Day 36 - April 1

Kasongo Butler

Hope ~ Romans 5:1-5

 Last semester, I had the opportunity and privilege to embark on a journey with my classmates through the Rites of Christian Marriage and Rites of Christian Death and Burial class.  When asked about my course schedule by family and friends, I always got the side-eye when I mentioned this course, especially when I told them I was particularly interested in the death and burial portion of the class.  I understood their confusion. Because death is seen as dark and depressing, macabre and morose, no one likes to think about death, much less talk about it.  Yet, I was intrigued and searching…searching to discover and capture the sacredness, the promise, and the hope that can accompany our death and those of our loved ones. 

Our professor, Dr. Anna Petrin, had the task of leading our class through the pastoral opportunities and challenges of death.  Admittedly, the challenges were often, well…challenging!  But, we journeyed together as a community.  We also built a puzzle together during our journey.  Each connected puzzle piece representing our class, a community of faith, pursuing a path together, growing together, and learning how to share a story that is big enough, rich enough and hopeful enough to hold one through the suffering.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. - Romans 5:1-5