This is the last installment of the "nouwen on leadership & hope" posts.  I have found it helpful to think through these paragraphs in daily chunks. I hope you have benefited from it as well.  The only thing I want to point out today was that Christ was putting a LOT of hope in Hope.  He seemed focused in on the Cross and His mission, but He still stepped out (against ALL odds and in the face of overwhelming adversity) and believed in things beyond His own "human" sight.  Meditate on Nouwen’s last sentence here and on the phrase ‘bare hope’:

"Hope prevents us from clinging to what we have and frees us to move away from the safe place and enter unknown and fearful territory.  This might sound romantic, but when a man enters with his fellow man into his fear of death and is able to wait for him right there, "leaving the safe place" might turn out to be a very difficult act of leadership.  It is an act of discipleship in which we follow the hard road of Christ, who entered death with nothing but bare hope."

Are we becoming leaders of hope who are clinging to His promises?  More and more, I hope I am.  I hope we are.