Hope.
Has there ever been a word filled with so much
promise, so much longing, so much, well, hope?
As we continue with
our theme of Building, this week’s message
is Building Hope. Our Scripture text comes from a time
when hope was in short supply among God’s people. Centuries had passed and there was nothing but silence from
the heavens. The prophets,
encouraging as they might be, had no new word to offer from the Lord. Faith, no doubt, had entered a time of
struggle. To make matters even
more discouraging, years of living under the rule of the mighty Roman Empire
brought a greater sense of despair upon the people.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be blessed:
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come,
So wrote Alexander Pope. Pope’s immortal first words, that hope springs eternal, are not true, however,
because hope does not spring eternal. Hope
can be extinguished. Hope can fall victim to the struggles of life
and to the day in and day out pressures that bear upon us. Scores of people, indeed, have lost
hope throughout history. Living in
war zones, beset by famine, disease, and all manner of suffering, many people
in our world have simply given up any hope they might have once entertained.
In the centuries before the birth of Jesus many
had also, no doubt, lost hope; perhaps even Zechariah, of whom we will read in
a moment. It was no small surprise
when an angel appeared to Zechariah with the announcement that Elizabeth, his
wife, would have a son. It was
such a wondrous possibility that Zechariah could not believe this news of hope;
in fact, he expressed outright skepticism that such a wondrous, miraculous
event could happen. Such is the
nature of hope; its promises can at times be so amazing that we can’t bring
ourselves to believe they could ever be true. Listen
now to our Scripture text, and listen for one statement in particular. It is a statement every one of us would
love to hear.
Luke 1:5-19 –
5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah,
who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a
descendant of Aaron.
6 Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the
Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.
7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and
they were both very old.
8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest
before God,
9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go
into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled
worshipers were praying outside.
11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side
of the altar of incense.
12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.
13 But the angel said to him: “Do
not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard (Emphasis mine).
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.
14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of
his birth,
15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine
or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even
before he is born.
16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah,
to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the
wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How
can I be sure of this? (Emphasis mine) I am an old man and my wife is
well along in years.”
19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to
speak to you and to tell you this good news.”
I want to offer
you three challenges this morning.
The first is –
1.
Dare to have hope.
The statement to which I hoped would stand out
to you in the Scripture reading is verse 13 – Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Isn’t that a great statement? Those are some of the most powerful
words in all of Scripture. Here’s
a guy who went about his work, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month,
and year-after-year. He had many
reasons not to have hope, one of which Luke tells us was that he and his wife,
Elizabeth, had no children, and they had given up hope that they would. When the angel tells Zechariah they
would have a son – who would be John the Baptist – you can hear his hesitancy
not only to believe the news but the hesitancy to embrace hope in his question
– how can I be sure of this, he
asks. Give me some proof before I will believe. I’m not going to get my hopes up only to be
disappointed. Before I will even
entertain the possibility of hope, you have to give me something that would
justify that hope. But all he
received was a promise. That’s not
much to go on, is it? But that’s
what hope asks of us. Trust,
believe, hope. We’ll take that, won’t we?
A promise can be enough, and that’s what hope
is – a promise, and we must dare to accept that promise. Zechariah was given the promise, and wouldn’t
you like to hear that same promise?
Don’t be afraid, Dave, your prayer
has been heard. Isn’t that a
beautiful affirmation? Wouldn’t
you love to hear those words? Don’t be afraid, Jim, your prayer has been
heard. Don’t be afraid, Betty,
your prayer has been heard.
Imagine – that for which your heart has so longed, that for which you
dared to dream, that for which you have so hoped, has been heard and will come
to pass.
But we too are tempted to say how can I be sure of this? Sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to
hope; it’s simply too much to dare to have hope. Why hope if you’re only going to be disappointed? It’s easier to never hope than it is to
have hope and then have those hopes dashed.
One of the most radical, resistant, defiant,
rebellious acts we can commit today is to have hope. That’s one of the things I love about faith, it dares to
have hope. Faith dares to fly in
the face of popular opinion and to hold to hope. Faith dares to reject that human reason tells us there is no
evidence as to why we should embrace hope, but faith can see there are a
multitude of reasons. Dare to have
hope!
2.
Never give up hope.
People often come to me looking for many
things. They come with questions,
looking for answers; they come with needs, looking for provision; and they come
with grief looking for comfort.
