Advent Reflections: Hope 1

Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,  To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if any of you do not have them, you are nearsighted and blind, and you have forgotten that you have been cleansed from your past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

—2 Peter 1:1-11 (TNIV)

The season of Advent began this past Sunday. Advent comes from the Latin, Adventus, which means “coming” or “arrival.” It is a season of reflection and anticipation in which we reflect on our Lord’s first coming in human weakness and humility in the Incarnation, and anticipate his return in great power and glory to finish the work he started in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. On Sunday we lighted the first candle on the Advent wreath. It is the candle that signifies hope and this week I want to focus on that particular Christian virtue.

What exactly is the basis for Christian hope? There is a two-part answer to this question. Christians base our hope on what God has already done for us and what he promises to do at some point in the future. Today, I focus on the former.

In our most honest moments, when we reflect on God and the nature of our relationship with him, many of us get quite discouraged. Like David in Psalm 51, we know our transgressions only too well and our sin is ever before us. We wonder how God could ever bring himself to forgive the likes of us and in the process we can easily lose hope.

But that is not the story of the Good News. It is precisely during these moments of doubt and despair that we must remember the symbol of God’s justice. It is not the scales of justice in which we get the punishment we deserve. If that were the case, none of us would have the basis for any legitimate hope at all. No, the symbol of God’s justice is the Cross. As Peter reminds us in today’s Scripture, God himself entered our history as Jesus of Nazareth and on the Cross bore the punishment for our sins himself. He did this because he loves us and created us to have a relationship with him, not for the duration of our earthly lives, but forever. Consequently, we are redeemed by the Blood of Christ and declared not guilty in God’s sight. That is the basis for our hope. On the Cross, God has made the impossible possible and it is a sheer act of grace on God’s part. None of us deserve it, but God wants us to have it.

If you are struggling with the basis of your Christian hope (or have none at all), take a minute right now in the midst of your busy day and ask God to give you the grace, wisdom, and faith to believe his promises to you. If you do not know the story of God’s love for us in Jesus, resolve to learn the Story.  Our hope is a hope worth embracing because it is the only real hope we will ever have. Spend the time you need to embrace it and persevere at doing so.

The basis of our hope as Christians is not about us, but about the amazing love of God and his passionate desire for each one of us to have a relationship with him, now and forever. That is why he took on our flesh and died for us. Embrace your hope, not because you deserve it (you don’t), but because it is God’s amazing and gracious gift to you. Keep reminding yourself of this so that the Evil One cannot use the circumstances of your life or your infirmity to rob you of it.

Tomorrow we will look at the future basis of our Christian hope.

The Basis of Your Hope

Sermon delivered the first Sunday of Advent, November 29, 2009, at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. The audio version of this sermon is not available.

Lectionary texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! Today is the first Sunday in Advent and we begin a new calendar year for the Church. For those of you who read the Daily Office, don’t forget that we begin Year 2 in the reading cycle. Advent comes from the Latin, Adventus (parousia in Greek) and means “coming” or “arrival.” It is a time of reflection and anticipation as we reflect on our Lord’s First Coming manifested in the Incarnation and his Second Coming in power and glory to finish the work he started at his First Coming. Advent is not part of the Christmas season but rather a preparation for it. Over the next four Sundays, we will be focusing primarily on the Second Coming of Jesus and why that is important to us as Christians here and now.

Today we light the first candle in our Advent wreath. This candle signifies hope and this morning I want us to reflect on our Christian hope. Why should the Second Coming provide us with a basis for our Christian hope? How we answer that question gives us keen insight into state of our faith and where we are in our relationship with God.

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus talks about the eschaton, or the end times. He tells his disciples (and us) that despite the earth-shattering events that will signal the end of history and the birth of the New Creation, we who follow Jesus should not be afraid. Rather, we should “stand up and raise [our] heads because [our] redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). What a remarkable thing to say! Whatever the cosmic events that precede our Lord’s Second Coming look like, it will catch unbelievers off guard because they do not believe that history will terminate in the Second Coming and consequently do not prepare themselves for it. Moreover, since they have rejected the Gospel, they have no legitimate basis for hope because they are still dead in their sins, and so the eschaton is not something to which they look forward. It will be a time of judgment and dread for them. It is not a pretty picture for unbelievers and any of us who claim to love our Lord should be heart sick about it and do our part to share the Good News with others.

