Holding Fast to Hope
By Lindsay Watson
“Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:23).
I know this is a devotional about hope, but let’s be honest, hope, faith, and love are intertwined, and it’s difficult to delve into one concept without touching the others. So I’m going to start with love.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the current state of Christianity. It seems that, at least in the eyes of many, Christian has become synonymous with hypocrite. I understand that the Christians who are garnering national attention right now aren’t representative of the whole, but I’ve also spoken with enough Christians, and attended enough churches, to know that we’re allowing our biases to dictate our faith, our words, and our actions. How can we claim to follow the teaching of Christ to love our neighbors (Matt. 22:39) when so many Christians are choosy about which neighbors they love?
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King, Jr. criticized the white churches of his time for staying silent in the face of segregation. He writes that he “... watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid [the] nation of racial and economic injustice, [he] heard many ministers say: ‘Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.’” Sadly, not much has changed. Today, I think there are mixed reactions among Christians to social injustice and Jesus’ commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.” There are those who are uncomfortable accepting people who are different from them (be they a different race, nationality, income level, gender, or orientation), so like the Christians of the 1960s, they stay silent when they see injustice. There are those who openly ostracize others, allowing their ideology to supersede their theology. And finally, there are those, a seeming minority, like many of the people I’ve met at St. John, who truly love their neighbors – all of their neighbors – and because of this, face the scorn of fellow Christians.
Here’s where hope comes into play. As some of you know, I teach high school English. Through essays, speeches, class discussions, seminars, and one-on-one conversations, I get a pretty in-depth look at what the younger generation believes. Some of my students are Atheists. Some are Christians. A few are Muslim. One is Jewish. Despite their theological differences, nearly all of them acknowledge and are infuriated by the injustice they witness, and they are standing up for what they believe in. Sometimes this is through testimony at School Board meetings. Sometimes this is through opinion pieces submitted to the ADN. Sometimes this is through volunteering at agencies that allow them to help those who are suffering. The younger generation is far less judgmental than the older one, and when given agency, they are powerful.
So, I have hope. I have hope because God is faithful. I have hope that we can love and cherish one another despite our differences. I have hope that the minority voice in the church can become the majority, and Christians will once again be known for their love.
Heavenly Father, we ask that you’ll guide our thoughts, words, and actions so that they glorify you and demonstrate your love for ALL people. Let us speak and act in ways so that others will know we are Christians by our love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
St. John member Lindsay Watson is an English teacher at South High School.