To make ‘joy’ my New Year’s resolution may seem surprising but it is much more practical than many other resolutions I have made. We are immersed in too much austerity, suffering, injustice and insecurity. If there is no joy in our lives how can we live our daily lives in hope and get out of this terrible state we find ourselves in? I am not talking about optimism but about hope. Optimism is based on a calculation that we have taken the right steps to rectify what was wrong with our finances.
The experts tell us that the financial figures are good and that – if the world economy continues to recover – we will weather the financial storm. Other experts tell us we have miscalculated, that our efforts will not work out. Optimism is crediting the former and praying the latter is wrong. But it is no cause for joy.
‘Hope’ is something else entirely. Hope is much more resilient in terrible situations. I like Jewish jokes but I am profoundly moved by stories of their hope, their resilience, often when literally starving in concentration camps. Some I am told consoled each other by recalling meals they had eaten and hoped to eat again. They even began to put together a book of recipes of their favourite foods. Their hope of survival in such vile circumstances, starving and with tattoos on their left arms that marked them down for death, is awesome and it stretches back to their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Passover meal is fundamental to their understanding of deliverance and to their hope of joy, their hope to live free from fear in their own land. That was the hope God himself gave them and it was that hope which sustained so many of them even when death seemed their only option.
Hope is a profound concept; it emerges from faith not from optimism. We need to turn to that promise to recover hope. The parable of the Wedding Feast tells how God extends the invitation to the wedding to everyone he can find, my banquet is prepared, everything is ready. Come to the wedding. And the promise is kept. The wedding hall was filled with guests. The wedding feast is synonymous with joy, and from Cana to the last supper Christ touched again and again on God’s promise of joy. We need to give up our current culture of blame. Written on the wall by the Grand Canal near Baggot Street in Dublin was a New Year wish: Be kind to One Another because Most of Us are Fighting a Hard Battle.