But sadly, many of us who profess to be Christians, secretly (or not so secretly) dread our Lord’s Second Coming as well. Why is that? Perhaps we do not believe God is good to his promises, but Jeremiah tells us otherwise in today’s OT lesson, doesn’t he? Has that not been our experience as well?

Perhaps we are still laboring under the works-righteous delusion where we believe if we do enough good works, God will ignore our sin, look favorably on us, and admit us to The Club. But this runs against the consistent testimony of the NT. In fact, the biblical testimony is quite the opposite. Left on our own, none of us has any hope of living forever, let alone living forever with God.

Perhaps we dread the Second Coming because we still see God as Resident Policeman who is constantly looking to catch us when we are having a good time so that he can put a stop to it right now. But is that really the kind of god we want to worship or with whom we want to have a relationship? I know I don’t want anything to do with that kind of god.

Maybe we have just been beaten down by life and have lost most or all hope that God can and will redeem us. It is so easy for us to get discouraged by what is happening in our lives, isn’t it? But a faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted. God does not allow our faith to be tested to destroy it, but rather to develop it. Abraham is probably the poster child of this truth. His whole life was full of trials, most of which he failed, culminating in God’s demand that he sacrifice Isaac. You see, God wanted Abraham to trust him and grow in a proper relationship with him, one in which Abraham knew God was God and he was not so that Abraham could fully trust in God and believe his promises. It wasn’t until Abraham attempted to sacrifice Isaac that he learned God could be fully trusted. We may not like how this works but it really is not ours to decide, unless, of course, we intend to claim equality with God (and many of us seem to want to do just that).

However, if we see the dark valleys of our lives as opportunities to allow God to show his trustworthiness to us so that we can grow in our faith and dependency on him, we will not be disappointed. If, on the other hand, we make our relationship and faith in God contingent on getting our prayers answered the way we want them answered, we will be disappointed as often as not. Our relationship with God must be based on faith and trust, not on some sense of equality because we are not God.

Or perhaps we dread the Second Coming because we do not understand how or why God would want to save someone like us. Like David in Psalm 51, we know our transgressions only too well and our sin is ever before us. Consequently, we lose all hope for any kind of present and future with God. It is precisely at these times that we forget what the symbol of God’s justice is. It is not the scales of justice that signify we will get the punishment we deserve but rather it is the cross of Jesus Christ. That is why Jesus could tell us to stand up and raise our heads on the day of judgment.

Where is God’s Grace?

For you see, God loved us so much that he took care of the problem of sin for us by taking on our flesh and bearing the punishment for our sins on the cross. He did this because he loves us and created us to have a relationship with him, not for the duration of our earthly lives, but forever. The next time the Evil One starts whispering in your ear that the Gospel is a lie and that you cannot possibly be saved, remember the cross, the symbol of God’s loving justice.

So how many of you look forward to the Second Coming? If you did not raise your hand, what are you afraid of? Where is your hope? Why should we stand up and raise our heads when thinking about Christ’s Second Coming? For the very reasons we just discussed. We are redeemed by the Blood of Christ and declared not guilty in God’s sight. We have been given the Holy Spirit to sustain us in our weakness while we live out our days here on earth. And we have been given a glorious vision of hope when Christ returns again to finish the work he started at his First Coming. When Christ returns again, we will be raised from the dead (or be transformed in an instant if we are still living) and given new resurrection bodies that are immortal. Heaven and earth will be fused into a New Creation and we will get to live in God’s direct Presence forever. He will wipe away all our sorrows and fears, and we will never again be subject to any kind of evil. Does that vision give you hope? If it doesn’t, I am not sure if anything ever can.

Where is the Application?

I am not talking about other-worldly escapism here for that is not biblical teaching. The very promise of a New Creation means that we are to take God’s current creation seriously. We are to roll up our sleeves and get to work to help usher in God’s Kingdom until he comes again to finish his redemptive work. Make no mistake. God must put everything aright, not us. But we are called to do our part while we still live in his broken and fallen world.

