Hope That Is Beautiful, Dangerous & Good
Q: What do Jairus, the woman who’s been bleeding for twelve years, Stephen King, and Tim Robbins have to do with each other?
A: Just about everything, at least when it comes to hope.
Okay, here’s the backstory: After writing on “Hope as the Heart of the Christian Faith” a couple of weeks ago, a number of folks suggested that I watch the clip from The Shawshank Redemption (written by Stephen King and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman) on hope. I’d seen – and loved – the movie years ago, but had forgotten that scene. I’ve put it below for you to watch:
I think that’s right: hope is beautiful like a sonata from Mozart. It’s beautiful because it’s something that you can hold on to when you’ve lost everything else. And it’s beautiful because it’s something that creates possibilities that have very little do with your immediate circumstances, possibilities that stretch you beyond the confines of what you can imagine here and now.
But that’s also why hope is dangerous. It can disappoint you, let you down, even crush you if it turns out to be false.
Another way to think about Jairus and the woman who’s been bleeding for so long is that they are caught in the grips of a dangerous, beautiful hope. It is a hope born of desperation – a beloved daughter on the brink of death, a condition that has stretched on for what feels like forever.
But it’s not just desperation. It’s also possibility – the possibility that this man, Jesus, can do something, can make a difference, can heal. And that hope leads them to do things they’d otherwise have a hard time imagining: beg an itinerant teacher to come to your home, risk scorn and possibly far worse by venturing into the crowd to touch this rabbi.
Hope does that, it creates not just possibility but also energy and motivation…to act, to dare, to believe.
So maybe hope is that condition of being caught between beauty and danger, between possibility and despair, between freedom and fear.
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years from the “celebrity atheists” – Richard Dawkins and company – suggesting that religion offers people a false hope. The implication, stated often enough, is that we would be better off with no hope than a false one.
The part of me that is a realist appreciates that sentiment. Yet I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. What’s easy to forget when you’re comfortable, you see – and that includes me as much as Dawkins – is that life without hope is excruciatingly difficult. As long as there is hope, I think, there is life.
And so I’m willing to risk the possibility that my Christian faith is a false hope. Because, while I won’t know the outcome for some time, when the time comes I’d rather have spent my life living in the light of a good and honest hope – even if it ultimately turns out to be false – than live without hope and joy in the meantime. Which is why hope is not just beautiful and dangerous, but also good, the gift of the Giver of all good things.
And on that note, one more clip. Enjoy.
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I like the final scene and words from this film. Morgan Freeman says the word hope over and over again. Seems funny for a man who didn’t have hope to end up hoping for so much. Seems that hope has a way of multiplying and is contagious.
David,
The well was dry this week and you filled it with your helpful words from Shawshank Redemption. There is another line from the movie where Red repeats the words of Andy saying, “if you’re not busy livin’ your busy dying.”
I think this is also what it means to live with hope.
Thank you again.
I love your website. I find inspiration for my preaching regularly. Thank you so, so much for sharing your images, videos, thoughts, and learnings with us.
If you don’t mind me asking, where do you obtain the images you display on your website? For example, the image for the above post (hope)–where did you find it? I would love to be able to find and use many of the images you use in my sermon slides, etc.
Furthermore, you always seem to come up with new TED Talks to share, movie clips, YouTube clips, poems, etc. In contrast, I often feel stuck in finding such relevant illustrations for my preaching. Do you have any particular websites or resources that you could recommend to me? And in the case of things like TED Talks, how would you suggest finding the best, most appropriate content for use in preaching, teaching, etc.? When I go on the TED Talks website, it doesn’t take long before I feel overwhelmed by the quantity of material that I may need to sift through before I find a resource for my preaching (and sometimes all of that searching still fails to yield an illustration for the week).
Any comments, advice, or words of wisdom you might be able to offer will be GREATLY appreciated.
Thank you, again, for your leadership, ministry, and faithful witness to the Gospel.
Thanks so much for your note, Carrie.
As to the images, I usually just Google words that come to mind that are associated with the post until I find an image I like (sometimes it takes a while). If there is a copyright notice, I don’t use it, and if there’s any kind of attribution, I share that at the bottom of the post.
The TED site can be overwhelming, but I enjoy watching them so have gone through a number over the years. You can sign up for an email update that lets you know which new ones have gone up and you can mark the one or two that seem most interesting.
Two other sites I love are http://www.brainpickings.org and http://www.openculture.com. Whenever I find something at another site, I try to mention that somewhere along the way. Otherwise, when I stumble across interesting sites I put them in a “favorites” folder and browse from time to time. It can take a lot of time, but I enjoy the hunt. 🙂
Thanks again for writing, and blessings on your ministry!
David, I know I will always find hopeful, theologically sound and grounded messages from your posts, plus collegial camaraderie and encouragement. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You’re so very welcome, Laura. Thanks for writing!
great reference on hope