Faith, hope and charity – the traditional formulation of the three cardinal virtues. Like the four classical elements, earth, air, fire and water, which were thought to make up the physical world, the Christian life was built from faith, hope, and charity. And just as the elements are bound together to make up the world, so the virtues are bound together to make up our Christian life.
Today’s readings all revolve around the hope element of our trinity of virtues. Although they view it from very different perspectives they all drive home the same fundamental point – hope is based not on anything that people do, even rich and powerful people who seem to be in control of everything, hope is based on our relationship with God.
The fullness of that relationship is called heaven. Heaven transcends the challenges of poverty, of distress, of exclusion. It’s not some other place we get catapulted into when we die. It’s our trust in a God who loves us, independent of our circumstances. We can have that trust now, we can be in heaven now. Because of that hope death is irrelevant. That’s why the martyrs could be happy, they were already in heaven, they had already entered fully into that relationship with God. Death was irrelevant.
Holding on to that sort of hope is not easy when you are poor or distressed or hated. But Jesus went through death to demonstrate the power of that relationship with God. That power is based on reorienting our lives totally towards God and away from the things that we naturally seek: comfort, wealth, praise. Those who lack those things will likely find it easier to rely entirely on God, those who have them face a greater challenge.
Next week our readings will address some of the implications of the orientation of our lives to God – what does that mean for the way we behave. But for this week let’s focus on getting our bearings, knowing where we’re starting from. As Jeremiah pointed out way before the time of Jesus:
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, he is like a tree planted beside the waters. It fears not the heat when it comes, in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.