Hope: Exit 32

Growing up in Iowa one of our main areas of entertainment, besides cow tipping, were concerts in Minneapolis, Minnesota. On the way up to Minneapolis, on Interstate 35, at exit 32 is a town called Hope. But what is Hope, other than a town in Minnesota?

Hope is defined as Absolute Certainty, which is pretty cool because we are called to have hope in Christ's death and resurection. We just celebrated Easter, and even froze our fingers off trying to play guitar in 26 degree weather in the 6 am darkness of the morning. After getting warm again, it was a great day to remember Christ and his sacrifice.

The last section of Radical Renovation, a study book written by James A. Harnish, we look at the end of Mark. Now, if you go to your Bible and look up the end of Mark there are actually 2 endings. One is the more obvious one, the end of the paragraph, and the other you have to do a little reading for. I guess most early manuscripts have Mark end at verse 8 instead of verse 20. Cool huh?

But as Harnish points out, it is a rather awkward ending to the book, it just leaves off with a couple of Marys, looking for Jesus' tomb, scared and speachless.

But the best part is what comes just before that in verse 7, where they are told to go and tell the disciples that Jesus is alive and that he is ahead of you waiting.

Cool, eh? Harnish makes a huge point about this pointing out that this is left open-ended not just for the disciples and Marys but also for us. It includes us in the story of Christ.

Christ is ahead of us and waiting in our daily lives too. We are called to live our lives so that we are proclaiming Christ in all we say and do. We are called to be walking constantly with God in all we say and do. But to know that Christ is waiting for us. He has paved the way, shown us which direction to go, and now it is your turn to walk. Who are you following or are you just walking blindly on your own?