Hope, Rose and Mary: These are the names my parents chose for me and my two sisters. Our household has heard the stories behind our names many times. Mary was born around Christmas. I was born as our neighbor’s garden bloomed. And Hope, the eldest, was named out of defiance and optimism. As my mom recently told the story to me, my expectant parents saw the chaos of the world. But they saw the good, too. And they chose to believe in the good. So, they named their firstborn as a reminder. As we come to the end of the church calendar year and look forward to the Reign of Christ Sunday next week, our lectionary readings take an apocalyptic turn. And as I hold these texts in conversation with one another, I keep coming back to my sister’s name and my parents’ motivation behind it. I keep coming back to the impractical reality of hope. It strikes me that hope is both foundation of our faith and, at the same time, something that we can never truly understand and, therefore, something we must hold loosely. It is a shapeshifter. And yet, it is also unchanging at its core. While there is not quite a scholarly consensus on the origins of Isaiah 55-66, many believe this material reflects the struggles of the remnant who remained in Jerusalem and Judah with the leadership who returned from the Babylonian Exile. They have known suffering – including living under the invading armies that colonized Judah and now under the leadership of the leadership who returned to Judah after two generations in Babylon. In the face of uncertainty, God reminds them through the writer of this passage that suffering will not last... You can find the rest of the commentary on our website. Thanks to this week's guest writer Rose Schrott Taylor. | 
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