…that ye may know what is the hope of his calling…
Calling. I wonder what the original disciples thought when Christ called them. For a rabbi to take on a student in the Jewish culture meant that the student had toiled long and hard in studying the Scripture to have a rabbi look at them and invite them to share his yoke. It’s quite the comedy of heaven that Jesus, instead of going to the white collar bookworms, went to the blue collared workers. At the mystery of that, the disciples followed. Maybe it was a dream come true for them…or maybe it was a “too good to be true” happening that they didn’t even believe was real until they said, “Yeah, let’s go…why not?” The truth of the fact just being that the call here is a surrealistic invitation to something great, but not only a generic moving to a different vocation…but to a different life. With this audacious invitation is hope…or in the greek: elpis: confidence, expectation. The expectation of this calling is interweaved with the fact that on my own I do not have the qualifications (in myself) for the inheritance that God has for me. But He calls me His child and invites me to (not only life eternal but to) a partnership, a relationship, and a new identity.
“Here I am, Lord, send me. I give You my heart with its own weakness, and lay down my own ambition and striving to come to You. I come to You as a child. I trust You and Your ways. Let me be a living love letter to this world that they may to know what is the ‘hope of Your calling.’ Lord, please in Your wisdom please guide me and fill me with the words that You want to speak. Amen”