Hope in the Midst of Chaos

I’ve recently been learning about something that counselors call “compassion fatigue.” Compassion fatigue is something that “first responders” often experience – people like firefighters, police officers, and EMTs who are the first people on the scene at a natural disaster, a shooting, or terrorist attack. When you look at someone with compassion fatigue, they often have a glazed-over look in their eyes and they’re kind of staring off into the distance as if they’re in utter disbelief and shock about what they’ve just seen. Often, it leads to feeling like their job is pointless, that things are never going to change, and there’s nothing that they can do to help in such a dire situation.

Though most of us probably wouldn’t diagnose

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ourselves with compassion fatigue, I at least, can easily identify with those feelings. You only need to turn on a TV, look at a newspaper or go online and you’re instantly overwhelmed with tragedy after tragedy. Whether it’s natural disasters like the fires in Colorado recently or the tornadoes in Oklahoma – or the evil that humans inflict on other humans, like the tragic murder of school children at Sandy Hook, the Boston bombing, or the shooting at Arapahoe High School – or maybe even the circumstances in our own lives that lead to feelings of hopelessness, depression, or loneliness, like being alone in a new city for the first time or the loss of a relationship, it’s enough to leave us feeling glazed over, numb, and hopeless in the midst of the chaos going on around us.

Though it’s impossible to know for sure why a good God would allow such suffering, the alternative that most people turn to is to deny the existence of God. But doing so means that there is no such thing as good and evil since there is no longer any moral standard in the universe, and there is no possible redemptive reason for what we perceive as suffering – it’s just life, it just is. Everything is utterly meaningless. I for one can’t even fathom trying to deal with times of tragedy and crisis with that kind of belief system – or lack there of.

           

One of the unique things about the Christian worldview is that the Bible describes some instances of suffering as leading to our growth as individuals, and it even says that God is able to bring good out of any situation for those that love Him. But ultimately, Christianity tell us that we have a reason for hope even in the midst of pain and suffering because death and destruction will not have the final word – and it’s that hope that I wish to remind us of.

           

So where are we to find hope when it sometimes feels like the world around us is spinning out of control? One place that many people look for hope is in politics. Especially when Obama was first running for president, it seemed like many people were, whether a good thing or not, inspired by the prospect of change. One of his campaign slogans, which can still be seen on car bumpers everywhere, was the question, “Got Hope?” Others find hope in sports teams and the diversions of entertainment or in their careers or relationships. Still others have placed their hope in human progress – the idea that given enough time, humans will continue to evolve and progress to the point that evil no longer manifests itself. 

But come on, read the comment sections of YouTube videos and online articles or listen to Justin Bieber’s music and tell me you really think the human race is moving toward perfection! Seriously though, the theory of human progress is a myth that few people give much credibility to anymore. So if all of these things offer little real, enduring hope, what’s left?

The book of Isaiah beautifully depicts the prospect of hope and a better future in the midst of some of the greatest pain and suffering imaginable. If you’re unfamiliar with the Old Testament, these books of the Bible take us through the story of Israel, from the calling of Abraham, to exile and slavery in Egypt, to the exodus out of Egypt into the promised land, and the split of Israel into two kingdoms – the North, simply called Israel, and the South, called Judah. It’s here that we pick up the events being described in Isaiah. Most scholars conclude that the first 39 chapters of Isaiah describe the situation during the prophet Isaiah’s own lifetime, around 742-701 BC. After several years of relative peace, Assyria was growing in power. Therefore, the northern kingdom, Israel, made a pact with Syria to protect themselves from the Assyrians, and through their alliance, they sought to pressure Judah into also aligning with them. Isaiah, a prophet, assured the king of Judah of God’s ability to protect the southern kingdom without needing to make an alliance, but instead, the king decided to make a pact with Assyria.

What follows in the first 39 chapters is Isaiah’s warning against trusting in worldly power – horses and chariots and armies – rather than the Lord. But as we’ll see, despite Isaiah’s prophecies about the impending judgment that will come upon Judah and the nations of the earth due to their sin and rejection of God, there are beautiful glimpses of hope and God’s mercy and grace, pointing ahead to the person of Jesus Christ and God’s ultimate cure to the problem of evil and sin. Let’s pick it up in Isaiah 25.

“On this mountain the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine – the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. In that day, they will say, ‘Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.’” –Isaiah 25:6-9

So let’s break this down a bit.

Verse 6 – a feast is described, prepared by the Lord. In the Ancient Near East, the audience that Isaiah is speaking to, this type of banquet was customary when a new king was being crowned. Indeed, the King of Kings is here being crowned once and for all. Some versions say that “rich food,” or “fat food” is being served – the type of food normally reserved for sacrifice to God, but here, it’s God who plays host and is serving the choicest of foods to his people – and as the text says, “all peoples,” from all over the world. Those who have placed their face in Jesus Christ are gathered together from the ends of the earth to share in this meal and the crowning of the King.

Verse 7 – describes a veil that is cast over all people, and in order to celebrate and enjoy the feast, this covering must be destroyed or swallowed up. As verse 8 describes, that veil is death. Though all people die, death will one day be destroyed and will no longer have the final word.

(Verse 8) – as we continue on in verse 8, Isaiah paints the picture of a merciful God “wiping away tears from all faces” – showing us that God is touched by everything that breaks our hearts, even death, and it is his purpose to do away with all of it. We will no longer mourn the loss of loved ones and all that is unjust and evil will be annihilated. As one scholar, Walter Brugemann describes, “The most characteristic accent of this poetry is the assertion that the present world system – which is arrogant and endlessly exploitative and which creates profound hardship for God’s people – is under assault from God and will be brutally nullified.”

