I sat alone on a park bench in downtown kalamazoo. It was an unseasonably warm day for late February. There were people everywhere, as if they had come out of hibernation to forage for something they had missed all winter.
Being in Michigan, that thing was the sun.
I looked around the park at the trees absorbing the warmth but vacant of any leaves. As I looked I could see the new life that would pour out from the branches in a few short months. The image of spring was like a double exposed picture, filling in the void of one scene with the fullness of another. This must be what God sees when he looks at our world. He sees the world of cold, dark, and emptiness, but, between the hurt and pain, seeping through as if it's been there the whole time... As if it's just as real as anything else but hidden in another dimension...
Is the hope of new life.
Redemption is the double exposure printed on our world.
What I didn't realize as I looked across Bronson Park was the devastation that would strike in a few short hours. Six people would senselessly loose their lives in the type of tragedy that you see on television and never imagine it would happen in your city.
Sometimes the darkness that overwhelms our world is impossible to see through. It feels as though pain is the only authentic reality and there is nothing breaking through the seams. I think that this is what faith means. This is what the author of Hebrews meant when she wrote that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see.
We might not see its full glory yet, but hope is here. Hope is leaking through the seams like light through a tent at dawn. It's always there. It's always real. Sometimes it's just hard to see. Jesus is hope. Jesus is love. Jesus is here.
