God of Green Hope by Suria Scholtz
I don’t know what you are waiting for. I do not know what your children are wishing for. I don’t know the challenges family and friends are facing or the issues you grapple with at work. What I do know is that we all need hope and with that I mean Christian hope – in all of its expressions, nuances and interpretations. So much wider than mere optimism, so much deeper than just a bulldog mentality, so much more than just keeping the chin up, hope is found in our faith.
As a child and young woman, I always wondered about Paul’s emphasis on faith, hope, and love in his first letter to the Corinthians. I understood faith, a fundamental concept to our human existence, and as a Christian, I understood love – the reason our Father sent Jesus, His only begotten son! But what was hope doing in this trilogy of giants or as the Amplified version calls them – ‘the choicest graces?’
And then someone close to me lost hope – all hope, and seeing someone you love that hopeless was scary to say the least! I never again thought of hope as an afterthought, accidentally squeezed in between faith and love! While hope is a very abstract concept in English, it is not so in Hebrew.
Called Tikvah, Strongs define it as: a chord, expectation and hope. The idea of tikvah as a thread or cord is perhaps best illustrated in Joshua 2: 17 – 19 (NIV).[1]
“Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.”
This blood-red chord creates a strong visual picture! Not only can we see it with our eyes, we can grab on to it, even cling to it – for hope is within everyone’s reach, also the prostitute, Rahab. In fact, when she tied that red cord to her window, she did it by faith – it was proof of things not seen, confirmation of everything she hoped for! You see, hope is an essential part of faith.
Secondly, we must not miss the connection between hope and the future. To Rahab and her family, this red cord meant life and powerfully communicated a tangible future. Four times in the Bible, tikvah (hope) is used in conjunction with the Hebrew word for future, akhareet, of which the most famous is certainly “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”[2]
Thirdly, there is a link between hope and waiting, for tikvah’s word of origin, kavah means to wait. Rahab had to wait for the spies’ promise that she and her family would be saved. Being patient and waiting for an answer or for a solution is very difficult for most of us.
Therefore, it is important that we hold on to God’s promises when doubt and uncertainty try to derail us. Whether we pray them, paint them, proclaim them or plait them into a cord – his promises are sure and steadfast, an anchor for the soul.
Thus, I pray today that the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope! [3] AMEN
[1] Strong’s Hebrew: 8616 (Tiqvah) biblehub.com ›
[2] Readingruth.wordpress.com (Tikvah: The Cord of Hope/A Close Reading and Translation …)
[3] Romans 15:13 in The Message