What does that mean for us right here and now? This Advent season, I encourage you to develop your Christian hope if you do not have one or if yours is lacking in any way. First, if you do not know about the NT vision of a New Creation, go back and reread the Passion and Resurrection narratives in the Bible. Then read 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 20-22. Do not take the apocalyptic language in Revelation literally but read it with the idea that it is getting you to imagine the unimaginable: a time when we will get to live directly in God’s Presence in a New Creation that is no longer fallen and where there is no longer any kind of suffering, alienation, sin, or sorrow. As you are contemplating this magnificent vision, remember the hope that is behind the biblical narrative. We can look forward to the New Creation precisely because we are a redeemed people. We have been redeemed by the Blood of Christ and we believe God is true to his promises. We remember that the symbol of God’s justice is his cross. As you reflect on this, ask God to grant you the grace to believe his promises and to strengthen his hope in you.

Second, during this Advent season, the next time life is beating you down, stop and ask God to use your troubles to help you see his trustworthiness so that you can grow in your faith and trust in him. Memorize a verse of Scripture that will help you do this and repeat it as needed. Talk to other Christians and share your “God Moments” so that you have tangible reminders that God is active and present in the lives of his people to help sustain us and to help us grow in our relationship with him. Make this your Advent discipline these next four weeks and then when Christmas comes, stop and reflect on the progress you’ve made, giving thanks for whatever progress you have made.

And like Paul did for the Thessalonians in today’s Epistle lesson when he prayed for them that whatever they lacked in their faith might be made complete, so I would like to pray for you now, that the Lord who loves you and has claimed you will help you grow in your Christian hope this Advent season. Let us pray.

Summary

C.S. Lewis reminds us that hope is a theological virtue, not a vice. When we look continually forward to the eternal world, we are not engaging in some form of escapism as we have seen. Rather it is a reminder that when we have hope for the next world, we are acknowledging a genuine desire that seems to be built into us to want something more than this world can offer. The Christian hope gives us the gist for that hope. When we think about Christ’s Second Coming and the New Creation he will usher in, we are reminded that God’s creation is good and we have a real future ahead of us, not because of something we did to earn it but because of God’s sheer love for us. We strive to be holy and do good works, not because it will earn us a place in heaven—that is impossible for any of us to accomplish—but out of a profound sense of love and gratitude for this God of ours who loved us and created us to have a relationship with him forever. In the cross, he has made the impossible possible and offers life to everyone. He has given us a wondrous vision of what that life will look like when he returns in glory and invites us into that relationship right now. And when we struggle with our doubts and fears, we remember that his symbol of justice is his cross, and that his very Spirit bears witness to this truth in our hearts and minds. That’s good news, folks, now and for all eternity. This Advent, embrace your hope, not because you deserve it (you don’t), but because it is God’s precious gift to you.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Being Good Stewards of the Gospel

Sermon delivered Sunday, November 15, 2009 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. If you would like to hear the audio version of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: 1 Samuel 1:4-20; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-25; Mark 13:1-8.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! Today we conclude our series of sermons on stewardship. You recall that we define stewardship as involving more than just our care of money. God has created humans to be stewards of his creation and this means we must be stewards of all his gifts, not just his material blessings. In this sermon series I have talked about the importance of our stewardship of time and prayer because how we spend our time and the state of our prayer life (or lack of it) reveals what we think about God and the kind of relationship we have with him. Last week I talked about our stewardship of hope and its cognates, trust and faith, because we Christians have been given a wonderful hope in death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. Today, I want to tie this all together by talking about our stewardship of the Gospel and what that might look like because our stewardship of the Gospel contains all these elements.

We don’t have to look very hard to know that we live in a broken and fallen world. Read the news on any given day and you will find all kinds of awful stories and bad news on multiple fronts. Then we have our own lives that are filled with more than our fair share of disappointments, hurts, failures, and alienation. If we are honest with ourselves, we quickly realize how easy it is to fall into despair and hopelessness if our earthly lives and biological existence is all there is. Perhaps some of you are there right now.

Where is God’s Grace?

