The Door of Hope

ON THE FIRST DAY of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here: He has risen!" (Luke 24:1-6).

IMAGINE what the women must have felt as they heard the best news the world. This news was given to the women who were followers of Jesus.

In so many of the gospel stories that are familiar to us, women were behind the scenes -- always there, always present, always faithful -- but always behind the scenes and never mentioned by the men who were the principal actors. On that first Easter morning, the women were present at great risk to themselves. They were at the grave of a convicted political criminal who had just been crucified. Guards were posted at the tomb who could easily report the identities of any followers or supporters of this one whom they had killed and whose movement they now hoped to crush.

The risk of the women is made even more dramatic by the realization that the rest of the disciples were all laying low. The men were hiding, paralyzed by grief and fear.

I think of the women at the tomb when I think of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Latin America, who in country after country were the ones who -- when things were at their worst, when the violence of military-ruled countries was most grotesque, when the suffering was so horrible -- came out time and time again and stood alone before the military and before the world, testifying for their loved ones, and for the truth.

We have seen it in so many places -- El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Argentina, as well as Northern Ireland. When things get rough, when things are at their worst, when everyone else flees or is in hiding, very often it is the women who stand up, offering themselves, becoming completely vulnerable as they submit to the risk of death. That is indeed their strength and their power.

SO HERE IN THE resurrection event is the pivotal moment in all history. The male disciples have fled and are hiding, and only the women are left. And they come not without fear, the gospel story tells us, but they come out of love and faith. They were faithful to Jesus in all of his life, and in his death, and now even after his death. Out of their love for him, they are going to minister to him even at the tomb.

For their loving perseverance and courage, these women are rewarded with the honor of being entrusted with the most important and best news in the history of the world. These women, and many women who have come after them, can rightly be called history's midwives of hope. And they become for us, on the resurrection morning of Easter, the primary example in the story of what we too are called to be -- midwives of hope.

What does it mean to be a midwife of hope? The word hope is so often used in ways that are mostly mystical or rhetorical -- politically or otherwise -- or so religious that the meaning escapes the world. It somehow escapes the reality in which we have to live.

Hope becomes a feeling, or a mood, or an inspired moment that is lived somehow above the painful and the dull agonies of history. We're down here living in it all, and someone says, "Well, you have to have hope." And right away we think, "I'm supposed to feel something I'm not feeling -- to get into a mood that isn't natural to me. I need to rise above this daily reality somehow and be hopeful." But the more I wrestle with this word "hope," the more I am convinced that we must see hope in a different, and indeed a more biblical, way.

You see, hope is not simply a feeling, or a mood, or a rhetorical flourish. Hope is the very dynamic of history. Hope is the engine of change. Hope is the energy of transformation. Hope is the door from one reality to another.

Things that seem possible, reasonable, understandable, even logical in hindsight -- things that we can deal with, things that don't seem extraordinary to us -- often seemed quite impossible, unreasonable, nonsensical, and illogical when we were looking ahead to them. The changes, the possibilities, the opportunities, the surprises that no one or very few would even have imagined, just become history after they've occurred. What looked before as though it could never happen is now easy to understand.

In hindsight we can see how everything fell into place, and that it was quite natural, quite reasonable that it would happen. It was a matter of time. It was inevitable, at least it seems that way in hindsight. Inevitable in hindsight and impossible in foresight.

BETWEEN IMPOSSIBILITY AND possibility, there is a door -- the door of hope. And the possibility of a transformation of history lies through that door.

The news from the women at the tomb was the greatest hope that the world has ever known. And yet what did the disciples call it? "Nonsense." On one side of the door, it is nonsense. On the other side of the door, it is the best news the world has ever heard. And the door inbetween is hope.

Hope unbelieved is always considered nonsense. But hope believed is history in the process of being changed. The nonsense of the resurrection became the hope that shook the Roman Empire and established the Christian movement. The nonsense of slave songs in Egypt and Mississippi became the hope that let the oppressed go free. The nonsense of a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, became the hope that transformed a nation.

