Glen Avon Presbyterian Church

“What Hope Springs Eternal?”

Rev. Lon Weaver

Where do we place our hopes? On what do we build our lives? The Minnesota Twins have great hopes that an investment of $184 million in Joe Mauer will lead to a World Series championship. Business and political leaders of the city of Duluth hope that the latest, soon-to-be-completed hockey temple/concert venue will make the city more attractive to performers and fans in and beyond our region. Upon such a strategy, the hope for a renewed economy in the region is also built.

As I drove up Hawthorne Road this morning, I watched a dozen or so high school students make their way to East High School. It brought to mind the debates over the future of our school system and the competing visions of what can offer hope for the future of education in this region.

Each of these paths offers tenuous hope, not sure hope. They’re similar to weather in northeastern Minnesota. Even as one who has spent but a few years in this region, I know that a marvelously mild March does not guarantee that “winter” is over, whether or not the season of spring has technically begun. The region remains vulnerable to the onset of snowstorms. We may hope for spring weather, but tenuous hope can never spring eternal.

One of my favorite figures in the gospels is Thomas. Thomas took a sort of no-nonsense, all-illusions-barred approach to his relationship to Jesus. When Jesus decided it was time to enter Jerusalem, Thomas was the only follower who knew what was happening, saying to his fellow disciples, “‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’” (John 11:16) My one disappointment is that he—of all people—didn’t muster the courage to be arrested with Jesus. But, when resurrection did happen, Thomas was the one apostle who essentially said, “Prove it!” At that, Jesus invited him to touch his crucifixion wounds, and Thomas was moved to full hope and faith, “‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:28)

I like Thomas, because Thomas pushes us to test the hopes we assemble our lives around, to be honest about the stupidly frail places on which we’re tempted to place our ultimate hope. Thomas’ example pushes us to see earth-anchored hopes as futile and finite and undependable. The way of Thomas is to test everything, to ask whether it is life-giving rather than deadening, whether it is creative or destructive, whether it is loving or hateful. In short, the Thomas “approach” calls us to probe into reality to seek out windows into eternity. Only then can we experience the deep moments of life, moments when our spiritual thirst is quenched by the “‘spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’” (John 4:15) In so doing, we build upon the only hope which springs eternal. Amen.