Book Review: The Hope of Glory

Information about the book

The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross by Jon Meacham.  Covergent Books, New York, 2020.  Amazon.

Summary

From Amazon:

For Jon Meacham, as for believers worldwide, the events of Good Friday and Easter reveal essential truths about Christianity. A former vestryman of Trinity Church Wall Street and St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, Meacham delves into that intersection of faith and history in this meditation on the seven phrases Jesus spoke from the cross.

Beginning with “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” and ending with “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” Meacham captures for the reader how these words epitomize Jesus’s message of love, not hate; grace, not rage; and, rather than vengeance, extraordinary mercy. For each saying, Meacham composes an essay on the origins of Christianity and how Jesus’s final words created a foundation for oral and written traditions that upended the very order of the world.

Writing in a tone more intimate than any of his previous works, Jon Meacham returns us to the moment that transformed Jesus from a historical figure into the proclaimed Son of God, worshiped by billions.

Impressions

I was surprised to see this book written by Jon Meacham. I've only read one other of his book, And There was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle.  That book is a biography, as are most of Meacham's books.  The idea of this book intrigued me, though, so I ordered it.

Each chapter is a short devotion or reflection on each of Jesus's last words. The content is engaging and thought-provoking. It comes from a place of faith, and isn't afraid to ask questions so that our faith and understanding can grow deeper. I thought it was excellent, and would make a great book study for discussion. I highly recommend it.

Posts about book

Meacham Hope 

Experiencing Forsakeness

I continued reading from the book The Hope of Glory by Jon Meacham. This book is a reflection on the seven last words of Jesus. This post is based on the chapter concerning Matthew 27: 46-47:

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Meacham writes: "...Jesus was fully briefed on his earthly mission, then how could his cry be taken literally? Why ask whether God has forsaken him? Why cry in pain when he must have known that resurrection lay ahead?"

I stopped reading the chapter to write this post; to share my thoughts about this rhetorical question.

Despite Jesus's knowledge of what is happening, and what is to come, and why this is part of his mission, he is still suffering a crucifixion. I think these words are an authentic and heart-felt expression of what is happening to him. He is in intense, unimaginable pain. These words tell us he felt forsaken - what a word! More than alone, more than abandoned. Forsaken - left alone.

I pray we all know that there is hope for us, that God is present with us, even this moment, and yet we also can know the pain of suffering. Knowledge of a future of hope does not eliminate the present pain of whatever is happening to us. The experience of pain, or loss, or forsakenness isn't eliminated by hope. I think we can endure because of the hope, but we still experience the "awfulness" of what is happening to us. Seeing that Jesus experienced the same not only tell us about the 100% of Jesus that was human, but reassures us that Jesus knows what our lives are like.

Of course Jesus's experience and words were authentic, even in the midst of hope. That is our experience, too.

Repentance as a Human Action

I visited a church I don't normally attend a few weeks ago. The minister's sermon was centered on repentance. His thesis was that repentance is an decision, not an emotion. He stated that God cannot save a person who is not repentant.

I was uncomfortable (and disagreed with) the belief that God is powerless to reach us if we are not repentant - if we are unable or unwilling to turn back to God. It seems to me that all of us ARE unable or unwilling to repent without the intercession of God. This is what grace is about. This is what mercy is about. The pastor's thesis, to me, makes God powerless, and negates not only the need for grace but the action of grace, motivated by God's mercy.

Today, the day after I heard that sermon, I read the following in Jon Meacham's book, The Hope of Glory:

Today you will be with Me in Paradise: God is all-powerful and far beyond our control and our comprehension. His mercy is available to all, even if the ways and means of grace remain mysterious, veiled from our eyes and our understandings.

To  me, the pastor I heard preach on Sunday not only negates the power of God, but also, without humility, fails to understand that he himself (and those to whom he is preaching) are unable to repent without God. It seems like he is assuming that he (and those to whom he is preaching) have accomplished repentance and therefore opened themselves up to God, all on their own, and now they exist without sin, and no more in need of repentance.

Complexity and Growth

Take a look at these quotes from Jon Meachem's book, The Hope of Glory:

• Reason's last step is the recognition that there are an infinite number of things which are beyond it (Blaise Pascal).
• There are more things in heaven and earth ... than are dreamt of in your philosophy (Shakespeare in Hamlet).
• For now, we can only "see through a glass, darkly" (Paul from 1 Corinthians)

Meachem provides these quotes, and then says, "For the thoughtful believer, then, there is nothing more certain that the reality of uncertainty, nothing more natural that doubt, which  perhaps thirty seconds younger than faith itself."

I was teaching a Sunday school class once, and I asked them about doubt. I was hoping to have a good discussion on the role of doubt in faith. One of the students said that doubt was from the devil. That kind of stopped the conversation.

Sometimes, I think, we come to faith with a closed mind, grown through countless people telling us how to believe, that "the Bible says it, and that's the way it is." I think the problem with that kind of faith is multifaceted. 

• We talking about faith in God - a God we cannot hope to understand. We can certainly know something, but we cannot know all. To pretend that we do is folly.
• We believe God created us, and that grand, divine design includes a brain. We are meant to apply reason to faith, and in fact, doubt and exploration, questioning, can lead to a strong, more robust, and dare I say more complete, faith. Blind faith does not do that and can prevent our growth through sanctifying grace.
• Meachem says, "Light can neither emanate from, nor enter into , a closed mind. Literalism not only stops our growth but it also prevents us from sharing light with others.

I especially like this quote, "Without reason, we cannot appreciate complexity; without appreciating complexity, we cannot rightly appreciate the majesty and mystery of God; and without rightly appreciating the majesty and mystery of God, we foreclose the possibility of the miraculous and the redemptive."

 

Father, Forgive them

I read Jon Meacham's book, The Hope of Glory.  It is a study of the last seven words/phrases of Christ.

The first chapter is a look at "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." His thesis is that while we often use these words as evidence of not only Jesus's forgiveness of those who are executing him, but of all of us - evidence of the forgiving nature of Jesus and therefore God, he (Meacham) doesn't see it that way.

Meacham proposes that "Jesus's death was essential to Christian hope."  He says, "So why does Luke have Jesus seem to be forgiving his tormentors for playing the critical and necessary role in bringing about the salvation few the world and the coming of a kingdom of justice?" I other words (as I see what Meacham is saying), the idea that the death of Christ is essential for God's plan of salvation means that those who perpetrated it are not in need of forgiveness. Does it seem to you that he is proposing that because the death of essential, those who executed Jesus were working in God's plan?

I'm going to leave aside the idea that Jesus's death is essential to Christian hope for just a moment (I think we could have a discussion around that idea, too. I'm troubled by the idea that the executioners do not need forgiveness (because of a lack of sin in this instance) because the death of Jesus was part of God's plan. They didn't kill him because they were motivating by bringing about God's kingdom. They killed him because they were threatened and were seeking to continue their power.  They executed an innocent man - not for any kingdom-bringing purposes. It certainly seems to me that forgiveness was necessary.

In fact, the very idea of their actions demonstrates not a motivation to bring about the kingdom, but evidence of our need (and their need) for grace and forgiveness. If God needed the execution of his son to bring about the salvation of the world (which I have my doubts about), then could it be because we are a people who would commit these acts? I don't think we can ignore the sin when the sin is the reason God needs to intervene.