On Faith Column by The Rev. Marek P. Zabriskie
Snow is still on the ground, and winter continues to be with us. But after setting our clocks forward the days are getting longer and there is hope that spring is on the way.
Winter is a time for New Englanders to slug through, especially if we cannot escape to ski or enjoy a warmer, sunnier climate. While I am new to Greenwich, I suspect that winter, not early summer, is the ideal time to escape and brighten our spirits.
Yet, Easter is on the way, and so is hope. We humans function best when we are hopeful. We were designed with a “telos” or end in mind. We were created by God and for God, and we are happiest when we bend the trajectory of our lives toward God so that God might renew us.
Without doing so, there is something very restless about us. God designed us to live with hope in our hearts all the time. To do so, we have to invest in hope, eternal hope, the hope that endures all things, believes all things, trusts all things. God alone is the source of that hope.
As a child, my parents taught my brothers and me how to save and invest money. I haven’t always excelled at that, but thankfully I set aside something significant each year so that I can retire and continue to care for our family. If we’re wise, we save on a regular basis.
Faith is like that. It does not work to pray or attend church sporadically any more than it does to set aside the amount that we should be saving each week only once or twice a year if we are to enjoy a happy retirement and savor the years when we no longer receive a paycheck.
What is far better is to pray a little and read some portion of the Scriptures each day and to attend church every Sunday. It’s like investing regularly in a spiritual 401K Plan. There will be something there for us to draw on when we need it to sustain us. By regularly attending church, engaging Scripture and praying we are building our spiritual 401K plan, which will be there for us when we need it.
Ask any priest or minister and she or he can tell you that there is a huge difference in the lives of those who have a strong faith and really trust God as they approach their later years and final days of life as compared with those who never bothered to build their spiritual 401K Plan.
It also makes a huge impact on those around them. Those who have developed significant trust in God and have nurtured the hope of eternal life face into the future of transitioning from this life to the next with Easter faith and joy. That brings great comfort to those around them, too.
Easter gives us ultimate hope that with God all things are possible. Nothing is beyond God’s ability to turn around, renew or resurrect. No relationship, vocation or life is beyond God’s redeeming power.
Henri Nouwen has written, “Whereas patience is the mother of expectation, it is expectation itself that brings new joy to our lives. Jesus not only made us look at our pains, but also beyond them. ‘You are sad now, but I shall see you again and your hearts will be full of joy.’ A man without hope in the future cannot live creatively in the present. The paradox of expectation indeed is that those who believe in tomorrow can better live today, that those who expect joy to come out of sadness can discover beginnings of a new life in the center of the old, that those who look forward to the returning Lord can discover him already in their midst.”
Isn’t it time that you started building your spiritual 401K Plan? It’s not too late to invest each day and every Sunday to be there for you and your family now and in the future.
The Rev. Marek P. Zabriskie
Rector of Christ Church Greenwich
