Hoping for Resurrection

Maybe it's just March.

Now, I am not superstitious, but the last several weeks have just been debilitatingly (I know that's not really a word) exhausting, somewhat in terms of work but mostly emotionally. I wrote below about losing one of the students I loved most dearly; at the same time, multiple other students have been going through various unconnected personal crises that seep into their lives in the classroom as individuals and as a grade. Given the general instability of teenagers and their "group mentality," with this many individuals in unpredictable circumstances I've felt walking into class everyday like I'm walking into a battlezone -- I have no idea what's about to get lobbed at me. I haven't felt quite this nervous about classroom dynamics since October so, needless to say, it's been discouraging. Not to mention that apart from concerns for myself, I am extremely worried for my students. On top of all that, we are in standardized testing season for English, and I'm starting to feel the pressure. I had not realized quite how deeply it was all affecting me until this weekend, when I did absolutely nothing productive except sleep for three days straight -- and I still woke up exhausted and tense Monday morning. Sigh.

It just occurred to me today (incidentally, a relatively good day at work -- a bit of a respite) that I felt exactly this kind of exhaustion and bewilderment at exactly this time last year. The circumstances were completely different -- this time last year, my stressors were the fact that I was home in the middle of a busy semester at school for my dad's surgery, I knew I was about to graduate and leave friends and I did not feel ready, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life -- but the general "abandon hope; just grit your teeth and try to make it through" emotion was there, too.

Truth is, I don't really believe it has anything to do with March, but the similarity occurred to me because I was reading someone else's blog post about how appropriate it was to be mourning during Lent, and I thought, "Oh, I'm there -- how fitting." And then I distinctly remembered hearing a similar talk last year (maybe in a sermon) and having the same reaction. While I want to shy away from saying that this somehow signifies that God has it in for me during Lent (although the thought did cross my mind), I do wonder if he allows me to experience these things at this time to remind me that the suffering of life in a broken world is real...but so is the hope.

The hope is the resurrection. It's coming, but not yet. Or, to put it more directly, it came in Jesus, but it has not yet fully come in my life. It has not yet fully come in the world. But just as surely as the time to commemorate it will come at the end of this season of Lent, the time when there is redemption of all things that seem now unredeemed (or unredeemable) will come. We talked in my community group this week about what it means to be "peacemakers," which seems, on its surface, to be the most agreeable beatitude. (I mean, who doesn't want peace -- in theory?) But by the end of the night, we had all agreed that it was probably the hardest beatitude to embody because it requires so completely the heart of Christ for those who have wronged us, and a hope in Christ in the midst of situations that inherently seem the least hopeful. Someone in my community group pointed out, though, that at his worst moment of suffering -- as he was dying on the cross -- Jesus did not give in to hopelessness or lash out but was instead a peacemaker. He prayed that God would forgive those who were wronging him -- not after the pain had subsided, not after he'd had some time to process, not when he could see the resurrection on the horizon -- but in the very moment that he was being turned against completely by both humanity and God, in the moment when redemption seemed farthest, he brought redemption closest by loving us. And becuase he did, we now have the hope of the resurrection even in the darkest moments.

After community group I read the following quote that seemed related because it reminded me of just how deep our hope is even in--or, perhaps, especially in--the darkest places, so I'll end with thoughts smarter than my own. (The quote is from Frederick Buechner. To avoid any pretense, let me be clear that I'm pretty sure Buechner was a pretty smart guy, but I don't know much more about him, and I haven't actually read anything besides this quote that he wrote. Like most really smart quotes I discover, I just found this in another book, and I liked it.) The quote reads:

The love for equals is a human thing -- of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely.

The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing -- the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing -- to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy -- love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.