Early this past week Vicki received a phone call that she had an appointment to get her first vaccine shot later that day. She jumped up and down like a cheerleader. I put my arms over my head signally a touchdown. We don’t usually do that when we get good news. What was going on?
The answer was found in the headline of this morning’s Inquirer for February 21. It proclaimed “A Shot of Hope”. The article said that thousands lined up during an icy cold night for as long as 12 hours in Philly to get the vaccine. Facemasks where in place, lawn chairs were carried and put down in place, and all tried to keep warm during the frigid temperatures with coats and blankets.
They waited for the possibility for them to get a shot of the vaccine given by a consortium of black doctors. Lamont Curry, one of those people in line from North Philly, said, “This is hope. This is what we need.”
St. Paul must be happy. His words that are most familiar are those found in Corinthians 13 which concludes with “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. St. Paul didn’t have to rub it in. Hope is like that child whose birthday is on Christmas or, as it is true for my brother, on New Year’s Day. Parents try to honor the birth, but it gets overshadowed by the importance of the holidays. Love is the greatest, not hope. But now it is hope’s time to shine for a bit. It is badly needed during this Pandemic. Faith and love are still part of the big three as they were part of yesterday’s vaccine gathering. “Strangers came together as a Covid family.”
A man drove by the group and shouted, “Y’all getting the vaccine? You trust it. Good luck!” The crowd seemed to rejoice with one another. You could hear laughter. This was a group of thousands enduring extreme weather and had that faith and love part very much in play. Remember Philly is regarded as being a tough town. What other city has booed Santa Claus? As far as I am concerned St. Paul wrote that famous passage just for such a moment as getting the vaccine.
It is the passage of scripture that is requested most by people who ask me to bless their marriage. Not enough people know that this passage celebrating faith, hope, and love was regarded to be very important words in scripture by President Franklin Roosevelt. When Roosevelt took the oath of office in 1933, he had his family Bible opened to 1 Corinthians 13 so that he could take his oath of office with his hand on those words. Picture that!
I don’t think that it was a coincidence that he chose to include those words of faith, hope, and love to rest his hand upon. They are three words that we see most clearly in the challenges that he faced including the post financial crisis that would not wait. Someone’s beliefs that I studied when at school in New Haven was Jurgen Moltmann. He makes the point of the importance of hope during crisis in his seminal study, The Theology of Hope. The need for hope to take center stage occurs at the worst possible times in our nation’s history such as in the Wall Street Crash which created the need for food lines caused by massive unemployment, the Vietnam War with the loss of American lives in a war that divided our nation, and today the Pandemic and deep political and racial divisions in our country. Turbulent times push hope to center stage, but it is never alone.
We need to see these three words as related in a sequential fashion. First comes faith, then comes hope, which yields love.
As the driver shouted to the crowd lined up in the frigid cold, “Trust it”. Then the people expressed hope, and then we see the crowd expressing laughter and kindness to one another by loving gestures of kindness in the city of brotherly love.
Whoever thought that a need for a vaccine could focus on the essence of our faith in God and his Son, hope that He will always stand with us, and love for all with a shared purpose of seeking health and renewed life.
“Shots of hope”. It is good to see hope getting its proper recognition.
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