Are there any grounds for hope? (Who was Jesus of Nazareth?) 

Most of our efforts go badly. The model airplane does not fly, the new home is not quite what we thought it would be, the marriage is pretty much like most other marriages, the social reform we were so committed to does not occur or does not work. The end of the war does not bring peace, the New Age never began, the job turns out to be dull, the promotion does not materialize. The children become surly, the house is always a mess, the vacation is ruined by rain, the trip to Europe is a dud. The romantic weekend is marred by sickness, the course taught by the brilliant professor becomes a bore, the anniversary celebration deteriorates into nagging and nastiness. 

And even when our efforts are crowned with success they somehow still seem inadequate. Santa Claus brings everything we want and we are still not happy. We graduate and begin a new life only to discover that it is very much like the old. The girl (or boy) of our dreams turns out to be quite ordinary indeed after the third date. We get the promotion, the fur coat, the summer home, the boat, the new car; and the quality of life does not change. The joys of the wedding day and night fade quickly. Our most impressive accomplishments turn sour. Our wildest expectations come true for a brief time and then become bitter. Success is almost as bad as failure. It hardly seems worth trying to succeed; failure is probable and success unsatisfying. What difference does it make? Eventually we grow old and die, so why try? Why hope? Why bother? 

Yet we can no more stop hoping than we can stop breathing as long as we are still alive. Even those who are terminally ill keep on hoping. The subconscious, according to Sigmund Freud, believes in its own immortality. Our dreams, according to other researchers, assume that we are immortal. Hope is irrevocably rooted in our personalities. Perhaps it is the other side of our conviction that life has purpose. We can stop hoping only by ridding ourselves of our humanity. The only ones for whom despair is complete are those who commit suicide. They finally see nothing in which to hope at all. 

Rejuvenation comes easily. A good night's sleep gives us a new lease on life. The morning sun rises and chases away the clouds, fog, and rain. Time heals the wounds of separation and loss. Illness wanes, and our bodily forces are restored. The warmth and color of spring replaces the cold drabness of winter. Friendships long dormant can begin again. Love is reborn and intimacy gets a fresh start. The failures and discouragements of the past are left behind in the full flush of our enthusiasm for a new idea, a new project, a new dream. 

All our little hopes are drawn from the biggest hope of all, that maybe death does not have the final word. Every new burst of hopefulness is a gamble that it is worthwhile to hope, that even in the final moment despair is a misreading of the situation. There may seem to be little ground for hope, the gamble is a long shot; but it still seems better to live hopefully than to try to fight the immensely powerful urges toward hopefulness which continue as long as we have breath surging up from the depths of whatever is us. 

But can we trust our hopefulness? Is it a trick, a deception, a mechanism the human race has developed in the course of evolutionary selection to ensure the survival of the species? Or is it the hint of an explanation, a revelation, the best single hint we have of what life is? Is the "bright golden haze on the meadow" a cheat or a sacrament?*  

Jesus of Nazareth was the man who came to tell us that it is all right to trust our hopefulness. "Dream your most impossible dream," he tells us, in effect. "Hope your most expansive hope, fantasize your wildest fantasy, and you will have just begun. Out beyond those dreams, hopes, and fantasies, the generosity of my heavenly Father only begins. For eye has not seen nor has ear heard nor has it entered into the heart of man what the heavenly Father has prepared for those who return his love." 

It is the nature of hope that it shatters our sorrows and our fears, our disappointments and our anxieties. It rushes into our personality and impatiently and irresistibly sweeps away all the obstacles that stand in its way. It tears apart our preconceptions, it blasts our imbedded gloomy explanations. It stands everything on end. "April is the cruellest month," says T. S. Eliot, because it is the month of rebirth in England. Hope has its healing effect because it enables us to see things differently, to put together the pieces of our life in a pattern we may not have tried before. Hope throws something new into the picture (or, more often, perhaps, throws a spotlight on something old, lighting it in such a way that it is almost as though we had never seen it before). 

Our life can begin all over again. Love grows cold and stale, bickering replaces affection, counting up slights and injured feelings has replaced tenderness. If we let hope hold sway we can see possibilities in the other and in ourselves which were not apparent before. The angers and injuries dissolve and love is reborn. Hope has done its work. 

