I was struck by a phrase in one of the readings from the Bible in our church service today.
Zechariah chapter 9 verse 12 addresses God's people as 'prisoners of hope'
What a strange phrase. Captive to hope.
What the world needs now is .... well yes, love sweet love ... but sometimes more than that, we need hope. But often, hope is in short supply. We don't have the resources within ourselves to hope.
For the person of faith in God, being a captive to hope means, I think, that we are bound to hope, whatever is happening. It's a precondition of our faith that somehow hope cannot be torn loose from whatever is being faced. Somehow, faith hope and love are so tied together that like it or not, even believe it or not, we have got to have hope.
It's what drives people to bring about change even when the odds are stacked against them. It's what made Martin Luther King Jr. able to say "So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream."
Today, whatever you are facing, may you have hope in a change to come
And today, as a world in need of hope, may we see clearly and with joy that we are prisoners of hope.
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