Living
Hope
RUMC Easter 2015
The sun rose, but it was still dark.
It was the darkest 39 hours in
history.
It was the worst 2 ½ days of their
lives.
It started in the Garden of Gethsemane
when Jesus asked them to stay and pray. They fell asleep. After all, it was
late, and they had just finished the big Passover meal, but Jesus was obviously
disappointed. That, however, would not be the last time for that.
Looking back, they wondered, if they
had stayed awake, maybe they would have heard the mob coming to arrest him. But
then, what could they have done to stop them? And strangely enough, Jesus
seemed to be expecting them.
Perhaps if they had stopped Judas… but
who would have expected one of his closest disciples to betray him? They all
felt betrayed.
Oh, how they wish they had not
abandoned him. Peter was the only one who followed Jesus after the arrest. Of
course that ended badly too. Denial, denial, denial.
Denial, however, was not the worst of
it… It got darker and darker.
The darkness closed in as they spit,
and mocked, and whipped, and falsely accused him.
They paraded him before the governor.
They pressed for his execution, and justice
was betrayed.
Mocking, spitting, more mocking, more
whipping. The contempt. The hatred. The inhumanity of it all.
The crucifixion, the blood, the pain.
The scorn. The loathing. The brutality of it all.
Then death, and despair, and darkness.
Then the deepest, darkest 39 hours in
history.
Finally, the sun rose, but it was
still dark.
They trudged to the tomb, burdened with
spices. Burdened with grief. Burdened with guilt.
·
We can all understand the burden the disciples shared on Good Friday, and
Saturday can’t we?
·
We all understand the brokenness
of dreams-shattered, hopes-dashed, and plans-crushed.
·
We all know what failure feels like.
·
We all know what loneliness feels like.
·
We all know what betrayal feels like.
·
We know hopelessness and depression.
·
We know the agony of addiction.
·
We know the anguish of desperate medical situations and the stench of
death that lingers in our nostrils.
·
We know the gloom of joblessness and financial trouble.
·
We know all too well the brokenness of family relationships: children and
parents, brothers and sisters at odds with one another.
·
We have all seen the hurt and brokenness in our own community as
neighbors and friends find themselves on opposite sides of the school issue,
and say terrible things to one another.
·
We see the brokenness in our world as nations and peoples, and religions
rise up against one another.
·
Whether it is in our own soul and mind, our families, our community or
our world; I can say confidently and with absolute assurance, that every one of
us knows the darkness of what the Bible describes as our sinful condition, or
our sinful world. It is through the darkness of that sinful and broken world
that the disciples trudged to the tomb that day.
That’s when things turned around.
For the women the light and the hope suddenly
pierced through the darkness with just three words.
Those words, “He is risen.”
With those three words, “He is risen,”
shadows were dispelled, and life was filled with light.
With just three words, “He is risen,”
the sun rose on the disciples, the light shone, and nothing was the same.
In just three words, “He is risen,”
history was changed.
In just three words, “He is risen,”
our lives were changed even 2000 years later.
Our Scripture reading this morning explains
why those three words make all the difference for us. “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, and into
an inheritance that is IMPERISHABLE, UNDEFILED, AND UNFADING,
kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through
faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” [1]
In this passage Peter is answering the
question what difference does Easter make? His answer, “it makes all the
difference in the world.”
First, the resurrection makes all the difference because
we are given NEW BIRTH. Peter writes, “By his great mercy he has given us a NEW BIRTH.”
Like Nicodemus, we have to ask, what
sense does “NEW BIRTH” make? We have to ask, “How do we do that? What
do we have to do to get NEW BIRTH in Jesus Christ?” The problem
is, like Nicoedemus, we are thinking about it backwards.
Let’s start with Jesus Resurrection.
Did Jesus cause his resurrection? No, he could not because he was dead. The
resurrection of Christ on Easter was wholly and completely by the power of God.
It was only by the gracious power of the father that Jesus was raised from the
grave.
The same gracious is true in the NEW
BIRTH.
