Pentecost B Proper 05: We do not lose heart

A couple of weeks ago I was driving down the interstate and I saw a billboard. On the sign was a runner in a crouch. One of her legs had one of those springy-type devices that make possible running and athletic activities for someone who no longer has that part of the leg. Four words were written on the billboard: “Lost leg. Not heart.” Whatever happened to that person’s leg, whatever may have caused a disability, whatever physical difficulty occurred, she did not give up. She did not become so discouraged that she gave out. She was not so beaten down that she would give in and lose hope. She did not lose heart.

The apostle Paul is telling us the same thing: “So we do not lose heart” (v 16). No matter what may be going on around us, no matter how much we’re going through with the frailty and failing of our own bodies, our mental capacities, our emotions, we do not lose heart. We don’t get so discouraged that we give up. We’re not so worn out that we give in. We don’t give out. We don’t lose hope. We do not lose heart.

But you may ask, “Paul, don’t you know what’s going on? What’s going on around us in our own lives weighs us down. It’s heavy. Even though you may call it light and momentary, it doesn’t feel light, and it doesn’t seem momentary.”

What’s going on around us? A war in Ukraine continues. A war with reports of genocide is happening in Israel. A The aftereffects of COVID isolated us, put us at odds with one another, and we have difficulty getting back together again. We lost many teachers, medical personnel, and others who no longer want to deal with our polarized country. Inflation, perhaps recession, has hit our budgets hard. It now becomes all the more difficult to buy milk, eggs, and gas. When the police officer knelt on George Floyd until he died, we saw the racial inequity so prevalent in our society. That event also shook our trust in those who are to help us. I read somewhere the question “If you pick up the phone to call somebody for help, will anybody answer it?” The list could go on; we live in an age of uncertainty and increased anxiety, when more and more people give up and give out and give in. People lose hope. Too many lose heart.

That’s what’s going on around us, but personally we know our own frailties, failings, and weaknesses. As I approach a little bit older age, closer to 50 than not, I can recognize that I heal and recover slower, my doctor puts me on more pills and talks about blood pressure and cholesterol and weight. I can recognize that mental faculties are not quite as sharp. Then I think about my father, who died in 2016 from complications of Parkinson’s. My siblings and I watched the last few years of his life, as he lost his ability to communicate and to move his body on his own. Or we talk about emotional and mental illnesses. I have a daughter who struggles with significant anxiety, migraines and we’re still trying to find the best treatment for her. I’ve recently gotten a diagnosis of autism (Used to be called Asperger’s) and AHDH, so there’s medication and therapy for that. Actually it runs in the family - 4 of my nieces also have autism, and another has a bipolar disorder. The toll that has taken on her parents and her siblings is noticeable. Perhaps you have family members with mental illness or cancer or heart disease or diabetes or Alzheimer's. Maybe you are afraid for a child who may go astray from family or faith. Perhaps it’s now time for you to start taking care of your parents. You can fill in what’s going on within your own life. But the most difficult weight for can happen when a child or loved one dies. The grief the first year is often extreme and intense, physically painful some days. Tears are plentiful. Now, years later, the grief is still there. Some days it is not light. Some days, well, it will be with us for the rest of our lives.

So we ask, “How, Paul, can you say that all of this, which weighs so heavily upon us, which we can see going on around us and within us, how can you say it’s light and momentary? How can you say we do not lose heart, we do not give up or give out or give in to it?”

The answer to those questions comes straight from Paul’s heart. In 2 Corinthians, Paul is at his most vulnerable; he reveals more about himself, his own emotions, and what he has gone through than in any other of his writings. At the beginning of 2 Corinthians, he simply says this: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death” (1:8–9). “Utterly burdened,” “beyond our strength,” “the sentence of death.” In chapter 4, right before the words we heard today, he used words like “perplexed,” “struck down,” “afflicted,” “persecuted.” His life was one of ridicule. He was run out of town, beaten up, whipped, thrown into jail, shipwrecked, and bitten by a snake; he knows his own death will be one as a martyr for the faith.

He knows. He knows the weight. He knows what he sees. He knows what he has gone through. So how does he not lose hope? How does he not lose heart? It’s all because of Christ’s resurrection. In that first chapter, listen to what comes next: “We had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (1:9). And in our reading for this message: “We also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence” (vv 13b–14). Everything changed when Christ rose from the dead.