But thanks be to God that our earthly lives and biological existence is not all there is to life. We Christians have been given a wondrous and life-changing gift in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a free gift offered to every human being, and we are expected to be good stewards of that gift so that God can use us to spread his Gospel to a broken and hurting world that is desperate to hear real Good News and to have real hope. This Good News and hope are based on the Source and Author of all life, rather than on some human idea or solution.

So what is the Gospel or Good News for which we are called to be stewards? The writer of Hebrews tells us in today’s Epistle lesson. The Good News is that in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, God himself has done something once and for all about the intractable problem of human sin and the alienation it causes. In Romans 1:1, Paul reminds us that the Gospel is from God, and not a man-made concoction. Therefore it is trustworthy and true because God is trustworthy and true. The Gospel reminds us that God loves us so much, he took on our flesh and bore our punishment on the cross so that we can be declared not guilty in his sight. God suffered and died for us so that we might live with him forever.

The Gospel is based on faith and its cognates of hope and trust. There is a present and future dimension to the Gospel as is indicated in Hebrews today when the writer talks about our seeing “the Day” approaching and to which Mark points in today’s Gospel lesson. Both, of course, refer to Christ’s Second Coming, but I want to focus on the present dimension since we will be looking at the future dimension of our Christian hope during Advent.

What God has done for us on the cross means that we humans are freed from trying to do the impossible: earning our salvation. God has taken care of the problem of evil and sin for us on the cross and until he comes again in glory to finish the work he started, he has promised to give us his Holy Spirit, who will help us become more like him and strengthen and assure us in our struggles and infirmity. We simply have to accept God’s wondrous offer of grace and live accordingly in hope and trust. The monkey’s off our back. We are freed to respond to this awesome love with joyful obedience and thanksgiving because God has given us everything we need to grow in our relationship with him in this life and the next.

Where is the Application?

So how are we to be good stewards of the Gospel? First, we must know exactly what the Gospel is so that we can be ready to share it with others when opportunities present themselves, and so that we can draw on its power to sustain us in our own weaknesses and adversities. This means we need to be reading our Bibles regularly so that God can help us begin to learn and know the unfathomable power, depth, and riches of the Gospel to help us live faithful and joyous lives. This doesn’t mean we are going to be perfect or happy all the time. Rather, it reminds us who our Daddy really is so that we can have a real basis of hope in our lives, even in the most dire of circumstances. Consequently, we need to heed the admonition in today’s Collect to, “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures so that we can hold fast to our hope that is ours in Jesus Christ. Is your knowledge of Scripture helping or hurting your stewardship of the Gospel?

Second, and related to the previous point, our stewardship of the Gospel must be based on a real hope and trust in God’s promises, not in our own abilities. In other words, we must live our lives as hopeful people, in part, so that we can be a witness to others. If you heard me preach last week, you heard me contrast the biblical notion of hope versus our own use of the word. When we use the word hope, we tend to mean wishful thinking as in, “gee, I hope I get lots of presents this Christmas” or “gee, I hope Fr. Kevin doesn’t preach one of his usual long-winded sermons so that he makes us late for Sunday brunch again” (yeah, like that’ll happen anymore this week than it did last week).

However, the NT writers, especially Paul, used hope differently. The Greek word the NT writers use for hope, elpis, means to have a sure and certain expectation that something is going to happen; it does not mean wishful thinking at all. We can see this illustrated quite nicely in today’s Scripture readings. In the OT lesson, we see a childless and despairing Hannah pray to the Lord so intently that Eli thought she was drunk. Why would she have been praying at all if she did not have hope in the power of God to manifest his blessing in her life by giving her a son?

In today’s psalm, we see hope manifested in multiple ways. The psalmist asks for God’s protection and delights in God’s presence in his life. His heart is glad and his body rests secure in the knowledge that God will not give him up to death. He trusts God to show him the ways in which he wants the psalmist to live.

In the Epistle lesson, the writer talks about having confidence to enter into God’s presence because of the blood of Jesus. Without that sure and certain hope, who among us would dare even try to enter into God’s presence?

