Lenten Hope #5

The apostle Paul speaks of three things that abide and last: faith, hope, and love. He leaves no doubt that "the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13), but we cannot forget the other two. In some ways, they make love possible. It may also be true that love makes faith and hope possible. How do these three relate to each other and how is our Lenten hope involved?

Faith puts us in touch with the spiritual realities that lie behind our existence. These realities, though, cannot be defined in scientific terms, any more than love can fit into a concise definition. Paul tells us that "faith is the 'substance' or 'reassurance' of things hoped for" (Hebrews 11:1). Hope must be grounded in reality, or it is only dreaming. Faith tells us that human hope is grounded in what God intended in our creation.

Love is the spirit that flows between God and people and also from one person to another, when we live in God's ways. Just as a fire exists by burning and a stream exists by flowing, so love exists in God's acceptance of us, in the human response of thanksgiving and in the caring inter-relatedness of people with one another. Love is both fire and flow, the movement of God's spirit in our midst.

Hope then, completes the picture. Combining God's eternal plan with human mutuality, hope is the animating force that makes progress possible. Hope is forward momentum. Hope envisions a good future and makes plans to achieve it. Hope is the season of Spring reaching into every life throughout the year. Grounded in faith, enabled by love, hope builds the new life that God planned for us and that humans seek.

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. ~Colossians 1:3-6