LOOKING FOR HOPE

I have never been to the Holy Land but hope to get there some day. An old professor of mine said that once you have been there, once you have walked the highways and byways that Jesus walked, your life, and especially your preaching, will never be the same. You will be able to understand Scripture from a completely different perspective. After fifty₊ years of preaching, I hope I will not be too late when I finally arrive.

One of my clergy colleagues was fortunate to make such a trip. After he returned home, I  

asked him about his trip, what was most memorable. Aside from all the biblical and historical sights, he said what most impressed him were the people, especially the pilgrims like him who came to the Holy Land. He said that what they all seemed to be looking for was hope.

Looking for hope: a reason to make a pilgrimage to the holiest of cities, the birth place of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Pilgrims of every race and nationality and perhaps of every religion, and even those with no formal faith, all come. And, if my colleague is right, they all come for the same reason, whether they realize it or not: they come expectantly, looking to find something to hold on to, something to hope for, something to help make sense  out of their lives.

That is not to say that their lives are empty of meaning, that all who walk the streets of Jerusalem have lost any sense of meaning in their lives. That certainly is not true. But I think it is true to say that all of us, whether in the Holy Land or not, are looking for something. We may not know what it is that we are looking for, not able to describe or define it even to ourselves. If the truth be known, we are restless, never fully settled in our lives.

Those who go to the Holy Land deep down know why they are truly going: to find what they are restless for: God. As St. Augustine once said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, O Lord." People go to the Holy Land because there, more than anywhere else, there is that sense of the holy, of The Holy. And they hope to find that Holy, hope that in doing so they might be able to fill the void in their lives that they sense is there, that makes them restless.

We don't have to go the Holy Land to either look for or to find hope. And the Holy Land is not the only place in the world where hope can be found. God does not abide only in the Holy Land, in one place only. God lives and moves and has God’s being where we live and move and have our being. The Holy Land is special because it is God's special place. But wherever we are is special to God because that is where we are and that is where God is also.

Perhaps one becomes more aware of God in the Holy Land. I won’t argue with that having never been there. Perhaps what I need, perhaps what we all need to become more aware of God wherever we are. Then we will find, perhaps at last, the hope that we are looking for at that moment in time.