it must have been for them as the time without Jesus continued to drag on, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour.
And then I think about Mary. I cannot imagine the grief that this mother must have felt over the gruesome and seemingly unfair death of the precious Son that she carried in her womb, in faith, when she was just a teenager. I can't help but think back to the moment when she first surrendered her will to God's, and allowed Him to use her to birth this precious child into the world. And how she always knew that she had to relinquish Jesus to the ultimate will of God, but how human she still was and how difficult that still must have been for her.
I can't help but to think of their heartbrokenness and desperation. Their crying out to God because the pain was too insufferable. The way they must have questioned God's will, because though Jesus had spoken of His death and resurrection, they didn't fully understand what it really meant. They probably didn't know it would hurt this much, and surely must have found it difficult to still believe a resurrection was possible after seeing the way in which He died.
The privilege that we have today is that we know what happens next in the story. When we think about the Cross, we know that we have the Resurrection to look forward to. We know that Saturday is just one day closer to Sunday. We know that when Jesus died, He did so to pay the price for our sins, and though it seemed like all hope was lost, it really wasn't because we know that He rose in victory the very next day.
But they didn't have that privilege. Though Jesus told them beforehand that he would rise again, they still didn't fully get it. For what He said and what they saw looked so differently.
And how many times do we find ourselves in situations like that? Like I mentioned earlier, I literally had a conversation just yesterday about losing hope. It's a real and constant tension we find ourselves in on this side of Heaven.
And even though we are on this side of Heaven, awaiting the day for complete restoration and complete healing, we are also on the resurrection side of the Cross. While we long for what will be, we fully rejoice and hope in what has already happened.
And the same way that I long to reach back in time to bring words of comfort and encouragement to the disciples and to Mary, telling them that it doesn't end this way; God is looking at us from the end of our stories offering us hope and comfort letting us know that our present hurt, pain, and sense of hopelessness is also not how our stories end.
Friends, we have a hope unseen. A hope unheard of.
For the Author of it all is at the end, cheering us on, and letting us know that there is still more to come. Beyond what we can even hope, think, or imagine.
That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.”
(1 Corinthians 2:9)
May we rest today, knowing that if we feel hopeless like the disciples and Mary once felt, we are not alone. And because we know that Jesus rose in victory, we can rest assured that He will bring us to rise in victory with Him one day, too.
He is good. All the time. Even, and especially, when we can't see it.
In His Great Love,
Elisha