Jesus is the man of hope. He is the Christ, the one whose words and deeds reveal the heavenly Father to us as he was never revealed before. Jesus is the "sacrament" of God, the best revelation we will ever have of what God is like. He knew the heavenly Father because he was, as he claimed, on terms of intimacy with him that no one else enjoyed. He dared to address the Father with the affectionate, almost joking title "Abba, " thereby immediately setting himself off as different from all the other prophets and teachers, preachers and Saints. He knew the Father, and he came into the world with desperate urgency to tell us that we, too, could call the Father "Abba," that we, too, could live as if we were his playful children. The great dinner was ready, the wedding banquet prepared; all that was left for us was to respond to the invitation. 

Like hope itself, this man of hope had a shattering impact. He turned the world upside down; and, as G. K. Chesterton said, when the world was viewed from such a remarkable perspective, it suddenly made sense. Hope, Jesus told us, was not a subject for doubt; the only things about which we could reasonably doubt were our own foolish fears, our petty suspicions, our silly anxieties. 

There are powerful tensions in the life of Jesus: between gentleness and urgency, insistence on God's loving mercy and fear that time may run out; between peace and the sword; between a yoke which is sweet and light and fire on the earth; between patience with sinners and fierce anger at hypocrites; between confidence in the Father and uncertainty about how the Father will work his will. 

Even the words of Jesus reveal this tension: first and last, poor and rich, called and chosen, bread and body, chalice and blood. 

The tensions in the life and in the language of Jesus are the result of the power of the hope he came to reveal and to confirm. Hope shatters our old misconceptions; it enables us to start again because it impels us to see things differently. As the man of hope, Jesus had to shatter our old ways of perceiving and living so that we could see things the way they really are-filled with hopefulness-and so that we could live the way we ought to-as children of hope. Jesus is a disconcerting person because there is no other way to be a sacrament of hope. 

But it is precisely the hopefulness of Jesus, and the powerful tensions he felt and generated, that have made him attractive to all who have come to know him, even those who have dismissed his hope as mad self-deception. Even today those who do not like churches or who do not accept religion are still fascinated by Jesus. He was no ordinary man, they agree; he was driven by forces which make him attractive, fascinating, intriguing. He was probably wrong, they contend. And we might respond: What if he was right? 

What indeed? 

Jesus' hope was rooted in the unshakable conviction that the power of God was at work in the world. He called it the " kingdom of God, " and we sometimes call it the " reign of God." Whatever words we use, the idea is that God has a plan for the world and that plan is going forward irresistibly. Moreover, Jesus was convinced that this power of God was making a major breakthrough in his time with his appearance. This new inrushing of God's power was a turning point in the development of God's plan, an opportunity not to be missed. Now was the time to reform one's life and to begin again; now was the time to break out of the fixed, narrow, rigid routines in which humans were caught and give full and free rein to their hopefulness. Now was the time to look up and live 

Jesus was a man of his own time. Despite his special intimacy with the heavenly Father, he used the terms and the thought categories of his age. Sometimes these words and styles of thinking seem strange and foreign to us (though they should never stand in the way of our understanding him unless we insist on the mindless literalism of interpreting his words exactly the same way we would if those words were spoken to us by a man of our own time). So we must approach Jesus' words about the power of God with respect for the time and place in which he lived. We must ask what he was trying to tell us through the words he used and the style in which he thought. 

There are times when he seemed to be saying that the kingdom of God was already present and other times when he was saying that it was yet to come. Sometimes the "yet to come" was very soon, and at other times it was in the unknown future. Perhaps Jesus himself was not sure. (The Scripture tells us that he grew in knowledge-learned more with the passage of time.) More than likely he was once again a man of tension: the kingdom of God was both "already" and "not yet." The power of God was already at work in the world, and now, with Jesus' coming, in a new and more definitive way; but the ultimate of that power was still to be revealed. The plan was moving forward, indeed with accelerating pace, but it was not yet fully accomplished. Our hope is already partially fulfilled, and in Jesus a promise of its ultimate fulfillment was given by a God who disclosed himself to us in and through Jesus, but the goal of that hopefulness is still obscured in the future. Life begins once again as the healing forces of hope pour into it. With Jesus, life makes a new beginning that is decisive and definitive but not yet final. 

Jesus not only believed in the kingdom of God, he died for it. He was not only convinced that hope was valid, he went to his death because of that conviction. At the time of the intense experience we call the Transfiguration, Jesus saw more clearly than he had before that he would probably be taken and executed. His conviction of the power of God and the hope which flowed from that conviction had to be put to the final test of death. 

