WHY SHOULD WE HAVE HOPE that the future will bring good? The world is at war. Environmental resources are disappearing at an alarming rate. Signs of cultural decline—crime rates, increasing fragmentation of society, immorality—are increasing. Individual well-being plummets as depression and suicide rates rise. Where is the hope in all that?
Andrew Hill, in this excellent commentary, tells us that Chronicles explains why we should have hope. Chronicles, he tells us, is a theology of hope written long before Jürgen Moltmann even thought of the phrase. Hope, Chronicles tells us, rests not in world peace or in environmental restoration or in cultural rejuvenation, although all of those things are welcome. Chronicles tells us hope rests in the Lord.
But how can we communicate that hope to hopeless generations? The pernicious character of hopelessness is that it closes us off to even the most legitimate harbingers of hope. We hear but do not understand; we read but do not comprehend. Feeling becomes disconnected from the facts. How, then, does the Chronicler do it?
(1) He does it by retelling in some detail the story of God’s chosen people up to this point. The Chronicler begins with Adam and traces the line of descent through the twelve tribes and the conquest of Canaan. The story is by no means told dispassionately. (Can any story be told dispassionately?) By his selection of certain incidents and his omission of others, it is obvious that the author wants this story to come across well. The characters are true heroes; the events are inspiring acts of God. King David’s strengths are stressed while his failures are forgotten. God’s acts of judgment are redemptive, not punitive.
By the way the story is told, it becomes obvious that the hearers are meant to focus on the big picture, the community of people who have gone before, not on themselves. Even when talking to individuals (e.g., God to Solomon in 2 Chron. 7), God talks about “my people” and what they should do. Of course, this also meant that the focus of the story was on God and not self. The story is about God and his chosen people.
The lesson as far as hope is concerned is that hopelessness feeds on self-absorption. Hope, by contrast, feeds on other-absorption, to some extent the human community, but especially on God.
(2) The second technique the Chronicler uses is to restrict his call to action to the realm of the implicit. One comes away from a reading of Chronicles with a commitment to act, but nowhere does the Chronicler explicitly call for action. Why does he do that?
A story well told transports us from our outsider status to full involvement. We become a part of the story by reading about it and becoming inspired by it. In 1 Chronicles 12:17, men from the tribe of Benjamin come to join David’s army. David expects them to not just fight as soldiers but to join the story: “If you have come to me in peace, to help me, I am ready to have you unite with me.”
They were not expected to just join in the story; they were expected to join for the specific reason of making the story line better for future generations. It is clear that David himself did what he did so that his son, heir, and successor, Solomon, would have an even greater kingdom to rule over (1 Chron. 28–29). Clearly, the Chronicler’s theory is that hope comes from pointing away from the self toward God, toward others, and toward the future.
(3) One final strategy: The Chronicler sets the venue for discovering and recapturing hope. The venue is not the home or the marketplace. It is neither the nation or the world. All of these venues are susceptible to the dangers of self-absorption.
No, the Chronicler’s venue is worship, liturgical and otherwise. Worship is the antithesis of self-absorption. Worship is God-absorption. It defeats hopelessness. It makes us hope.
Terry C. Muck