Hope While Facing Extinction

I just watched a powerful documentary with the difficult title, Eating our Way into Extinction. The film was shown recently at Canmore’s ArtsPlace and has become something of an underground sensation since none of the main line movie purveyors are willing to show it. 

The film graphically illustrates that the way we produce the food we eat is unsustainable. In fact if we keep going the way we are, we are headed toward global destruction in the next 30 years. 

The film mentions a report from Nestle, made public by WikiLeaks, that claims their own research shows that the world will run out of fresh water within the next 30 years if nothing is done.

I am the person who sees the glass half full, not half empty. I am usually full of hope, but I left this film without much hope. With everything the world is facing, i.e., pollution of epic proportions, the change in global weather and an escalation in armed conflict worldwide, we seem to be a lonely planet in need of hope.  

It was then I remembered what one of my heroes said. “Every Christian by right should be a prisoner of hope.” It’s a quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who lived in South Africa during the despair and destruction caused by apartheid.

He said, “At the centre of our faith is this incredible thing. You have a cross that should be a symbol of devastating defeat, a complete defeat of goodness … the overwhelming of light by darkness, where hate appeared to have had the last word.” 

But we know that through the cross of Jesus, what seemed to be overwhelming defeat, such abject failure on Friday, became a victory of goodness over evil demonstrated so spectacularly by the resurrection on Sunday. 

That’s why I have hope even in the darkest times. We know the One who is the source of all goodness. The God we worship, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is the God with whom we can have such an intimate relationship that we can call him Abba - Father. (Actually it translates best as Daddy.) It is our Abba who stands for love, grace, truth, and justice, so that no matter how difficult and desperate the situation, with Him and in Him, there is always Hope.

Howard