Down through the ages some Christians have been so concerned about protecting the truth of the special presence of God in Jesus that they have come to deprive him of most of his humanity. Historically these people were called Monophysites, and in ages past were far more numerous than the Nestorians, those Christians who virtually eliminated any special presence of God in the Jesus we know. For those people-and there were many of them among our teachers-Jesus was essentially an actor reading a script, going through a scenario. They never quite put it that way, of course, but the picture we got from them was of someone going through the motions. Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen from the beginning. He preached to his people even though he knew they would turn him down. Hence there was little reason for sorrow or a sense of failure. It was all part of the story line. He went up to Jerusalem to be executed, realizing that there would be a few bad hours but that he would rise from the dead soon. Perhaps he had the exact hour of this event already in his mind. So there was little reason for fear or anguish. 

This approach to the life and death of Jesus is hard to reconcile with the Scripture stories about his sorrow over his failure and his anguish over the prospect of his own death. It makes Jesus unattractive to those who are not Christians-especially when this stage-play approach to his life is imposed as a matter of faith. But worst of all, it deprives Jesus of any common humanity with the rest of us. We all sorrow over our failures and anguish over the approach of death; we all wonder whether it has been worth the effort; we all live in terror of the cracking apart of our personality, the apparent destruction of that which is us in the ugliness of death. Everyone has a faint hope in survival. Christians firmly believe that death does not say the final word. But no matter how strong our hope in survival, we are still afraid. Survival may be plausible, reasonable, probable even, but it is not mathematically certain. If there were such certainty, there would be no need to hope. 

If Jesus were certain, then he would not be one of us. We might be impressed by his abilities as an actor, but we would have no sense of community with him. If, on the other hand, he approached Jerusalem with both confidence and fear, hope and uncertainty, about how and when he would receive his heavenly Father's validation and the confirmation of his preaching, then he was one of us. Then we share a common humanity, we can learn from him, we can go up to Jerusalem with him. 

The Christians who would turn Jesus into an actor are afraid that one cannot combine confidence and fear, hope and uncertainty, anguish and expectation, terror and faith. The rest of us do it every day, of course, but somehow it does not seem right for Jesus to have suffered it. So, for these Christians, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem on one path unanxious and untroubled; and we take another path frightened and hopeful. Such Christians should read the Scripture more closely. If Jesus were not going up to Jerusalem with us, there would have been no point in going at all. 

So Jesus went to his death with fear and anguish but with hope and confidence also. He knew that the power of God would guarantee that his death would not be in vain; he knew that death would have no final victory over him; he knew that the power of God would sweep away the temporary triumph of death. But he also knew he had to die. 

Jesus claimed a special intimacy with the Father. Christians believe that God revealed himself to us in a special way through Jesus; hence his hope was necessarily special. Indeed the whole point of Jesus' life was that he disclosed to us a vision of hope based on his intimacy with God, in which we would not dare believe and to which we would not dare commit ourselves (though we would have perhaps occasionally glimpsed its possibility) were it not for Jesus. 

So Jesus went to his death with a special hope. He knew the heavenly Father would vindicate him against his enemies and against the final enemy, death. But the specialness of his hope came from its depth, its breadth, its intensity; it came from the unique nature of the union between Jesus and the heavenly Father. However, the specialness did not consist of a knowledge about the specificity of the details of time, manner, and mode of his vindication. Jesus knew he would win; he did not know how. Such is the anguish of all human life-no matter how hopeful. 

Jesus was supremely confident of the triumph of God's plan and of his own victory as the revelation of that plan. God's kingdom would succeed as certainly as does the seed become the tree, as does the tiny grain grow into the harvest. Nothing could stand in its way. Thus one does all one can to seize this pearl of great price, this buried treasure. One plots and schemes, as did the unjust steward, so as not to lose it. One has the wedding garment and is ready to take advantage of every possibility that is offered. One eagerly responds to the invitation before the doors of the banquet hall are closed. In confidence of the success in gaining God's kingdom, one can stop by the wayside to assist an injured enemy. In other words, one lives a life of courage, vigor, confidence, commitment, and generosity. One never stops trying, never gives up, never sinks into a rut, never turns back, never refuses an opportunity to help, never rejects the possibility of reconciliation, never thinks that it is too late to begin again. For the follower of Jesus who hopes in the kingdom of God, tomorrow is not merely the first day of the rest of his life; tomorrow will also be different even when today is the last of his life. 

