Reflecting…has led me to think that hope and disappointment are part of the same faith perspective.

Without hope rooted in a vision of possibility, there would not be the experience of disappointment. As the saying goes, “Expect little, and you will be much less likely to be disappointed.”

If Jesus and Jeremiah had not been grounded in the hope of a covenant faith that saw the redemptive and reconciling possibilities of a divine-human partnership, then they probably would not have grieved so deeply the departure from that path that Jerusalem had taken.

So, is giving up a hopeful vision the solution for disappointment?

That would work, I suppose, in relieving the discomfort. But it would come at a high price for a life of faith.

The pain of disappointment reflected in the Bible’s portraits of Jeremiah and Jesus is real, but so is their enduring vision of what remains possible.

Jeremiah’s lament gave way to a vision of a renewed covenant (Jeremiah 31: 31-34); and Jesus’ sorrowful words to and about Jerusalem were overshadowed by his vision of a new kind of kingdom, beyond rejection and even the cross, that was already at work within the human family (Luke 19:21).

Disappointment is real and uncomfortable, and it can strain relationships.

But the hopeful possibility of a community that transcends the flaws of the “Jerusalems” of our time is always worth holding onto.

I’ll take the disappointment if I get to keep the hope, even when its path forward is unclear.