A Counterintuitive Truth: “Hopelessness Turns Out To Be Surprisingly Good Medicine.”

Recently a well-known faculty member of the Harvard law school, William Stuntz, who was noted for his counterintuitive observations died. Stuntz defied and deplored the traditional political labels of “conservative” and “liberal” as he blamed both groups for the chaos in the criminal justice system. He believed that participants in our legal system far too often ignored the guilt or innocence of the accused. Instead, the focus was on attempting to resolve cases through plea bargains resulting in both the innocent being sentenced and the guilty not adequately punished.

Perhaps Stuntz’s most significant counterintuitive idea was not the result of legal work but of his own suffering. Because of a back injury in 1999, Stuntz suffered constant, chronic pain. Two major back surgeries only gave temporary relief, and in the last twelve years of his life, Stuntz experienced intense pain daily. Then, in 2007, he diagnosed with stage four colon cancer which was the cause of his death in March 2011.

Stuntz spoke and wrote openly about both the back pain and his terminal cancer. His counterintuitive observation was, “Hopelessness turns out to be surprisingly good medicine.”

Before you think of Stuntz as a cynical, Ivy League scholar playing some kind of word game, you need to know he was a joyful, evangelical Christian. His colleagues and students described him as being a contagious and positive personality that helped many to come to experience the Christian faith. Stuntz impacted many people for Christ on the Harvard campus and in the legal community. But, how could hopelessness become good medicine?

When we realize there is nothing we can do to change our reality, we are able to trust God to provide. When we think we can change us, we do not turn to God. When we hope that we can solve our pain, we often miss the greater good. Stuntz, while admitting the he wanted to be free of the pain, acknowledged that ultimately the pain and the suffering made him a better person. The continuing wishing and expecting the pain to be taken away was depressing, while trusting God to work through it with him brought great relief.

Hope that we can escape suffering through own efforts is a mirage; hope that God can use our suffering to make us better people, now, that is magnificent hope! Magnificent hope is the result of realizing in our own strength, we are hopeless. Yes, it seems counterintuitive, but…it is only in abandoning hope in ourselves that we learn to trust the hope that comes from a living and a loving God.