Hope in the Ruins
From The Forum Magazine, Winter 2025 - view the full issue here
by Gayle Doornbos, Dordt University
“…theology must demonstrate its truth, not only in the area of science [academic scholarship], but also and more powerfully amidst the awful realities of life—at the sickbed and deathbed, in suffering and want, in distress and death, to the guilt-laden conscience and to the heart thirsting for reconciliation and peace.”
-Herman Bavinck, The Certainty of Faith
After speaking in the chapel at Dordt University, where I teach in the theology department, I joked with my colleagues that I sometimes feel that I have only one message: “The world is dark, yet there is hope.” While the language, examples, and text might be different, I can’t evade the texts and stories that start in the darkness and call us to find light in the hardest places. Sometimes, I suspect it’s just ‘luck of the draw’ and that I find myself assigned texts on what it means to live in the already, but not yet, nature of the Kingdom. But, as we were discussing at a recent department meeting, the courses I’ve developed for our program – “Faith and Suffering” and “Walking with God in the Wilderness” – both explore theological themes related to faith and hope in, as Bavinck describes, the “awful realities of life.” Surely it is in those awful realities of life that we need a faith big enough and broad enough to give us hope that nourishes and provides us with enduring solace and direction.
Although there are several ways I could describe the work I do with undergraduates, one of the most meaningful is how I help them find hope in the ruins. This work involves taking a long look at the world in which we live and seeking real hope that nourishes our faith and informs our action in the world. This work is neither simple nor efficient, but it is meaningful and (I hope) transformative in the lives of students. Many students who come through the doors of my classroom carry stories of ruin, and often they view the world as a place where ruin appears to be the prevailing story. They long to know how God meets them in those hard places, and provides real hope rather than despair.
It’s not just my students who long to find hope. It seems much easier these days to traffic in despair and doomsday messaging rather than cultivating the hope that we are given as a gift by the Spirit. As we look at demographic data chronicling a rapid decline in church attendance and increased rates of pastoral burnout, combined with political polarization in congregations, abuse scandals, and denominational discord, it is hard to avoid feeling discouraged and disillusioned. So we often search for programs or sets of practices to serve as a cure-all for our collective woes.
To be sure, cultivating hope includes practices and intentionality, but it is first and foremost kindled by the Holy Spirit through whom we encounter the living Christ and by whom we are drawn into life-long discipleship within Christian communities. This hope, given by the Spirit, is rooted in the reality proclaimed in the threefold affirmation, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”
This hope does not look away from the brokenness of the world–in other-worldly escapism–but forms to be ones who name darkness, see signs of resurrection light, and bear witness to that light. In other words, we are formed to stand in, not above, the ruins of our own lives, families, communities, and nations – and proclaim the hope of Christ. Kindling hope is first and foremost a gift of the Spirit, but there are ways that we can seek to cultivate it as we engage together in our lives of faith, whether it’s in the classroom, at church, or over a shared meal.
First, cultivating hope means taking a long look at the darkness, discouragement, and desolation in our current contexts. While this may seem counter-intuitive, ignoring the size, scope, and depth of the ruin does not produce hope but rather blind optimism that cannot nourish or sustain faith. What’s more, to take a long look at how things are “not the way they are supposed to be” is a deeply Reformed impulse rooted in our recognition of the pervasive effects of the fall. This is not, contrary to certain assumptions, to suck the joy out of every good thing and become sullen and somber. Rather, it is because the Gospel comes to us as good news “amidst the awful realities of life,” not apart from them. Without acknowledging the universal pain and sorrow of sin-filled ruin that touches us all in ways that are not abstract but actual, we always will be left to wonder if God’s grace and redemption go to the depths of sin, destruction, and desolation. The Gospel comes in the darkness of night, with the Son of God born in a stable, and it comes into the breathtaking brokenness of our lives, communities, and world.
Second, the good news is that God’s grace extends not only to the depths but triumphs over them. Thus, cultivating hope also includes proclaiming God’s abundant and glorious grace. Bavinck summarizes the triumph of God’s grace in another beautiful passage:
Sin has corrupted much; in fact, everything. The guilt of human sin is immeasurable; the pollution that always accompanies it penetrates every structure of humanity and the world. Nonetheless sin does not dominate and corrupt without God's abundant grace in Christ triumphing even more (Rom. 5:15-20). The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, it is able to restore everything. We need not, indeed we must not, despair of anyone or anything.
Because of God’s abundant grace in Christ, there is no need for despair. Cultivating hope involves not merely looking at the darkness in the world but seeing that, in Christ, the light is stronger and brighter than the darkness. Christ has promised to make all things new. Hope is kindled in the light of Christ’s work as we wait for the day when all things will be made new, and it is cultivated as we wait, with trust-filled longing, for the consummation of Christ’s Kingdom. Hope nourishes us in our waiting, reminding us of the true end of the Christian story, and the overwhelming goodness of the God who makes and keeps his promises. It also spurs us to point out and bear witness to the signs of God’s work in our lives and communities.
Third, it is within this broader story that various intentional practices start to make sense, again not as cure-alls or magic bullets, but as ways to cultivate the gift of hope – a gift we so desperately need to stave off despair. Hope is not achieved, as Kelly Kapic in Embodied Hope reminds us, by “the power of positive thinking” but received, first and foremost, through word and sacrament. In the word and sacrament, we remember, receive, and commune with the God who makes and keeps his promises. In baptism, we receive a new identity as those who have died and risen with Christ (Romans 6). In the Lord’s Supper, we receive an embodied foretaste of the wedding supper of the Lamb, which we will eat when all things are made new (Revelation 19). Within communities of faith, hope grows as we share stories that remind us that the God who makes promises is also present with us, even in the ruins. We find hope in the stories of triumph and testimonies of God’s miraculous and marvelous intervention, but we don’t make victory the only marker or measure of God’s presence and provision. Rather, we learn to listen to the stories of those who sit and mourn, bearing witness to the hope of Christ, especially when triumph or victory does not come. Our hope grows as we learn to share the fullness of our lives together over meals – crying and laughing together – and it grows as we learn to see God’s gracious presence in our everyday, ordinary lives. In hearing the stories of others, in telling our own, and in seeing God’s presence in the everyday, we are reminded again and again of God’s love, steadfast care, and promises!
In the “Faith and Suffering” class I teach, we do not shy away from the hard questions or the deep pain in our world, but we do so with eyes wide open to the story of Scripture so that we can find the hope of Christ and his restoring presence in the ruins. We take a long look at the Christian story as well as the challenges we face today – a mental health crisis, polarization, rapidly changing cultural norms, and so much more. In the classroom, we see how the Christian story, our faith, and the God who makes and keeps his promises are capacious enough to find hope in the ruins. We also engage in various practices (celebration, fasting, unplugging, the Daily Examen, and memento mori), laugh, and eat together. As we do, we enter into the lifelong, patient work of learning to name darkness, see light, and bear witness to it. Our time together remains one of my favorite parts of the week because invariably, my hope is cultivated as I see God at work in the lives of those who will enter various spheres of life (including traditional ministerial vocations) after they graduate. My hope is that they leave Dordt well-equipped to bear witness to Christ in every place they find themselves. For all of us – including me – who are sometimes tempted to despair, may we find ourselves more and more drawn into the hope of faith as we engage in Word and sacrament, retell the great and grand story of Scripture, remember who God is, eat meals together, engage in spiritual practices – continually bearing witness to Christ in the ruins.
