I delivered the following sermon to my local congregation on the Second Sunday of Easter 2008.
TEXT 1 Peter 1:3-9
It isn't the sights of the animals or the two hour bus ride to Washington, DC that I remember most about that day. Thursday, April 27, 1989. In fact, the only reason I remember as much as I do about the day is because of what had happened before we arrived back at the school.
My 10th grade class had gone on a field trip to the National Zoo, a short two hours away. (We had left early in the morning so we could make a full day of it and be back by 4). As we filed off the bus, a friend of mine from the baseball team came running up to us and asked us if we had seen anything.
Why? What happened?
He told us that the baseball coaches had stopped practice when they heard a loud bang. “It was like a bomb had gone off,” Doug said. He told us that a few minutes later came the sounds of police, fire and ambulances.
There had been an awful wreck.
“Anyone hurt?,” we asked.
He said he didn't know but that from the sound he heard it couldn't be good.
We stood around kinda numb. Not really knowing what to do. Some guys went on to their cars to drive home. Others like me hung around for awhile.
I had play practice in about half an hour so I walked over to the theater to wait.
I wasn't there too long when the stage manager came over to ask if I needed a ride home. I told him I needed to call my dad to pick me up. He told me to go ahead and call because practice was cancelled.
Why?
Tommy the assistant stage manager and the boyfriend of one of the orchestra members were both killed in that crash.
What??!!?
I felt like I was going to throw up.
A few years later, I was home from college on break. My dad asked my brother and I to get in to the car, he wanted to take us out. He said with my school and my brother's work schedule, he just didn't to see us as much as he wanted so he thought that since we were both home at the same time now would be a good time to get away.
We drove a while and got a bite to eat at one of my favorite places to eat when I was home.
He took a longer way home than usual. He needed to talk to us.
“Your mom and I might be getting a divorce,” he suddenly blurted out.
Silence. Awkward silence. The kind of silence that makes you sick to your stomach and you wish somebody, anybody, would say something. Still silence.
Dad continued, “I've been thinking about this for awhile now. I do my thing and she's out doing her own thing. We don't see each other. And something's not right. I'm not sure if she's been faithful to me.
My brother and I didn't know what to say.
We just cried a little.
I could have brought in the Sunday paper and pulled any number of headlines which reveal the feeling of hopelessness that surrounds us. The rising cost of gas, corrupt politicians, war and rumors of war, genocide in Darfur.....
Each of us in this room has stories like these. Sure, the names aren't the same. The details are different. But we all carry life experiences and burdens with us that have touched us greatly. Death. Divorce. Heartache. Pain. And it doesn't really matter if they happened yesterday or long ago, if we are not careful, even thinking about them now brings hints of tears to our eyes.
As bad as things may seem... as hard as life might get... as hopeless as you may feel... sadness and despair does not have the last word. There IS HOPE!
Hope. That word is everywhere today. We often hear it tossed about like a ship in a torrential storm.. If I am honest, I have often misused that word:
I sure hope I don’t have a test tomorrow.
And the corresponding: I hope I do well on my test tomorrow.
I hope can get a good tee time this weekend.
I hope she likes me. I hope he likes me.
In this season of Madness that is March, if our team is still alive (and mine is) we say we hope the team can win its next game.
I hope to see you soon, we tell a loved one on the phone.
But what we really mean by “hope” really isn't “hope” at all, is it? We “wish” to see someone soon. We “want” the tests to come back negative. But to wish or to want is not the same as hope.
The evening news is even getting into the act. Turn on the TV and it is there. In fact presidential candidacies stand on the platform of that one word “Hope.” A candidate titles his book “The Audacity of Hope.”
Government, it would appear, is to be in the business of dispensing hope.
Don't get me wrong. This country does need hope. Desperately. And maybe Washington can help renew our hope.
But the hope that government can try to give is not the same kind of hope that God gives
Listen again to these words from 1st Peter:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ...In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials...
Peter's letter brought a word of hope to its original audience. Addressed to believers who were the minority in a pagan and pluralistic society, it was most likely penned during the last quarter of the first century AD. Although persecution was not yet as widespread as it would be in the coming years, these early believers suffered tremendous adversity at the hands of their neighbors.
And though we are not where our early brothers and sisters were, we know some of what that is like.
And if things continue as they are we will soon be walking down a similar path.
Look around you. Our world is changing. Recent surveys have suggested in the very near future Christians in America will no longer possess the majority status we have enjoyed for so long. And though change comes to the south a little slower, the change is still on its way.
We may mourn the loss of majority status, we are still called to be salt and light to the world. To bring to this hurting world the hope that can only be found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mars Hill Church pastor Rob Bell, in describing his ministry, says it like this:
If people have been thinking about God and life and Jesus, and somebody comes along and puts words to some of their deepest fears, theories, intuition, a pretty nuclear reaction goes off," he said. "For many people, there's a widespread, low-grade despair at the heart of everything. If we can tilt things a few clicks in the hope direction, that would be beautiful."
Hope, he says, is the bottom line.
"There's nothing to fear," Bell continues, "At the core of the Christian experience, there's resurrection. The story ends better than anything you can make up yourself."
"I can be totally honest about how dreadful the world is," "It's OK to acknowledge that. Half the Psalms are laments - 'Lord, why have you forsaken me?'
"Many people have been presented a message that's candy-coated. It doesn't ring true. It has a nice red bow on it, but there's no blood and guts. I fully acknowledge the suffering and pain, but at the same time there's great hope."1
Peter says that this new living hope that we have was given us through the death and resurrection of Jesus... or as the hymn says:
“Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”
It is, after all, because of Easter that we can have hope.
It is why that when we gather Sunday after Sunday we are proclaiming to the world the power of God displayed in Christ's resurrection.
And this hope and excitement of Easter is not to be saved for only one day out of the year when we come to church, dressed in new and pretty clothes, and eat chocolate bunnies. Easter is our reason of being. We are Children of the Resurrection. We are Easter People.
It is because of Easter that Peter is able to boldly proclaim that we have an inheritance that will not be defiled...
It is because of Easter that the geniuneness of our faith which is tested by hardships and fire may bring praise and glory to God..
Because of Easter that we can receive the salvation of our souls...
Because even though we have not seen him we still believe... we still have hope...
Because that even in the face of adversity and the heartbreak of the death of close friends... or watching from the sidelines as my parents struggled to keep their marriage... my faith sustained me and gave me hope.
I have hope.
We have hope.
Our hope is not dead because Jesus did not stay dead. Our hope is alive because our Lord is alive.
Because of the resurrection, because of Easter, we have hope.
And that, my friends, is very good news. Amen.
1. Adapted from an article from Biblical Recorder