Paul sees what’s going on around him, but he believes in Christ’s resurrection. He’s on the road to Damascus. His name is Saul. He has letters allowing him to arrest and persecute Christians. He’ll have them thrown in jail. He wants Christians put to death. Then the blinding light comes. The resurrected Christ appears to him on that road. He calls out, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Paul replies, “Who are you?” The answer: “I am Jesus.” At that moment, Saul dies and Paul comes to life. That resurrection experience is the basis of and energy for all that Paul does and what he writes in his letters. His whole ministry flows out of Christ’s resurrection and leads him to say, “We do not lose heart.”

You see, he knows what’s coming. A day will come, a final day, a day of resurrection of the dead. This is the day when Jesus returns, and as Christ rose from the dead, so will Paul, so will we. We will rise with our bodies immortal, imperishable. We will experience no more tears, no more pain, no more grief, no more failings or frailty. No more! Our bodies will be glorified in that final day of resurrection. So Paul speaks what his heart believes. He proclaims what’s to come:

The Glory of Being in Christ’s Resurrected Presence for Eternity Far Outweighs Our Light and Momentary Afflictions, So We Do Not Lose Heart.

Paul believes, and he speaks Christ’s resurrection to us. So we do not lose heart. Those four words I mentioned earlier? Listen to what Paul says: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (4:8–9).

To help us see what Paul is doing when he compares our light and momentary afflictions to the eternal glory of Jesus’ presence in the final resurrection, picture a balance scale. You have two sides of the scale equally balanced. Then you begin to add weights to one side. Say on one side of the scale you add war, injustice, cancer, broken relationships, grief, and anxiety. That side immediately drops down, weighing us down with the burdens of life. But think of what happens when you add Christ’s resurrection. All those burdens that so weighed us down are now far outweighed by what is to come (2 Cor 4:17). In the final resurrection, nothing we are going through will come close to the glory of being with Jesus for all eternity. In fact, all those weights will simply be no more!4.

As I mentioned, 2 Corinthians may be Paul at his most vulnerable as he reveals what’s gone on in his own life. So taking a cue from Paul, let me share a story from a pastor I know, who’s oldest son died suddenly 5 years ago. “Five years ago, when our son died, my wife and I were overwhelmed with the weight of that grief and sorrow. During the first year after his death, one way I tried to deal with my grief was to write Facebook posts in which I expressed what was going on inside of me, in my heart. The grief affected me physically as the tears came out and my stomach ached. It affected my relationships. But in each Facebook post I would try to speak what I believed about Christ. Six weeks after our son’s death, I wrote the first Facebook post, and I’m going to read it for you now.

“Thursdays are hardest for me. Perhaps it’s because I was driving home from north Wisconsin after Matthew died. At 2:30 a.m., I was talking to the transplant company, as Matthew was an organ and tissue donor. By 4:00 a.m., I was at our daughter Beth’s house in Chicago as we cried and hugged each other. We drove to our house here in St. Louis together and got there in the afternoon. [My wife] Sue and I held each other, and we cried. The rest of the day was a blur. On another Thursday, I sat in a chair talking to Sue in a flood of tears, regretting that my relationship with him as his dad wasn’t better. Another Thursday I was away from home and could not sleep, alone in a motel room. This week Thursday I was taking out the trash, a job Matthew helped us with, and I wanted to talk to him again. For some reason, Thursdays have become the worst days. But this Friday morning in my devotional reading I found myself in 1 Corinthians 15, the great resurrection chapter of the Bible. Near the end of the chapter, the promise is that Jesus will one day return and death will lose its sting. The great enemy called death will be swallowed up in Christ’s victory. His victory will be ours. The apostle writes, “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57).

You know what that means when Jesus comes back on that last victorious day? No more Thursdays! No more Thursdays!”

How will you fill in the blank? No more broken relationships, no more faltering abilities, no more cancer, diabetes, anxiety. You fill in the blank. Because Jesus has risen from the dead, he promises that we, too, will rise. Yes, a day is coming, a day that far outweighs our light and momentary afflictions. So Paul says to us, “We do not lose heart.” Amen.

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