Holding Onto Hope
Year A, 5th Sunday in Lent • Sermon • Submitted
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· 41 viewsJesus healed Lazarus by raising from the grave. While we cannot duplicate Jesus' example, we can hold onto the hope Martha held.
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COVID-19
COVID-19
This was a difficult week for our nation. Most of us spent the entire week indoors, quarantined. In MI the number of people stricken with COV-19 jumped from 354 just a few days ago to over 4650 with 111 deaths. In NYC over 160 people died in one day. These statistics are having a devastating effect on the financial markets. Investment funds have seen double digit losses. I am hesitant to even look at my 403b-IRA as I consider retirement. Eventually the markets will rebound but, it is still cause for worry.
These are troubling statistics. They are very impersonal but they remind us of how easy we ourselves could become one of those statistics. Most of us are in the age bracket that has the highest number of deaths. Some of us who have recently undergone chemo or radiation do not have a healthy immune system to fight off the virus if we do contract it. These are difficult times.
What I wonder is, “how do you hold onto hope?”
One option could be to bury your head in the sand and ignore all the news. These people believe that it will all come out in wash. A vaccine will be discovered that either prevents the virus or lessens the symptoms. Maybe you believe the threat is overly exaggerated to make the danger sound more serious.
A second option is similar to the above except that it does acknowledge that the virus is real and a serious threat to others. This view was taken by a a pastor in VA. Landon Spradlin once said:
Landon Spradlin believed
Landon Spradlin believed
“As long as I walk in the light of that law [of the Spirit of life], no germ will attach itself to me”
Landon Spradlin
His family buried Spradlin this Wednessday. His church has 34 people who have tested positive for the virus.
Another option would be to trust in the skill of the medical community to discover a vaccination. To their credit they are feverishly working to do just that but it takes time. We do not want them to release a drug that does not adequately meet the needs of patients or, a nasty side effect.
A final option is to listen to Governor Whitmer and “shelter in your place” of residence. This is the safest option but the one that is so difficult. When I am cooped up, negative thoughts about myself and the world creep into my think. I search the internet looking for signs of God’s activity in the world but they are very scary. Dramatic healings or stories of raising people from the dead are impossible to discover. They may take place but they are few and far between. There is just not many Lazaruses rising from the dead.
But how do we hold onto hope?
The first step in holding onto hope is knowing what you are holding onto.
Modifying a technical definition from a scholarly Bible dictionary, I would define hope as “the confidence believers have when they bring together God’s past works into the present in such a way that we experience God’s goodness both in the present and the future. Hope does not rest on our personal experiences. I do not have hope that God will protect me from COVID-19 because he brought me through 2 bone marrow transplants and a dangerous fungal infection in my spinal fluid. I do not have hope because the flowers bloom in the spring. I have hope because what the Bible tells me what God did through the life, the death and most importantly the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
If our focus is holding onto the material possessions of this world, we will surely succumb to despair. Over and over again Jesus warned us about focusing on this life and our worldly wealth
26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
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18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
I was in the hospital on Easter Sunday in preparation for my first bone marrow transplant. I asked myself the question “Do I really believe what I have been preaching all these years.” I decided that I did. If I had not Jesus says
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25 The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
I was in the hospital on Easter Sunday in preparation for my first bone marrow transplant. I asked myself the question “Do I really believe what I have been preaching all these years.” I decided that I did. If I had not Jesus says
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34 “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap.
I was in the hospital on Easter Sunday in preparation for my first bone marrow transplant. I asked myself the question “Do I really believe what I have been preaching all these years.” I decided that I did. If I had not Jesus says
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
When a storm comes the house on sand is washed away. So where is your house built. If your hope is on finding a cure for COVID-19 and the stock market rebounding and penetrating the 30,000 level, then your house is built on sand. You need to spend more time reading Scripture, praying and meditating to the end that you shift your focus.
In a crisis like we are going through now, you will never have hope so long as you cannot a
I have not forgotten about our Scripture lesson. Martha and Mary show us the contrast between one woman who focused on the eternal and one who could not see beyond the temporal. When Martha hears that Jesus is coming she rushes out of the house to greet him. Then she makes an amazing confession of faith:
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
All Mary knew was that Lazarus was dead and Jesus could have saved. Jesus let her down. She hid in her house to hid not only her grief but her disappointment and despair.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
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I truly hope and pray that God would protect every person who attends CPC, my friends, and my relatives, and immediate family including me. But he may not. Whether he does or does not I will still worship and serve him because I know whether in life or in death, I reside in God’s hand. That is my one and only hope.
john 11:21,22
She has held onto her hope in Jesus even though her brother has died. She follows this with a clear description of her belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Mary languishes in her house in grief and despair until she hears that Jesus is asking for her. I wonder if she questioned Jesus concern for her. She did not know that he intentionally waited till her brother died but, he could have made a greater effort to travel to their house. Her greeting to him expresses both faith and disappointment.
es both faith and disappointment.
32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Implied in those words were the questions: “Why didn’t you come sooner? What was more important than Lazarus’ life?”
Mary’s response to Jesus focused primarily on this life. Her hope could not stretch beyond her brother’s healing. Martha on the other hand could lift up her eyes and see eternity. She understood that with Jesus coming into the world everything had changed even if her brother had died.
I truly hope and pray that God would protect every person who attends CPC, my friends, and my relatives, and immediate family including me. But he may not. Whether he does or does not I will still worship and serve him because I know whether in life or in death, I reside in God’s hand. That is my one and only hope.