Last, in today’s Gospel lesson, we have to look a little harder but we see hope manifested in Jesus’ urging his disciples (and us) to not be alarmed, even in the midst of havoc and disasters. If there were no basis of hope behind this, Jesus’ statement would be completely absurd. In all these examples, the lesson is clear. Our hope, in part, is based on knowledge gained from previous experience with God. We have to let him show himself to be trustworthy.

Likewise, as Christians and stewards of the Gospel we are called to live our lives in hope. This does not mean we are going to be immune from all of life’s problems. Instead, it means that we have power to deal with them because we know God has acted decisively on our behalf because he really does want us to live with him forever, and because we have his Holy Spirit working in us to remind us of our hope.

The Apostle Paul serves as a wonderful example of this kind of hopeful living. In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, he talks about the hardships of his ministry. In doing so, he reminds us that although we are perplexed, we are not in despair; hard pressed, but not crushed; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. Luke puts these statements in context in Acts, when he tells us that Paul’s ministry was met by beatings, riots, persecution, and imprisonment. Sounds like a great time doesn’t it? But here we see Paul living his life in hope. He understands that his relationship with Christ is life-giving and transformative. He recognizes that his hope will not make him immune to all that can go wrong in life, but rather will give him power to overcome all of life’s wrongs. The power is not his, but rather the Lord’s, who loved him and claimed him forever. We don’t have to be ordained ministers nor deal with the kinds of hardships and persecution that Paul did to be good stewards of the Gospel. We simply need to trust in Christ, our hope, and draw strength from it to live our lives faithfully. How are you allowing your hope to show through in your life?

Third, our stewardship of the Gospel must be fed by an active prayer life. Prayer is where we enter into an ongoing conversation with God. We bring to God our hopes and fears, our thanksgivings and sorrows, and our petitions and intercessions. We listen for God’s voice and guidance so that we can learn his will for our lives as well as our daily marching orders.

We see the necessity of prayer poignantly illustrated in today’s OT lesson. Hannah was in despair over being childless and she had to endure the insults of Elkanah’s other wife. In the midst of her agony, Hannah went to God in prayer and asked for relief. She did so, in part, because she trusted God and knew that he had the power to deliver. Likewise, when we are in our most desperate moments, we must turn to God in prayer with the kind of hope and trust Hannah had. Yet that hope and trust must not be tied to a specific outcome we desire, but rather on what God desires for us because we trust that he loves us and is working for our good rather than harm. This is not easy for us to do because we like to play god and think we know better than he does. When we learn to really desire his will in our lives and trust him even when some of our prayers are not answered as we wish, we become living testimonies to the power of the Good News in our lives. How does your prayer life manifest your stewardship of the Gospel?

Fourth, our stewardship of the Gospel must manifest itself in holiness and service. We are God’s called out people, his holy people. We are made holy by the blood of Christ, not our own merits, and we have the Holy Spirit living in us, helping us to become more like Christ. This inevitably manifests itself in a life of service and a keen desire to please the Lord who loved us and gave himself for us. Does this mean we will be immune to failure? Hardly. Think of your relationship with your best beloved. We love the person and desire to please him or her. Yet we do not always do so, do we? Does that mean we do not love the person? No. It means we are cracked pots, capable of making mistakes. We must be careful not to take this analogy too far, but I think it illustrates the fact that just because we do not always do the right things, doesn’t mean we do not love our Lord or desire to please him. That, of course, would be making it all about ourselves when the Gospel reminds us that it is all about what God has done and is doing for us. However our service manifests itself, we do so because our Lord commanded us to serve and because we have trust that even in the midst of our weakness and imperfection, his Holy Spirit is slowly but surely transforming us into his very image and helping us do the work he calls us to do. How does your service reflect your stewardship of the Gospel?

Fifth, we are to be good stewards of the Gospel by sharing it with others as opportunities arise. I am not talking about going out and knocking on people’s doors. I’m talking about developing relationships with others and when the context permits, sharing our hope and faith with them by telling them what God has done and is doing in our lives. This doesn’t mean sugarcoating our lives or trying to paint ourselves in the best possible light. On the contrary, it means getting real with others and sharing how God is helping us deal with our real hopes and fears, how God is helping us live holy lives, even though we are cracked pots. For you see, the Gospel is about God’s great love for us and what God can do in and through us, not about some half-baked human solution to problems we cannot ever hope to solve on our own. Do you have the kind of relationship with God that makes you want to share with others?

