Acts 27:20 When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and the storm continued raging, we finally gave up all hope of being saved.
What do you do when the future is bleak and dark? What do you do when there is no light at the end of the tunnel? What do you do when all hope is lost?
Hope is the anchor of the soul. If we lose hope, we will be blown and tossed by the wind and battered by the waves of life. The captain of the ship on which Paul was taken as a prisoner made a wrong decision to venture into the Mediterranean sea in late autumn when the sea was unpredictably perilous. Thick dark clouds had covered the skies and they did not know the hour or time of the day or night as they neither saw the sun nor the stars. When they lost all hope of being saved, Paul broke the horrific harrow of silence, encouraged the dejected passengers and urged them to eat. After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves (Acts 27:35-36). Symbolically Paul served communion to give confidence to the cowering crowd. “Hope is the ability to see that there is light despite all the darkness”.
What do you do when in desolation and hopelessness?
1. Broken: Hopelessness is like slow poison. Hopelessness kills enthusiasm and the ecstatic embellishments of life. The bread that we take in communion emblematically represents the broken body of Jesus, heals our physical body, invigorates the soul and revives the crushed spirit. The blessed wafer turns into a resuscitating antidote. The bread revitalizes our broken body, the crushed spirit and regenerates the soul.
- Bleak: The wine/juice that represents the blood of Jesus is the “new covenant”. The old Abrahamic covenant was only a contractual relationship of a servant and a master but the new covenant that Jesus signed with His own precious blood is a covenant of ‘sonship’. Every time we partake in communion, we renew our relationship and rights as sons and daughters. The wine breaks the bleakness of hopelessness.
- Boldness: When distress, deride or depression grips your heart and when despondency shatters the prospects and potent, calm yourself down under the blood covenant of the cross. The communion table is not a tradition, custom or ritual. It is the renewal of the blood covenant that restores us to our position of power. The bread and the wine reinstalls boldness and restores hope.
When we are grief-stricken by hopelessness – bask under the cross and break bread.
Psalm 25:5b Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and My hope is in you all day long.
Prayer: Father of Lights, be the light in the dark tunnel through which I traverse. You are the anchor I hold on to in the midst of hopelessness and desperation. Amen.
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