Letzte Hoffnung in der Wüste

Having received visitors this last week, a small gift was tendered wrapped in newspaper. It was no insult to receive the gift in newspaper, for it is the gift that matters not the wrapping in which it comes, unless of course you are under three years old when you want to play with the wrapping and the boxes more than the gift. The newspaper was not the kind of newspaper that you would find in the chippie, it was actually quite good quality paper, it was crisp and pleasing to the touch, and certainly gave the impression that the ink would not soon be found on your hands if you handled it, so clearly it derived from a news outlet that thought rather more of its output than that it was merely ephemeral.

That impression was reinforced by the words that were so clearly visible on the paper as it had been folded, and they had been left revealed: Hoffnung in der Wüste. This I concluded was a serious paper with a serious intent and reflected well upon the character of our visitors. This was not an article about Gerard Hoffnung, or an extract from Hoffning’s Tales. Hope in the Wilderness was the title. What was it about? I wondered. What was the hope, and what was the wilderness? Was the wilderness a symbolic wilderness, a representation of the society in which we live? What was the hope? How was the hope to be had? Perhaps there are many things that trouble you about our society, for all of its optimism, there is much that leaves us asking Why? The recent tremors in Anatolia rather diminish the troubles we see in the Hesperos.

Sadly, as the unwrapping proceeded it became clear that the intent of the article was not quite what the premonition had suggested. A word had been concealed. The title was not Hoffnung in der Wüste, but rather Letzte Hoffnung in der Wüste – the last hope. It was not so much an expression of hope as of despair. How quickly our hopes can be dashed in this world. A mere addition of a word changes everything. In a few hours or days our plans may be brought crashing down, and not for anything that we had done. Even more the mood was changed when the strap line of the article was revealed: Eine göttliche Komödie. And, no, that is nothing to do with Komodo dragons. Your first thought was correct, it is a comedy. There was no serious intent either in the article itself, or in the thing that it was describing. Could we fall further? Well, it is not wholly kosher, and perhaps then not at all kosher, and neither is it halal. But what does that matter? As the Lord said a man is not defiled by what goes into the mouth, but by what comes out of it, for what comes out of it proceeds from his heart, whether it is good words or evil words. Have you tried to stop the evil words coming out? Try it. Even stopping the smallest ones is quite tricky. It will quickly show what the heart is really like. And if the heart is like that we really do need a good hope. We do not want a last hope, for the last hope will be no better than any of the other false hopes in which we have pinned our success.

There is a hope, which is wholly kosher, it is the hope of Israel. It is the hope in which God subjected the whole of creation to its present state, in order that in due time it would be restored to a glory far greater than has ever been known. ¹God has promised that as a result of the work of his Son, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

We have this hope in Jesus Christ of a new world which cannot be shaken. It is a sure and certain hope, not an empty hope or the last hope of the man in the wilderness, but in a sense it is the last hope for in the fulfilment of this hope we shall receive what has been promised, and there shall be no need of hope any more.

Hebrews 12:26-27 …now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.’ Now this, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.