Let’s look at it this way. Who is
responsible for our first birth? What exactly did you do to be born the first
time? I’ve always thought it a little odd that we get presents on our birthdays
because we don’t have anything to do with our birth. Beyond showing up, we
don’t cause it, we can’t control it, we can’t speed it up or slow it down. Birth
is completely and totally a gift that is given us by our parents and the forces
of nature.
The NEW BIRTH is the
same way. It is not something that we do. It is not something we earn. It is
not something we can speed up or slow down. What God does for us in Easter is
completely and totally a gift from the almighty creator of the universe and
Jesus Christ, his son, the redeemer of the world.
So first, to understand what
difference Easter makes, we have to understand that it is not what we do that
makes Easter, Easter. It is what God does. The gift of Christ’s resurrection is
to us a gift of life itself, which we call NEW BIRTH.
Going on, Peter writes, “By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a LIVING HOPE.”
On December 17, 1927, a US Submarine
was patrolling off the Atlantic Coast when it accidentally collided with a
Coast Guard Cutter. The submarine was so severely damaged that it sank and came
to rest on the floor of the Atlantic about 100 feet down. A rescue ship was
dispatched to the scene of the collision and immediately divers were sent to
investigate. The first diver to go down was a Commander Ellsberg, who came up
reporting the submarine was on her keel with a large hole in her side ... and
no sign of life. The next morning, however, two more divers went down again to
survey the situation, and as they did, they heard tapings coming from inside
the damaged vessel. The tapping turned out to be in Morse code. From the signals,
the divers learned that there were six men who survived the crash. The last
message they tapped out in Morse code was: "Is there hope? Please hurry,
please!"
Many people today are asking the
question, “Is there hope? And if there is, please hurry.”
Iffy hope is dead hope. Wishy-washy
hope is dead hope. Hope when all is just dandy is a dead hope.
LIVING HOPE is not just wishing for something to be true.
LIVING HOPE It is not just hoping for the best.
LIVING HOPE is the
certainty that we are alive in God by the gift of New Birth in Christ.
Let me come at it from this side: If I asked you,
"How do you know that you were born?" what would you answer? You
would answer, "Because I'm alive! I exist. I'm here." And that's
right. That is all the answer needed.
You would not answer, "I know I was born
because I've got a birth certificate at home." Or, "I know I was born
because I did some historical research at a hospital and found a document with
a little footprint on it that matches the curly lines on the bottom of my
foot." Or, "I have signed affidavits from the doctor and nurses that
my mother gave birth."
You would simply say, "I know I was born
because I am alive." To quote the great naval philosopher, Popeye, “I am
what I am.”
Now suppose I asked you how do you know that you are
born again? How do you know that you have a relationship with Jesus? You
wouldn’t cite the date you were saved. You wouldn’t pull out your membership
card.
No, you would answer, “I know I have new life because
I am alive to God. I once had no spiritual life and now I am alive spiritually.
Once my heart was dead, now it is alive with love. Once I was dead inside, now
I am alive in God. The proof that I was born again… is my life today! I know
him. I love him. I trust him. I follow him. I hope in him. My life is in him.” That
is LIVING HOPE.
Not an empty hope, but a hope that is alive in our
relationship with God.
LIVING
HOPE is alive even if the world around us is dead.
Hope is not even real hope until it shines in the midst of our
darkest hopelessness. GK Chesterton said, “it is only after hanging on
for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.”
LIVING
HOPE is
hope that continues to hope especially in the darkness.
LIVING
HOPE is
for those who hung on to hope through the capture and mock trial, through the
spitting and mocking, through the whipping and beating, through the crucifixion
and scorn, through the blood and the guts, through the dying and the death,
through the burying and the dark nights of Friday and Saturday. It is in the
midst of that hopelessness that the light of LIVING HOPE shines. “The people who sat in darkness have
seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of deep darkness on them a
light has shined.” [2]
·
Easter
does not mean that there is no darkness. It means that in Christ there is LIVING HOPE that we are no
longer trapped in the dark tomb.
·
Easter
is not for people who have hope already. It is for those whom LIVING HOPE is their only hope.
·
Easter is not for people who have never
sinned. It is for those of us who know that our only hope to break the power of
sin, is to place our LIVING HOPE
in Christ
It is exactly for people like us that Jesus was
raised.
