Some Good News

Welcome Back!

Welcome back everyone! I am so glad that we are back here in the building together…even if we are here with masks on and our chairs are all spread apart. I know it’s weird but it’s better than not being together at all of course.

I know it feels like it has been forever since we have been here together…and I can tell you that it has been 246 days (or 8 months and 1 day, or 5904 hours)…That is if you were here at the last landing we had on March 8. Anyways, it feels like it has been forever. You know, we use that word “forever” a lot, even though we obviously don’t use it properly....INSERT SPONGEBOB FOREVER CLIP.

The reason I bring up the word forever, is that this whole time period has felt like it’s gone on forever. The coronavirus, the election, the masks, the social distancing. Is anyone else getting tired of it all? I know I am. It reminds me of the game monopoly. I’m not sure how many of you have played very much of monopoly, but my family used to play it at all the major holidays. For Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, 4th of July, pretty well anytime that my family could get together with one another, we would play monopoly. And it was never. never. ever. a short game. I think the shortest round of monopoly we ever played was around 5 or 6 hours. And it was intense.

There are of course other things besides Monopoly that feel like they take just forever. For example, watching the clock at the end of the school day, that feels like it takes forever. Or waiting for food to cook in the microwave when I’m really hungry.

When things seem to take forever, it can be easy to slip into the feeling of hopelessness. For example, it’s easy to feel hopeless that this period will ever end. That this virus will ever end. This election. This year. This class. This Landing. This long, boring message that Faust is giving. Oops.

The question is, what do we do in those difficult moments and times? Who can help us? And where is Jesus when we feel that we are being consumed by hopelessness?

I want you to ponder that today as we explore this together.

When we are experiencing emotions like hopelessness, one of the best places to look is to the book of Psalms. The Psalms, though they may sound strange sometimes, are full of emotion, both good and bad. Let’s look at Psalm 13. Remember, this is King David writing this Psalm.

1How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

2How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

3Look on me and answer, Lordmy God.

Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,

4and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”

and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

5But I trust in your unfailing love;

my heart rejoices in your salvation.

6I will sing the Lord’s praise,

for he has been good to me.

-Psalm 13

See, even King David felt hopelessness. An intense sense of hopelessness that I know I can relate to and I’d be willing to bet that you can too.

Arguably the biblical time that was filled with the most hopelessness though, was the time right after Jesus’s death on the cross. Right after the roller coaster of emotion that the disciples felt when they witnessed Judas betray Jesus, they watched him get arrested, tortured and beaten. Then they saw the public moment where there was a glimmer of hope that Jesus would be released by Pilate, but instead they wanted Barrabas, a murder, to be released instead. Then they witnessed their Lord, their teacher be crucified on the cross. After that, I would be shocked if they weren’t emotionally exhausted, beaten down, and so so hopeless. It’s like the punches just kept coming. You don’t have to raise your hands right now, but just think to yourself, how many of you have felt like that this year? That the punches just seem to keep coming? That it just seems to be dragging on and on.

In that time, on the day of the Resurrection, Mary Magdalene was the first to see the empty tomb. Right after that, she had told the other disciples, which had sent them into a chaotic frenzy as they scrambled to figure out what had happened to Jesus’s body. Then, Jesus appeared to Mary.

When Jesus appeared to Mary, she was very emotional. We know this because in the span of just a few verses, we read 4 times that she was weeping. She was experiencing a deep, aching kind of hopelessness. And when we are experiencing that, it can be hard to see what is right there in front of us. In our grief, we feel lost, confused, and uncertain. And that grief can be from the loss of anything, not just a person. I’m sure that many of you felt grief at the start of this pandemic as you lost the ability to see your friends or family, be at school, play on teams, worship together, all sorts of things. In those moments of uncertainty and hopelessness, that’s sometimes when Jesus speaks the clearest. He spoke to Mary in that moment:

John 20:11–18 ESV

But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

One of the most intriguing things about that passage is that Mary didn’t recognize Jesus! Her friend and teacher that she had spent a lot of time with, she couldn’t recognize him! She was so wrapped up in her grief and hopelessness that it’s as if her eyes were shut.

Have any of you ever been in really foggy weather or a blizzard? I have, and in those situations it can be difficult to see even a few feet in front of you. Or have you ever lost track of a friend or family member in a crowd because you were distracted by what you were doing, watching, or where you were going? I have.

And sometimes those things happen to us today too. See, the devil loves to use things in life to distract and blur our vision. He wants us to be so wrapped up in our hopelessness and grief that we no longer see Him in the world or in our lives. Again, don’t raise your hand or anything, just listen, I know that some of you have felt this way during the pandemic. Because we haven’t been meeting together at the Landing for a long time, or because you’ve grown accustomed to the “new normal,” so I want to ask, how many of you have stopped seeing Jesus right in front of you? Or has he gotten blurrier? I hope that you all know if you say or think yes to that question, it’s okay. It’s okay because we know that Jesus never lost track of you and that He loves you regardless.

Jesus’ appearances to Mary give us a clue about the kind of hope that Jesus gives us, and that hope should be the thing we lean on in times that it’s so easy to lose hope. Like in a global pandemic and stupid crazy election.

It’s not a temporary, here-one-day-and-gone-the-next kind of hope, but a kind of hope that can outlast our doubt and uncertainty. It’s a hope that’s based on His ability to conquer death, because if He can beat death, there’s nothing He can’t do. It’s a hope that’s based in His great love for us. He loved us enough to die for us, and He loves us enough to show up to comfort us when we need a glimmer of hope.

So, when we’re feeling hopeless, can we expect Jesus to show up in the flesh like He did for Mary? Probably not, though God really can do anything, but here’s what the Apostle Paul says...

Ephesians 1:18 ESV

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

We may not be able to see Jesus with our physical eyes, but the eyes of our hearts can see the hope that Jesus offers us. Like Mary, our pain or hopelessness don’t have to prevent us from seeing what’s true - that Jesus really is alive and that our hope is in Him, not things that can change.

So, everyone in this room might be going through something that makes you feel hopeless. It could be the coronavirus, it could be the election, it could be school, it could be any number of things that are unique to you and your life. Maybe in your life, you feel like your whole world is crashing down around you and you can’t see any hope ahead. If that’s you, remember that Mary discovered that Jesus was with her before she even realized He was there. Jesus loves you so much that He is here with you right now, no matter your situation, even if you haven’t noticed Him yet.