From what we know of Jesus it seems safe to assume that he and his followers sang psalms as they went up to Jerusalem. So we must join them on that final journey on which we are all embarked. We must go up to our own Jerusalem with fear and anguish but also with confidence and hope, with joy in our hearts and a song on our lips. There is no other way to live. 

THEOLOGICAL NOTES 

1. The followers of Jesus in their Easter experience of him finally saw clearly that which had seemed so obscure during his ministry. He was human like us but he was also something more than human. God was present in him in a unique and special way. Jesus claimed this special intimacy, and the resurrection experience validated that claim. Since Easter, Christians have tried to cope with the paradox of "human like us" and "something more than human." It is a paradox ignored by the mindless question, "Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus?" Of course, any follower of Jesus believes the divinity to be present in Jesus, but that is no great feat of faith; God is present in all of us. What is at issue is the special presence of God in Jesus in a unique way which still leaves him a man like us. The Christian must believe in both at the same time; the data of the Scripture and the teaching of Christian tradition leave him no choice. The theological explanation of this paradox (called the Incarnation) has preoccupied Christians almost since the beginning--with heat rather than light being generated on many occasions. Many different formulations of the paradox have been attempted in the past--none of them completely satisfactory. Christian faith is not held to particular philosophical formulations, and theologians are struggling today to restate the Incarnation in ways that will convey the truth of "human like us" and "something more than human," and in terms which will mean to modern humans what the Greek philosophical terms used to mean to those who were alive in the days of the early councils. 

Such a task of reformulation is both delicate and necessary. No useful purpose is served by charging heresy against those who, in sincerity and good faith, try to restate the paradox in terms that will be meaningful for those whose religious needs are not served by the rote repetition of ancient formulas deprived of all the tension and anguish that went into their construction. The dangers in reformulation today seem to be more Nestorian (denying the "something more than human") than Monophysitic (denying the "human like us"). Some popular Catholic writers have sought instant relevance by jumping on the "superstar" bandwagon, speaking of Jesus as though he were purely human. If one rejects the special and unique intimacy between God and Jesus, then one simply is no longer part of that tradition which traces itself back to the Easter experience. However, most serious Catholic theologians are not so simplistic in their approach; they should be permitted to go on with their important work, which is not sufficiently advanced yet to find its way into a catechism such as this. Whatever the results of their efforts, however, we are still going to have to believe in someone who is "human like us" and still "something more than human." 

2. Did Jesus expect the imminent end of the world? This question has become especially important because some early twentieth-century writers-most notably, the famous Albert Schweitzer-insisted that Jesus was nothing more than an eschatological teacher preparing his followers for an end of the world that he thought was close at hand. This idea continues to exist in the popular imagination even though most scholars now reject it in its most simple form. It is clear that there was widespread expectation of the imminent end in the religious thinking (pagan as well as Jewish) during the time of Jesus. It is also quite clear that many of the followers of Jesus, men of their own era that they were, gave an apocalyptic (end of the world) coloration to the way they handed on the teaching of Jesus. They were gravely disappointed when the world survived the destruction of Jerusalem. The scripture evidence for what Jesus thought is ambiguous. He spoke of both the kingdom already present in himself and of the kingdom yet to come. He resisted attempts to get him to define the "when" of the "yet to come." His sense of urgency was based more on the enormous opportunity the kingdom offered than on any sense of the temporal limitations to the possibility of response-other than those imposed by the shortness of human life. 

Still it is possible that he may have been enough of a man of his own time to have anticipated with his human knowledge a fulfillment of God's plan in the relatively near future. The ambiguity of the Scriptures results from the fact that we cannot be sure how much the followers of Jesus were reading their own culturally induced apocalyptic expectations into what Jesus actually said. The best of the recent** scholarly investigations (by Professor Norman Perrin, for example) seem to suggest that apocalyptic expectations were at an absolute minimum in the preaching of Jesus himself--thus bringing us to almost the exact opposite position to that taken by Schweitzer. 

Note 

*In its original sense the word "sacrament" meant "something to reveal a great secret, a great mystery." 

**Web-Editor's comment: Keep in mind that "recent" refers to the early 1970s. 

This page will be updated whenever I become aware of errors. Please, send me any "scannos" or typos you find.