It is exactly for people like us that LIVING HOPE comes to shine in
our darkness.
And finally, Peter writes that living
hope is forever. Nothing will ever put out living hope. Peter writes that it is IMPERISHABLE, UNDEFILED, AND UNFADING
i.
Living hope is IMPERISHABLE hope.
The Greek word here means that it is --un-ravaged by any invading army. It is unconquerable.
Living hope cannot be defeated by any darkness in life. The Resurrection of
Jesus is evidence that living hope cannot even be defeated by death itself.
ii.
Living hope is UN-DEFILABLE. The Greek word here is the opposite of
polluted. Our living hope is not tainted with any impurity. It is elemental,
not watered down by human effort, or luck, or expected relief. It is pure hope as
pure as the light that conquered the darkness of the tomb.
iii.
Living hope is UNFADING. Everything of this earth fades. Flowers fade from
brilliant colors to brown. Sunsets fade from bright orange and reds to
blackness. Life fades from living to dying. But Easter hope -- Living hope--never
fades. It does not wear out, it does not dim down, it does not get thin, or
old, or weak. Living hope never fades.
Living hope is forever hope.
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, and into an inheritance that is IMPERISHABLE, UNDEFILED, AND
UNFADING, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power
of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” [3]
Those
words come from Peter, who was a long ways from perfect.
·
Peter knew the brokenness of dreams-shattered, hopes-dashed, and
plans-crushed.
·
Peter knew what failure feels like. (Oh boy did he!)
·
Peter knew what loneliness feels like.
·
Peter knew what betrayal feels like.
·
Peter knew hopelessness and depression.
·
Peter had seen the dark side of life. In fact not only had he seen it, he
had lived it.
Let me
tell you, none of that mattered any more.
None of
that mattered because Peter was no longer defined by brokenness, failure,
loneliness, betrayal, hopelessness, and depression.
Peter
was no longer defined by the standards of this world.
Peter
was no longer defined by the measures of this life.
Peter
was no longer defined by what he had been or what he had done.
Standing
at the door of the empty tomb completely redefined who Peter was.
Standing
at the door of the empty tomb completely transformed Peter’s life.
Standing
at the door of the empty tomb completely revolutionized the way Peter saw and
experienced life and the world around him.
Standing
at the door of the empty tomb completely recreated the person Peter would be
for the rest of his days. He was a new man, given NEW BIRTH INTO A FOREVER LIVING HOPE by his encounter with
the resurrected and living Christ.
Today,
we come to the tomb.
We have
dragged our sorry selves out of bed.
·
Trudged
through the brokenness ,
o the failure
o the loneliness
o and the betrayal
·
We have come with the hopelessness and depression.
o The agony of addiction.
o the anguish illness and the stench of death
·
We bring the gloom of joblessness and financial trouble.
o the brokenness of family relationships,
our community and our world
We could
just stay here. We might get stuck here. We could stand here and get stuck
in the mud. Stuck in the pains and gloom of this world. Stuck in the same old sinful
lives we have been living all along. Stuck in the darkness.
But it
is terrible to be stuck in the darkness. Research subjects, isolated in pitch
dark bunkers experience delusions, paranoia, and panic within just a few hours.
Eventually they close their eyes and give up on light or life ever again
seeing.
There
are people who spend their whole lives stuck in dark and give up on ever seeing
light or life. Stuck in the darkness that consumes all of their energy and
time. There are people who spend their whole lives stuck in a dark tomb,
surrounded by the stench of death and despair. There are people who spend their
whole lives trapped in sin. There are people who get used to the dark, thinking
that it is normal. So they close their eyes and resign themselves to the
darkness.
The sad
thing is they never realize that the stone has already been rolled aside and
the light of Easter is streaming in on them.
Don’t
get stuck there.
Don’t
get stuck here.
You’ve
come this far. Don’t stop short of the joy of Easter.
You’ve
ventured through the darkness of your life
You are
only one heartbeat, one breath, one step short of Easter joy.
Just 3
words short of Easter Joy
Take that step into an Easter life …One
step. Just three words …Those 3 words?…
He is Risen.
OK four
words… He is risen Alleluia.
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