I’ll be honest with you and say that there are many times when I feel
totally unequipped to answer their questions, to meet their needs, or to have
adequate words of comfort. Totally
unequipped. Sometimes I have to
say, I don’t know the answer to your
question. Sometimes I have to
say, I don’t know how to meet your need. Sometimes I have to say, I don’t know how to take away your hurt and
your pain and how to remove your loss. But what I can say is, I
don’t have the answer, I don’t have the provision, and I don’t have the
comfort, but I know who does!
And there was a time when I felt as though that was such an inadequate
answer, to say I don’t have what you need
but I know who does, but over the years I have come to understand how often
people are really asking for hope more than anything else. They are not looking for an answer to
every question as much as they are looking for someone to tell them there is One
who can provide hope. They are not
looking for someone to make provision for every need they have but to affirm
there is One who can make provision.
They are not looking for words of comfort as much as they are looking
for One who is a comfort. They are
looking for someone to say to them, don’t
ever give up hope. There is One
who justifies and makes real that hope!
I’m telling you today, don’t give up hope.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you, don’t give
up hope! Next week I’ll tell
you, don’t give up hope! Next month I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope. Next year I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope! When you are in the midst of despair
I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope! When you are struggling to make sense
of loss I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope! When you are wondering how you will
make ends meet because the distance between the ends is so vast you don’t think
it will ever be possible to bring them together I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope! When you feel that long ago you
surpassed the end of your rope, when you feel that not only is the night dark
but the days are dark as well, when you wonder if there is any use in
continuing on, when you wonder if anyone cares, when you wonder if God himself
cares about you and if he understands your need, I’ll tell you, don’t give up hope! Don’t ever, ever, ever give up hope!
3.
Be a messenger of hope.
Now, I’ll admit that I am a somewhat of a
former hippy. I was a bit young to
be a full-fledged hippy back in the mid to late 60s, but I was a junior
hippy. I had the big
hair, the bell bottoms; I had the whole hippy wardrobe. Over the years I've lost my high school
and college yearbooks, but the other evening I found a web site that had my
college yearbooks online. Yes, I
did take a look at couldn't believe how I looked back then! And no, I will not share that web address
with you! I came of age in a time that had a level of optimism that now
seems to have all but died. Nobody
sings songs about wearing flowers in your hair any more. I miss those days. I don’t miss putting flowers in my hair
– and yes, I did that a time or two – but I miss the hope and idealism that was
alive in those days. Now it seems
as though idealism has died.
Optimism became realism and realism became cynicism and that cynicism
has taken hold with a vengeance and has put down deep, deep roots. It’s not hard for us to become
cynical. We struggle with doing
the right thing, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after
year, only to see others get ahead and prosper in spite of questionable ethics,
questionable business deals, and uncaring attitudes. We begin to wonder, is there any reason to hold on to the good as Paul writes in I
Thessalonians 5:21? Is there any
reason to worry about anything or anyone beyond myself? Won’t I feel better and do better if I
let go of hope and go all in for myself and what I want out of life?
We’ve got far too much of that in our world. We need some more people to be
messengers of hope. You need to be
a messenger of hope. You need to
be a messenger of hope because somebody needs you to be a messenger of hope. I’m not talking about an oblivious
naïveté that is willingly blind to the very real problems in our world and in
the lives of those in our circle of acquaintance. Just in case you haven’t noticed, our world is in bad shape,
and so are most of us who are living in it.
There are macro concerns, big concerns, in our
world – there is war and famine and all manner of struggle, and we must pray
for world peace and that hungry children will be fed, and we must have hope
that those needs will be met and we must work to meet those needs. But there are micro concerns, as well,
and they are our concerns. The
world has a long list of difficulties and problems but we’ve got our own set of
difficulties and problems, don’t we?
The good news is that God is in both the macro and the micro. God is concerned about the hungry
children in the world and the warfare in the world and he is concerned about the problems in your world and in my
world. None of the problems – on a
global scale or on a personal scale – escape either the attention or the
concern of God.
Someone needs you to be a messenger of hope. Someone in the circle of your life
needs to hear you say, there is hope. They might challenge you by saying
something such as how can you have hope
when there are so many insurmountable problems in this world? How can you have hope when there are so
many insurmountable problems in my world?
Are you not paying attention?
Yes, you say, I am paying attention. I know all about the problems that seem
insurmountable, in the world and in your life, and I choose hope. I believe in hope. I have hope, and I think you should
have hope as well.
Dare to have hope. Someone needs you to have hope. The world needs you to have hope. Never give up hope.
Someone needs to hold on to hope.
The world needs you to hold on to hope. Be a messenger of hope. Someone needs you be a messenger of hope. The world needs you to be a messenger
of hope.
Let us go forth and build hope!
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