Last, as today’s Epistle lesson reminds us, we are to be stewards of the Gospel together. God will use our fellowship to help us in our weakness and to help others in theirs. Never underestimate the power of the human touch or the ability of the Lord of the universe to work in and through those who love him to help them live their lives with joy, peace, and contentment. I was reminded of this just this past week when we visited our financial advisor. This fellow is a faithful Christian and he reminded me to keep a Gospel perspective of life as I was allowing the fear of old age and possible infirmity to cloud my perspective of how to live life. Are you guarding your stewardship of the Gospel by becoming part of a small group of faithful Christians?

So how might our stewardship of the Gospel look like in the lives of God’s saints? This past week, my beloved expressed concern about me not appearing to be very happy and what that meant regarding my faith. I reminded her that there is a difference between joy and enjoying something, between happiness and contentment. There is a lot going on in my life that has the capability of beating me down and causing me to lose heart and hope. I have an infirm and struggling father-in-law. I have a grieving wife. My relationship with my kids is nominal and I watch them drift about without a firm Anchor. I watch several of my small group members struggle with issues in their lives, and my intercessory list gets longer and longer each week; a lot of you are hurting.

Moreover, I lament over my own sins and how I don’t seem to see much improvement, causing me to question how much I love the Lord. These things are real life issues and have a negative effect on me. But like Paul, I am perplexed but not in despair because I have the Gospel and its power living in me. I remember that it is not about me, but about God’s power. I have friends and family who love me and who remind me of my hope in Christ. I have Scripture to remind me that God is faithful to his promises. I have God’s very Spirit in me, helping me in my struggles, reminding me that I am not immune to those struggles, but have his Power to help me overcome them. He also reminds me of the bountiful blessings I enjoy. And so there is a contentment in me that keeps me from falling into despair and helps me remember Whose I am. I certainly don’t “enjoy” watching the brokenness in my world, but I have power to overcome it, and I am willing to share this with anyone who will listen. That, I believe, is trying to be a good steward of the Gospel.

Summary

We have been given a wondrous gift in Jesus Christ. The God of this magnificent universe created us to have a relationship with him. He has taken on our flesh and died for us to make it possible for us to have the kind of relationship we enjoyed with him before the Fall. He has blessed us with his Holy Spirit to help us become more like him and to strengthen us in our darkest moments until he comes again in glory to finish the work he started. And he has promised us that there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from his love. Nothing. That’s good news, folks, now and for all eternity. Will you embrace it and be a good steward of it? I pray you will.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

How is Your Stewardship of Hope?

Sermon delivered Sunday, November 8, 2009 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. If you would like to hear an audio version of this sermon, usually somewhat different from the text below, click here.

Lectionary texts: Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17; Psalm 127; Hebrews 9:24-28; Mark 12:38-44.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! After a week’s respite to celebrate All Saints Day last week, today we continue our series of sermons on stewardship. You recall that we define stewardship as involving more than just our care of money. God has created humans to be stewards of his creation and this means we must be stewards of all his gifts, not just his material blessings. In this sermon series I have talked about the importance of our stewardship of time and prayer because how we spend our time and the state of our prayer life (or lack of it) reveals what we think about God and the kind of relationship we have with him. This week I want to focus on your stewardship of hope and its cognates: trust and faith.

So in what or whom do you put your ultimate hope, trust, and faith? Many of us seek to build up a nest egg so that we can live comfortably while we work and in our retirement. Implicit in this is the assumption that adequate financial security is worthy of our ultimate hope. But last year’s stock market crash and the dismal state of the economy let the air out of that balloon, didn’t it? Many of us are now forced to work longer because our nest eggs disappeared almost overnight.

Others of us put our ultimate hope and trust in our health and physical good looks. I was like that when I was younger—they didn’t have mirrors back in those days and I never understood what people meant when they kept telling me that I have a face only a mother could love—but sooner or later our looks and our health go south, even amongst the most beautiful people.

