“Not again! But, what else should I expect? The past few years have been nothing but one disappointment after another. All my dreams gone. ‘Have hope!’ you say. My only expectation is knowing something else bad is going to happen. I gave up a long time ago.” Articles and sermons abound about “Hope for the Hopeless.” I’ve written on the subject. You’ve probably heard every cliché known to man—while there’s life, there’s hope. The darkest hours are just before dawn—ad infinitum and ad nauseam. You’ve faced hopelessness before, and God did intervene, but soon life crashed around you again. This time you’ve reached a new level—not just hopeless but beyond hopeless. You’ve quit asking God ‘why.’ You’ve become numb to everyone and everything around you, merely existing alone in your own troubled universe.
This pictures a sad scenario some may even wonder if a person can fall past hopeless and reach a state of ‘beyond hopeless’. The sadder truth, yes people do exist with such a scarred and damaged mindset. Both English and Bible definitions imply that hope flows out of attitude. Scriptures also translate the word as expectation, confidence, and faith. English dictionaries say hope is an optimistic state of mind based on a feeling of expectation of positive outcomes and desire for a certain thing to happen. The question here is what happens when a person has only negative expectations; optimism left a long time ago; even their desire is gone? Paul speaks of Abram and Sarai’s situation of being without a natural decedent. A literal translation would read when everything was beyond hopeless (Rom 4:18).
Hundreds of people came asking Jesus for healing. And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them (Matt 21:14). Approaching Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging . . . he called out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”. . . “Lord, I want to regain my sight!” Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight (Lk 18:35-42). They had been hopeless until they came to Jesus. In contrast, John tells of Jesus’ encounter with a man who was beyond hopeless. This man had been sick for 38 years and lay at the Pool of Bethesda where a multitude of sick, blind, lame, and withered lay and waited. One writer succinctly summed up why they were waiting. They were hoping to win the angelic healing lottery one day. Tradition said that an angel stirred the waters at certain times and the first person in the bubbling water was healed of their illness. Yet, the tradition was nothing more than a myth or folk lore and newer Bible versions leave out this verse (Jn 5:4).
When Jesus came to the pool, the man didn’t ask Jesus for healing. That didn’t deter Jesus. Approaching the man, He asked, “Do you wish to get well” (Jn 5:6)? The reply shows someone who was ‘beyond hopeless.’ You would think he would have answered, “Yes, more than anything in the world.” Instead, he had sunk so far below hopeless that he had succumbed to his illness even abandoning the desire of getting better. It appears that without a pause to consider Jesus question, the man spews out his monologue of excuses. He answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me” (v7). In other words, it was everybody else’s fault. He blamed people who either wouldn’t help him or hindered his way. He had reduced any chance of change to a traditional superstition but surrendered to the fact this could never happen because of others.
Jesus would have none of it. This time He didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t sympathize, “Oh, you poor man.” He didn’t reach down and take the man by the hand. Rather Jesus gave him three direct commands, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk” (v8). Several important insights come from this account for those who are beyond hopeless, have given up, or have no more faith. Your worst attitude never hinders what Jesus wants to and can do for you. Being beyond hopeless can develop from more than failing health and endless treatments that don’t work. Shattered dreams over our career, our marriage, our children, or multiple disappointments can leave one hopeless and eventually in a state ‘beyond hopeless.’ This phrase originates from Paul’s description of Abram and Sarai I mentioned in the second paragraph.
The remainder of that verse tells what Abraham did in his state of beyond hopeless. Most versions don’t render the full thrust of the grammar. NASV reads, In hope against hope he believed (Rom 4:18). The Message Bible best captures the meaning. When everything was (beyond), hopeless, Abraham believed anyway (v18 MSG). Hope was past any natural resolution. Any possibility of a solution rested in the Lord God, but He had not come through—yet. So Abraham decided to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do (v18b). He continued not by what he saw, what he felt, or what he had experienced. But put his hope in who God was and what He had said.
Sustaining Word for the Week: Live not on the basis of what you see, but believe God anyway for who He is and what He has said.