Introduction
While I was in graduate school at the Graduate Theological Union, I took a class in St. John of the Cross in 1980. Then today, August 20, 2013, I ran across the paper I had written in 1980. It seemed a good reflection on my experience of God and hope so I have posted it on this website. The essay follows.
John of the Cross Essay on Hope
John of the Cross
May 19, 1980
Rob Sanders
During the academic year, 1974-75, while studying at Virginia Seminary, I had a dream. In this dream I stood on a hill, and due to the inevitable movement of life and time, I had to make a journey. Before me loomed a massive mountain, its side opened by a landslide to reveal a molten, fiery interior. I realized that my path passed by the side of the mountain and that I would be consumed by the fire. But having no choice, I started out, filled with dread. As I went forward, someone went with me, and mysteriously, due to his presence, I passed by the fire unharmed. The dream is best understood in the context of the events of the preceding years.
The meeting of the dream was immediately obvious to me. It was a symbolic expression of justification. Before I was converted in 1969, I was intensely experiencing the world as doomed, due in part to my investigation into the human condition. In conversion, I passed from fearing that we would destroy ourselves through the bomb, or by pollution, or dwindling resources, to having dreadful perceptions that God was a dangers raging fire who would consume the world. This fire boiled inside of me, illumined unconscious evil, and cleansed me through the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, the fire never appeared as love, and I spent months confronting God with the question of the theodicy, and whether or not there was any hope for the world. I got no answer to these questions, but eventually some simple ideas emerged. It was as if God were saying: "From your perspective, you cannot see into my relations with others, or know who is responsible for massive suffering and evil. But you can decide for yourself whether you desire love from me, and you need to make that decision even if it seems, rightly or wrongly, that human suffering is unjust and that the world is doomed." I said yes.
From that time on I left the matter in God's hands. Several years passed and I began to study at Virginia Seminary. There, through study, prayer, and reflection, I entered into the living stream of Christian life and faith. I perceived that God was indeed a consuming fire, First Isaiah for example, but that we are justified in Jesus Christ. Until then I had known Jesus as love but not omnipotent, and God is omnipotent, but not love. But then, all things began to come together. The dream occurred, hope appeared, a light began to dawn in my life. The love of God emerged in the world, intense perceptions of beauty and joy. These impressions were deeply felt while attending community Eucharist. The interior of the church, the people, and the liturgy, was transformed by the presence of God. It seemed as if the whole creation was celebrating the victory of the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." This victory was so glorious that its power to transform suffering into joy cannot be defeated by an evil, be it atomic holocaust, the sufferings of history, or the end of the world.
What do I hope from God? I hope for the consummation of the universe in which all sorrow and suffering, all evil and death, will be cleansed and redeemed to compose a melody of love to the living God.
Why is this hope in God? If there has ever been one innocent child who suffered and died forgotten, then God is the only hope. Suffering, death, and evil, without recompense, left unredeemed by death, cannot, by any act of this world, be set right. It requires an act of God, the One who can "raise up descendents of Abraham from these stones." Clearly, not just one innocent, but millions, have died and suffer still without recompense, and evil rages without any human remedy. Therefore, God is the only hope.
How did this experience convey hope? In the preceding years I was, to some degree, crucified with Christ, so that with my perceptions cleansed, I was able to catch a glimpse of eternity. Such a vision requires purification and immersion into the living Christian tradition. This tradition centered in Christ Jesus, who through crucifixion and resurrection, is the structure by which the universe is transform from evil and death into joy.
Why is this hope? This is hope because it is obvious that the reality of the final messianic banquet has yet to be realized. Evil and suffering exist. Nevertheless, there is the revelation that Jesus, the first to pass through crucifixion and resurrection, is actively working in the Spirit to consummate the universe in God. It is Jesus Christ, who satisfies God's justice, represented in a dream by leading me pass the fiery mountain. He is the one who leads creation into joy, experienced in the Eucharist as the heavenly banquet on the final day when God will be all end all. That is hope.
Theodicy, hope, love of God, and my response, have been the central issues of my life, and I am not able to express hope in a brief compass, but rather, the experience was a complex, organic one that stretched over many years.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
August, 2013
