If I asked you to name the essentials of life, what would they be? What is absolutely necessary for people
to live? We would probably begin
with a list of the tangibles things that we need, such as food, water, shelter,
and clothing. As much as we are
dependent upon those tangible items there are some intangibles as well that are
necessary to life, and one of the most important of those is hope.
Having hope is not easy these days. Political campaigns promise hope but fewer and fewer people
seem to have hope. In 1999, 85% of
Americans said they were hopeful about their own future and 68% said they were
hopeful for the future of the world.
A few years ago only 69% were hopeful for their own future and only 51%
were hopeful about the future of the world (from a CNN opinion poll). It’s probably dropped even more since
then.
There is a trinity of values in the Christian faith, as Paul
describes them in I Corinthians 13, and they are faith, hope, and love, none of
which we can live without.
Everyone – even the greatest skeptic, has faith in something. Everyone, without a doubt, needs
love. But we must not forget the
importance of hope, which is absolutely necessary to life.
Hope, we must note, is much more than wishful thinking. We might say that we hope to have a
good week. I might say that I hope the
Steelers win the Super Bowl this year.
You might say you hope UK wins the NCAA this year. Some might say they hope UofL doesn’t
win anything this year.
This morning, on this final Sunday of Advent,
let us consider The Gift of Hope. Our Scripture text is Luke 1:67-79 –
67 And his father Zacharias was filled with
the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying:
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for He has visited us and
accomplished redemption for His people,
69 And has raised up a horn of salvation
for us
in the house of David His servant—
70 As He spoke by the mouth of His holy
prophets from of old—
71 Salvation from our enemies,
and from the
hand of all who hate us;
72 To show mercy toward our fathers,
and
to remember His holy covenant,
73 The oath which He swore to Abraham our
father,
74 To grant us that we, being rescued from
the hand of our enemies,
might serve Him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before Him
all our days.
76 “And you, child, will be called the prophet
of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways;
77 To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
by
the forgiveness of their sins,
78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,
with
which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,
79 To shine upon those who sit in darkness
and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
1. Hope is an affirmation of belief in
God’s promise of the future.
It is the belief in that promise that compels
people to continue to move forward.
The Hebrew people had the hope of the Promised Land. For centuries they endured slavery in
Egypt, but they had hope in the promise of the future that one day they would
not only have freedom but a home as well.
That hope is what enabled them to endure through the many years of
struggle and despair.
Job, a towering figure when it comes to hope –
perhaps the greatest example of hope – clung to the hope that God was with him
and had not turned against him. I
read several passages daily and one of them is Job 13:15, which says though
he slay me, yet will I hope in him. Nothing could cause Job to lose hope, not even his friends
who came to him and encouraged him to give up. They saw no reason for hope, but Job did.
The early church had hope for a future free of
persecution. As the mighty Roman
Empire put many to death in horrific ways – as fodder for the animals and the
gladiators in the Coliseum, as human torches lighting Nero’s gardens at night,
and in countless other types of persecution – instead of losing hope their hope
grew and with it grew the church.
When Paul writes of hope he is writing from
very deep experience. It’s not an
academic treatise; it’s real life.
Paul suffered in so many ways – he was arrested and beaten (II
Corinthians 11:13-29), people sought to kill him, and he was eventually
executed – this was a guy who really understood hope. In the midst of his greatest trial – awaiting execution – he
writes the letter to the Philippians and they are beautiful words; they are
words of hope.
2. Hope
is what allows one to look at the terrible circumstances of the world and say
things can be better.
Hope is what allows us to face our struggles,
to look them straight in the eye, and say I
can do this; this is possible; the Spirit of God will provide the strength to
endure and His promise of a better future is true.
Victor Fankel learned that hope. He was a prisoner in a concentration
camp, and at the entrance a sign bore the words abandon all hope ye who enter here, which is Dante’s inscription on
the entrance of Hell. He lost
everything. Every possession was
taken from him, and he suffered from cold, hunger, brutality, and the constant
fear of death. While in the camp
he lost his father, mother, brother, and his wife.
He later wrote of one of his darkest
moments. He was digging in a cold,
icy trench, and at that moment felt the
hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the
enveloping gloom. I felt it
transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a
victorious “yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate
purpose.
At that moment a light was lit in a distant
farmhouse, and upon seeing that light, hope was kindled in him, and his words
at that moment were et lux in tenebris lucent
– and the light shineth in the darkness. John 1:5 says the light shines in the darkness.
Hope is the light that shines in the darkness
of life. It is a light that
illumines this life.
Christians have been accused over the years of concentrating so much
on eternal life that the problems of this life are overlooked. But genuine hope never forgets this
world. In fact, C. S. Lewis says
that it is when Christians have most thought of the next world that they have
worked to improve this world.
(Mere Christianity, p. 118)
3.
Proper hope, then, becomes something that moves us to make a difference in this
world and in this life.
Hope changes things in this life. Proper hope does not ask people to simply endure this life
while they are awaiting the next.
A hope that sees something beyond this life sees how things should be,
and when we see how things should be we work to make them that way. That’s why most of the great social
movements in history have come out of the church; because the church saw how
things could be and should be, and they worked to make it so.
Hope, then, makes all the difference. One of my favorite stories of hope is the story behind the
great hymn It Is Well With My Soul. The hymn was written by Horatio Spafford, who was a lawyer
in Chicago in the mid 1860s. He
had a very successful career, but in 1870 a series of tragedies befell the
family, beginning with the death of their four-year-old son from Scarlet Fever. A year later almost all of the
Spafford’s real estate holdings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire,
causing Spafford to lose his life savings.
In 1873 his family planned a trip to England,
but at the last minute Spafford was called back to Chicago on business. He sent his wife and four daughters on
to England, anxious to see them enjoy a trip to take their mind off their
tragedies. But tragedy struck on
the trip, as their ship collided with another, and sunk in only twelve minutes. Spafford’s wife survived but their four
daughters perished.
Spafford took the first ship out of New York to
meet his wife, and during the voyage the ship’s captain called Spafford to the
bridge. The captain explained they
were passing the spot where his daughters had perished. Spafford returned to his cabin and
wrote the hymn, which included these words – when peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea
billows roll. Whatever my lot,
Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.
When hope exists, people can survive even the most
desperate of circumstances. As
Emily Dickinson writes in her poem Hope,
Hope is the thing
with feathers,
That perches in
the soul,
And sings the tune
– without the words,
And never stops at
all,
And sweetest in
the gale is heard;
And sore must be
the storm
That could abash
the little bird
That kept so many
warm.
I’ve heard it in
the chillest land,
And on the
strangest sea;
Yet, never, in
extremity,
It asked a crumb
of me.
May
hope live in us always.
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