Still others put their ultimate hope and trust in science and technology. It is true that both have improved our standard of living in this country on one level, but it is also true that both can sometimes exacerbate decisions about quality of life as we grow old and infirm. Yes, technology and medical science can help us live longer, but at what cost?

I read this past week that tarot card readers and fortune tellers are surging in popularity these days because of our sagging economy. People are flocking to them in desperation to get a word of hope about their employment opportunities and their economic future (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,572246,00.html). This latter instance is particularly sad because it indicates just how desperate we have become to find some hope and security. It seems that we humans will resort to almost anything to which to give our ultimate hope and trust.

Where is God’s Grace?

But that is not the basis of hope we find in today’s Scripture readings, is it? Before we look at this, however, it is important that we understand exactly how the Bible defines hope. When we use the word, hope, we usually equate it to something like wishful thinking, e.g., “Gee, I hope I get a new iPhone for Christmas” or “ Gee, I hope Fr. Kevin doesn’t preach one of his long-winded sermons this morning like he usually does and make us late for breakfast again” (yeah, like that’ll happen!). And it would also seem that our hope is often based on immediate gratification as evidenced by the desire to “make a quick buck” or making a trip to your local psychic so that you can know immediately about your future.

However, the writers of the NT, especially Paul, used hope differently. The Greek word for hope, elpis, found in the NT means to anticipate something, usually with pleasure, or to have a confident expectation that something is going to happen, like the Risen and Ascended Lord returning again in power to finish what his death and resurrection had started. It does not mean wishful thinking at all; rather, it connotes a confident expectation.

And as today’s Scripture readings make abundantly clear, we are to put our ultimate hope, trust, and faith in God because only God has the power to deliver. But to be good stewards of our Christian hope, we have to learn to develop an eternal perspective about life. If we do not see life as being more than biological existence and all that surrounds it, then we have no basis for real hope because all biological existence is finite and mortal. No matter how “healthy, wealthy, and wise” we are, eventually those gifts will pass away, never to return.

So what is the basis of our hope and how are we to be good stewards of it? We can find our basis for real hope in our passage from Hebrews this morning. The writer reminds us that Jesus has taken care of the problem of sin once and for all. In his death, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus has dealt with the problem of alienation and separation that our sin has caused. We are no longer alienated from God or separated from him by our sins because Christ has borne our punishment on the cross. He has offered redemption and salvation for all those who believe in him, and when he returns again, he will finish the work he started through his death, resurrection, and ascension.

The writer of Hebrews does not articulate what this will look like but the writer of Revelation and Paul do. When Christ returns again in glory, heaven and earth will be fused into a New Creation. We will get new resurrection bodies and never again be subject to any of the awful things that can happen to our mortal bodies. And best of all, we will get to live directly in God’s presence and he will wipe away our tears and sorrow forever (Revelation 20-22; 1 Corinthians 15:35-57). Paul and the writers of Hebrews and Revelation had this hope, this eager expectation, because they believed God’s promises to put to right all the wrongs of this world, and they had an eternal perspective of life, a perspective that transcends biological existence.

Likewise, in the first chapter of Colossians, Paul articulates a glorious hope based on the work of Jesus Christ and the wondrous love of God the Father for his sinful and rebellious creatures. If you have not read Colossians 1 for a while (or ever), I encourage you to read it, reflect on it, and ponder its gracious message. At verse 27 you will find Paul summarizing the basis for his hope and ours: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Do you have that basis for your hope? If you don’t, what’s holding you back? If you do, are you embracing it so that you have power to help you persevere even in the midst of life’s most difficult situations?

From our other readings this morning, we see how the biblical notion of hope is manifested in the lives of God’s saints, ordinary men and women who had this confident hope and expectation in the God who loved us and gave himself for us. In Ruth, we see that hope does not manifest itself in some kind of introspective navel gazing. The story of Ruth is especially poignant because she found herself in an ostensibly hopeless situation. Ruth was a foreigner living in an alien land and had little hope of ever surviving, let alone prospering, because of Jewish kinship laws and customs. Yet, she lived her hope by doing what Naomi told her to do and in doing so, God took care of her through Boaz. Indeed, God did more than take care of her. He used her offspring to eventually give us Jesus, God’s promised Messiah. What a magnificent manifestation of hope! So the lesson from Ruth is for us to do our part, to live our lives in confident expectation because when we have Christ, our hope of glory, living in us, God will never disappoint or abandon us.

