Hoping Against Hope

What does it mean to hope against hope? The phrase comes from Romans 4:18, where Paul describes the faith of Abraham "Who against hope believed in hope" (Romans 4:18) that he would yet be the father of many nations even though he was 100 years old. For all intents and purposes, by any rational or logical or even biological standpoint, any hope that Abraham and Sarah had of bringing a child into the world should have long been extinguished, the oil burnt up, the wick crumbled, the lamp cracked and dusty and all but forgotten. But Abraham and Sarah held onto that lamp. The warm flickering glow of hope that their prayers would be answered in a time and manner of their own choosing may have gone out years or even decades ago but they did not throw away the lamp. Hoping against hope means holding onto our lamp even after we run out of oil and the flame goes out and it's been so long that we can't even remember what the light looks like. Hoping against hope means even when we're drowning in the middle of a hurricane, we hold onto our candlestick because we believe that even if at present the winds howl and the waves smother us and there is no hope of lighting our candle even with an acetylene blow torch, nevertheless, we will one day be dry and calm and sheltered enough to light it once more. Hope isn't just the light but the container for the light. It may seem silly to lug around a flashlight with dead batteries, but not half so silly as finally finding fresh batteries but no longer having a flashlight to put them in. Even if it doesn't make any sense, even if we think we don't have room for it in our lives, even if looking at the dark and burnt out candle that is hope fills us with bitterness for reminding us of all of the broken promises and shriveled dreams, we have to hold on. We have to believe in the dusty lamp, the melted candle stub, the flashlight with the rusty batteries. We have to believe in the promise that that which has been darkened can be made light again, that which has been broken can be made whole again, that which has been killed can be made alive again. We have to hope against hope that when the darkness is so penetrating that even the light of our hope goes out, yet even in darkness our hope remains, solid, undeniable, an anchor for our souls. It takes courage and faith and especially humility to carry an unlit torch for miles and years without ever a match or a lighter or even the tiniest of sparks in sight, but we can hope against hope that we have not carried our light source all this time and all this way for nothing. In the end, our torch will once more blaze forth with the perfect brightness of hope, and we will fall to our knees with tears of gratitude in our eyes, praising the mercy and the kindness and the goodness of God that we did not throw away our hope when it had become darkened and seemingly useless, but persevered and carried our hope through the darkness until it could be lit once more with the Heavenly light of joyous hope once more.