The nonsense of women's meetings became the hope that brought suffrage and a mighty movement that demanded equality with men. The nonsense of the uneducated, the unsophisticated, the rabble, became the hope that created industrial unions, farm worker cooperatives, campesino collectives, and a myriad of popular organizations that challenge and sometimes defeat monopolies of wealth and power.

The nonsense of oppressed people were the prayers that became the hope that brought down Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. And the nonsense talk of young people often becomes the hope that challenges and even halts the devastation of war.

In each case the gains, the victories, the transformations seemed impossible at first, and only become possible by stepping through the door of hope. And for us, for Christians, the resurrection of Jesus unlocks the door of hope and makes every kind of change possible. That's why Christians and religious people have often been the first ones to walk through the door of hope. Because to walk through that door of hope, first you have to see it. And then you have to believe that there is something on the other side of the door.

Now, not everyone can see the door. And most people can't imagine anything on the other side. And we know that those who walk through the door must also be prepared to suffer and even to die, because the door of hope always leads from one reality to another.

History tells us again and again that we can't move from one reality to another without cost. It's never easy. It's not without pain or suffering. And it's always hardest for the first few who walk through the door.

After the first few go through the door of hope, then others can follow more easily. And that is how historical transformation takes place. After a while, it becomes easier to walk through, until finally it's history, and everyone forgets how hard it was. We also often forget the people for whom it was hardest, the people who first walked through the door.

This is also how personal transformation takes place. We can't imagine ourselves different than we are today or healed of that which binds and afflicts us. We can't imagine ourselves forgiven. We can't imagine our own salvation. But when we walk through that door of hope, and we look back at where we have been and where we are now, we see evidence of the grace of God.

THE RESURRECTION IS a door of hope, and Jesus showed us that the resurrection comes by way of a cross. Suffering and hope are always joined in human history. The cost of moving from one reality to another -- in our personal lives and in history -- is always great. But it is the only way to walk through the door of hope.

History depends on those who are willing to walk through that door, those who live and act and even die in hope for the sake of the future they know by faith is there. Those such as the women at the tomb who, because they were there, because they were willing to walk through that door, were given the news of the resurrection. Isn't that a wonderful thing? They were given the news of the resurrection because they opened the door for all the rest of us.

On Easter morning we stand on the knowledge of the resurrection. We stand on the faith of those who have been given the news of the resurrection before us, as they have walked through the doors of hope time and time again.

Because of that faith, because of their legacy, we can stand here and say that it is not nonsense to believe that we can be healed of all of our hurts and fears and pains. It is not nonsense to believe that our marriages and families can be restored and reconciled. It was not nonsense to believe that peace would come to Central America, and that justice and freedom would come to South Africa.

It is not nonsense to believe that decent and affordable housing will be available to the poor of this city. It is not nonsense to believe that the drugs and alcohol and crime that destroy many of the youth of this city will not do so forever.

It is not nonsense to believe that nuclear weapons are not necessary, and that war is not inevitable. It is not nonsense to believe that a child's race and class and sex will not always determine their future share of happiness and well-being. It is not nonsense to believe that we who have been divided from each other can, and will, one day sit down together at the welcome table of God's love and God's grace.

These are not nonsense thoughts. With the Easter eyes of resurrection faith, we can see the door through which we too can walk, through which we are invited. Walking through that door, we also will be given the news of the resurrection.

And with this hope, brothers and sisters, we can know our sins forgiven, and our lives made whole. We can look into the faces of our children and believe there is a future for them.

With this hope we can look into the eyes of the poor, the suffering, and the dispossessed and believe that God is able to establish justice for all. With this hope we can together build a new community of faith even in our own neighborhood that will someday overcome the barriers of race and class and sex. And with this hope we can even look forward to a day when our nation no longer measures its security by its weapons, and its status by its wealth.

With this hope we can envision an America finally able to live without racism and without oppression, but no longer able to live without justice and compassion. With this hope we can plan and sow and build and create visions and dreams. And with this hope we can find the faith and the courage to bear the cost of such possibilities.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!" Amen.

Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.