We’ll come back to the end of this chapter as we wrap things up, but let’s briefly look ahead one chapter to Isaiah 26:19 and we’ll see even more explicitly how Isaiah describes God’s ultimate victory over death and evil.

“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”  -Isaiah 26:19

Again, what in the world is Isaiah talking about? Bodies rising? The earth giving birth to the dead? Quite simply, Isaiah is describing the ultimate hope of glory, that all of God’s people will one day be raised from the dead to live eternally with Christ when He returns and restores the Earth. And in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we see the foreshadowing of this event.

But why in the midst of all that the Israelites are going through would Isaiah talk about this? Why now? I would suggest that Isaiah is pointing ahead to the hope of resurrection and the life of Jesus in order to give the Israelites, and to give us, a glimpse of God’s plan for redeeming sinful human beings and dealing with the chaos that we’re constantly surrounded by. Resurrection – not the mere removal of pain or suffering – is God’s answer to their suffering and despair, and our suffering and despair. He doesn’t simply remove it or change circumstances but God himself becomes intimately involved and proves himself capable of and willing to deal with the problem at its root, once and for all.

As we head toward the finish line, let's go back and look at Isaiah 25:9.

The description is of a people who have patiently waited for God’s action and provision in the midst of their suffering and pain, a pain that Isaiah describes as being forcibly removed from their homes, losing loved ones, seeing their city destroyed, and being carried away to a foreign country - yet they’ve come out of it rejoicing and celebrating the installment of the world’s rightful King, and the destruction of death and evil.

But we’re not quite there yet, are we…for now, we’re the ones who must patiently wait for Christ’s return which is in a lot of ways, the most difficult place to be – knowing the end of the story, that God is victorious and that death will be destroyed – and having to somehow patiently wait. But “waiting” doesn’t simply mean to do nothing here. It is in some sense, still very active since we are called to trust God moment by moment in our waiting. So in the meantime, what does that look like for us as we await Christ’s return? And what do the resurrection and this future event seen in Isaiah mean for us?

Five thoughts…

      1)   Live with an eternal perspective – it’s so easy to get caught up in the details of day-to-day living and completely miss the trajectory of how God is working in the world. What are we doing with our time, money, and careers, and in our relationships to further the Kingdom of God? Are we fulfilling our own life missions or are we working to further the mission of God in the world? The reality is that not everything that we do with our lives matters and will have an eternal impact, so are we living for ourselves and our own goals or ambitions, or are we living in a way that reflects who God is to the rest of the world? Using the illustration from Isaiah, as you picture yourself sitting down at this feast and looking around at all of the other believers gathered together from every nation, who did you bring with you?

      2)   Our labor is not in vain - Paul elaborates on the resurrection and what it means for our lives in 1 Corinthians 15, and he concludes the chapter by saying, “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.” So as we wait for Christ to return and God to do away with evil and suffering, we are to be steadfast, immovable, and to do the work of the Lord, knowing that our work is not in vain and that what we do with our lives matters. Again, we know that history ends in God’s victory, and in the here and now, we get to be a part of what He’s doing in the world to bring love, justice, and hope to others in the midst of their own pain. So trust God day by day and proclaim the gospel boldly.

      3)   Though life is hard and often painful, a royal feast awaits us –

2 Corinthians 4:16-17 says, “Do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.” Though Paul had been flogged mercilessly, imprisoned, beaten with rods, stoned, and shipwrecked, he considered his pain and suffering “light” and “momentary” compared to what awaited him – an eternity spent with God in a resurrected, glorified body.

      4)   Feelings of depression and hopelessness are temporary, untrue, and do not have to define us. Speaking very honestly, I myself experience bouts of depression every so often where I don’t really want to leave the house, I feel apathetic, and life seems pointless. But as Paul says at the end of 1 Corinthians 15, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We know the end that history is moving toward and the lengths that God went to in order to call us His sons and daughters – and we can have confidence that life really does matter, I really do matter to God, you really matter, and we can look forward to an eternity in Heaven with Him – it’s this thought that often gets me through those kinds of days.

      5)   A relationship with Jesus is our only hope - Let’s not get lost in all the details of the end times and bodies being raised and miss the fact that a relationship with Jesus is our only source of true, enduring hope. When I gave my life to Christ as a freshman in college, I didn’t know much about the Bible or about the Christian faith, but I believed that the Gospel that I was hearing about for the first time was true –

That God loves me and desires a relationship with me but my sin separated me from him. So God came down to us in the flesh to live as a human in the person of Jesus Christ, to live a sinless life, and to die undeservingly on a cross only to be raised back to life three days later so that my sins might be forgiven if I place my faith in Him and devote my life to him. And through a relationship with Jesus and the power of the resurrection, I am also given the power to change even the most deep-seeded areas of sin in my life. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives within me and I am no longer in bondage to sin!

Hearing that Gospel, I decided in that moment that Jesus was my only hope at living a meaningful, significant life and the life that I was created to live. If you’re someone who goes back and forth on this whole Christianity thing or has never seriously investigated the claims of Christ and the truths of Christianity, I plead with you to do so, draw a line in the sand, and to figure out where you stand. As it says in 2 Peter 3, part of the reason that Christ has not yet returned to bring to fulfillment all that He has promised is that God desires that none may perish but He is patient with us that we might put our trust in Him. So are you going to put your hope in a mighty God who has the power and desire to raise the dead and to redeem even the worst things that will happen to us in life so that we do not suffer in vain, or are you going to put your hope in something or someone else?

-CK