Prisoner of Hope
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. - Zechariah 9:12 The above verse from the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah is taken from the same passage that is typically read on Palm Sunday---a prophecy about God rescuing God's people. The phrase that struck me this morning from Zechariah's prophecy was this one: "...you prisoners of hope." There's something incredibly beautiful about that, isn't there? Prisoners of hope. The idea that I could be held by God as a prisoner of hope is one that fills me with a strange sense of peace. But try as I might, that sense of peace is slippery and elusive. You see we've been conditioned by our culture to be afraid to hope. Nothing seems all that permanent. Politicians aren't trustworthy. The institutions that used to harbor our hope are flawed and crumbling. And still, we f...