Hope

Five Iron Frenzy was one of my favorite Christian bands in college and grad school. They were (or are - they got back together in 2011 after a nine-year hiatus) a Christian ska punk band, with an incredibly broad gamut of songs ranging from the absolutely ridiculous (“These Are Not My Pants (The Rock Opera)”) to passionate faith-based criticism of consumerism and racism to heartfelt worship. I hadn’t followed them in several years, so I was surprised and dismayed to hear last month that two of the band’s eight members had left the faith. As explained by Wikipedia:

In 1998, Scott Kerr chose to leave Five Iron Frenzy after renouncing his Christian faith. According to Kerr, he had begun experiencing doubts in high school which eventually came to a head during his time touring with Five Iron. In an attempt to reconcile his faith, Kerr fervently studied Christian apologetics - which he ultimately found “not persuasive and, at worst, intellectually disingenuous” - as well as works by David Hume and Bertrand Russell before deciding to leave Christianity. Though Kerr recalls the band accepting his revelation and decision to leave, [lead singer Reese] Roper remorsefully recalled souring the relationship between them by him “pushing Jesus on [Kerr] when he needed me to just be his friend”…

Andrew Verdecchio experienced a similar loss of faith during the early 2000s, following the death of his father and the events of the September 11 attacks. Verdecchio largely recalls the comments of conservative commentators Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell blaming the cause of the attacks on homosexuals for driving a wedge between himself and Christianity, leading him to seriously question his beliefs and role within a Christian band. Like Kerr, Verdecchio attempted to study apologetics “because I didn’t want to not believe it”, though said “the more I read these books and tried to convince myself, the less convinced I was”.

Last month was hard.

We had ongoing health challenges in my immediate family. My great-aunt passed away due to COVID. One of my son’s classmates committed suicide. I’ve had several setbacks at work. The ongoing pandemic is getting to me. The relentless division and hostility in our politics is really getting to me. I can go on Facebook and see friends who I loved and looked up to from Bible college now going through their own struggles and losses in faith, ministry, and marriage. November has been better, but I’m still dealing with family health issues and reading about skyrocketing numbers of COVID cases, a tense and bitterly contested election, and the death of someone who’s meant a lot to me. Reading about two of Five Iron Frenzy’s members leaving the faith felt like one more blow.

I need hope.

The Lord’s loyal kindness never ceases; his compassions never end. They are fresh every morning; your faithfulness is abundant!

— Lamentations 3:22-23, written upon the fall of Jerusalem and exile of the Israelites into Babylon

Hope is expectation of the good. It is linked with trust and yearning, and differentiated from fear… It is not a dream that offers comfort but may also be illusory. The life of the righteous is grounded in a hope that implies a future because its point of reference is God. To hope is to trust. It is demanded even in the good times. It is not our own projection but confidence in what God will do. God is our hope… Hope looks to him whom none can control. It is thus freed from anxiety… If God helps in present distress, he will finally put an end to all distress.

— article by R. Bultmann in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that as the last
he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God,

— Job 19:25-26, spoken after he loses his wealth, family, and health, and while he is convinced that God is treating him unjustly

I love how Kay Warren puts it in her book Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough. She says, Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and the determined choice to praise God in every situation. Hope is something that is birthed out of joy. If I truly believe that God is in control of the details of my life, if I really understand that ultimately everything is going to be all right, and if I choose to praise God in every situation, a space opens up in my soul that allows me to dream, to pray, to hope.

— Plumb, Need You Now

When the fig tree does not bud,
and there are no grapes on the vines;
when the olive trees do not produce
and the fields yield no crops;
when the sheep disappear from the pen
and there are no cattle in the stalls—
I will rejoice because of the Lord;
I will be happy because of the God who delivers me!
The Sovereign Lord is my source of strength.
He gives me the agility of a deer;
he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain.

— Habakkuk 3:17-19

The brief glow [of the setting Sun] fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath. The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the middle of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.

Suddenly, caught by the level beams, Frodo saw the old king’s head: it was lying rolled away by the roadside. ‘Look, Sam!’ he cried, startled into speech. ‘Look! The king has got a crown again!’

The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stony hear yellow stonecrop gleamed.

‘They cannot conquer forever!’ said Frodo.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the coming glory that will be revealed to us. For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly but because of God who subjected it—in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.

— Romans 8:18-25

— Taken in our neighborhood in March and April, during the lockdown

But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that the extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are experiencing trouble on every side, but are not crushed; we are perplexed, but not driven to despair; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed, always carrying around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our body… Therefore we do not despair, but even if our physical body is wearing away, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

— 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, 16-17