Hope

Some bright and cheerful soul (Benjamin Franklin) once said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”[1]  He was not the first to utter such thoughts.  Daniel Defoe, most famous for his book Robinson Crusoe, once wrote, “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.”[2]  The uncertain thing that cannot be firmly believed to which Defoe is comparing death and taxes is the belief that the Devil has a cloven hoof and leaves behind the smell of brimstone.  But this is not about cloven hooves either in a physical manifestation of the evil one or as a characteristic of kosher animals (both are mentioned on the Wikipedia page on “Cloven hoof” if you care.)

I am hoping (and I use the word advisedly) that there is more to life that is certain than just death and taxes.  Of what may we be certain beyond these two?  Can we be certain of people’s commitments?  Not really.  Case in point: I have committed to transport gear for my daughter’s ski and board club at school every Friday night.  But this Friday she is unable to go herself, so I thought I would just stay home.  No one would blame me.  On reflection I have decided I will live up to my commitment and go anyway.  I might easily have not, and, as I said, no one would blame me, give me a hard time or even mention it.

Our promises are not always kept.  But God’s are.  I think we can be certain of that to which God commits.  They are things in which we can hope.  My promise that I will “try to make your party on Friday” is iffy at best (especially since I am already committed to transporting gear…)  But God’s oath and promise is different.  The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

(Hebrews 6:17-20 ESV)

 Promise and oath are big here, as is the assertion that God cannot lie (contrasted with me or you, for example).  I am particularly fond of the image in the line, “a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.”  Without even considering what the inner place or curtain is it is a compelling picture of hope entering hidden and inaccessible places like, perhaps, my cynical heart.

But knowing what the inner place and curtain are makes it even better.  Written to the Hebrews, the letter assumes a solid knowledge of first-century Jewish temple architecture and worship.  The curtain (or veil as the KJV describes it) is the heavy fabric that closes off the holy of holies (the inner place) from the rest of the temple.  The holy of holies is where God dwells, behind the curtain, in the inner place.

So thinking this through, hope enters the place where God is.  Hope or certainty in his promise lives where God is.  As someone less jaded than Franklin (Alexander Pope) once said, “hope springs eternal”[3].  Where God is, there is the eternal.  Hope in the presence of God is certain and eternal.  

And it is better than both death and taxes.

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[1] Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

[2] Daniel Defoe in The Political History of the Devil, 1726

[3] Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man.