Likewise, in today’s Gospel lesson we have a contrasting picture of two different kinds of hope. Jesus warns us about the scribes who put their hope not in God but in wealth, and consequently were doomed for condemnation because their false hope drove them to exploit the most helpless in society and to seek selfish aggrandizement and power. The widow, on the other hand, showed her absolute trust in God by giving her last two cents. She trusted God to take care of her and she literally put her money where her hope was. Mark does not tell us what happened to that widow but it is not hard for us to guess because she put her ultimate hope and trust in God, and it is the testimony of countless Christians that God does not disappoint.

From the story of the widow’s mite, we learn that hope does not mean we are going to live the good life by society’s standards or be immune from suffering or bad things happening in our life. Rather, it means our hope is based on a relationship with the Source and Author of all life. It is a relationship that transforms us and gives us power to live our days because we have Christ, our hope of glory, living in us. He gives us grace to live joyfully, and with faithfulness and patient endurance amidst life’s most difficult challenges (Revelation 13:10b; 14:12).

This is where an eternal perspective of life is needed because we realize that our biological existence and all that surrounds it is fleeting and will pass away. When we have Christ, our hope of glory, living in us, we remember that our mortal existence is but a drop in the comprehensive ocean of eternity and we rejoice that we have a God who loves us so much, he gave himself for us on the cross so that we could live with him forever. We understand that life’s problems are fleeting and temporary, whereas our relationship with Christ is life-giving and forever, and that helps us live with patient endurance and hopeful expectation.

Where is the Application?

So how do we cultivate our Christian hope? First, we must become familiar with it and work to always keep it in the forefront of our lives. That means we need know our Bible. Memorizing verses that remind us of our hope in Christ is an excellent way to help us remember our hope in the midst of difficult situations. For example, when I was living through the darkest days of my life ten years ago, I kept reciting Jeremiah 29:11 to help me to hang on.

Second, as we saw in Ruth and today’s Gospel lesson, we must live our hope. We must give God a chance to prove he is trustworthy and can deliver. We do this by seeking the will of God in prayer. When we do God’s will, we can be certain that he will deliver on his promises. The next time you are faced with a difficult situation that threatens to destroy your hope, ask God to show you how you might bring him glory in the midst of your trials. That might entail healing. It might mean that you are given a chance to share your Christian hope and trust in the midst of your suffering. My wife did this yesterday. She is visiting her dad and it is not good. Yet in the midst of her pain in watching her dad suffer, she stopped and told me that she knew he was going to ultimately be all right. Her very voice changed and I could hear Christ, her hope of glory living in her, manifest himself. It is still terribly painful for her to watch her dad struggle with sickness and infirmity, but she has a deep and intimate relationship with God, and she knows he can be trusted. There is a joy, a peace, and a confidence in us that is not ours when we have Christ, our hope of glory, living in us.

Third and finally, connect with other faithful Christians and share your hope with each other. God can and does use Christian fellowship to strengthen us and remind us of our hope. When we have real relationships with other faithful Christians, God can use us to help each other in times of trouble, simply by being there for each other when we need desperately to experience the human touch, or by helping us remind each other of our hope that is in Christ.

Summary

So in what or whom is your ultimate hope? If we put our ultimate hope and trust in material things or in the quality of biological existence, we have no real hope and are deluding ourselves. But if we have an eternal perspective of life and focus on putting our hope in our relationship with the Risen Christ, we can live life with confident expectation. For you see, this God of ours is faithful and his promises are true. He loves us passionately and has promised us a life with him that is glorious beyond are ability to comprehend or imagine. But we don’t have to wait until we die to have that kind of relationship with him. It’s available to us right now and he has given us his Holy Spirit to help us become more like him, despite our weakness and infirmity. When we have Christ in us, our hope of glory, we have power to do just that: to live life with joy and confident expectation that nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 8:37-39). It is a promise that is ours for the taking if only we embrace it and make it our own through faith. That’s good news, folks, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.