The Spirit of Hope

Confident Hope Faith Gives Us Hope Live in the light of God (Isaiah 2:5)    Hope Eternal 1 Corinthians 1:16-25 The Message 13-16 I ask you, “Has the Messiah been chopped up in little pieces so we can each have a relic all our own? Was Paul crucified for you? Was a single one of you baptized in Paul’s name?” I was not involved with any of your baptisms—except for Crispus and Gaius—and on getting this report, I’m sure glad I wasn’t. At least no one can go around saying he was baptized in my name. (Come to think of it, I also baptized Stephanas’s family, but as far as I can recall, that’s it.) 17 God didn’t send me out to collect a following for myself, but to preach the Message of what he has done, collecting a following for him. And he didn’t send me to do it with a lot of fancy rhetoric of my own, lest the powerful action at the center—Christ on the Cross—be trivialized into mere words. 18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way to salvation, it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written, I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I’ll expose so-called experts as shams. So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation. 22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.” For Reflection Have you ever engaged in worship in a "quaint church?" I have, but not often.  I define a quaint church as one where the preacher can't preach, the organist can't play, and the choir can't sing, and yet, the congregation's spirit was joyful and engrossing. In such circumstances, the power of the Holy Spirit was evident in the sincerity of their humble worship. They belonged to God and each other. From Paul's writings, we can see that the early church was confronted with the same challenges in the jungle of humanity. There are diverse opinions on who to follow, how to worship, and how to discover Love's path through treacherous turns of conventional wisdoms. Yet, what many consider stupid, a God-centered practitioner of Love understands that this is the way God works. The proclamation of Christ by the actions in which one engages empowers the powerless. The hope of humankind lies not in the exercise of common wisdom. Instead, our hope lies in the practice of the paradox. Pray Pray act with abandonment on the love of God. For the love of God, act in unreasonable the God will provide power and courage to traverse the sinews of the jungle. Forward to a friend