Finding Our Hope in Christ

Bobbi and I returned from our end of February-March 2020 cruise vacation to have the nation locked down the following Monday. Although our 50th anniversary was in June of 2021, we weren’t able to take our celebratory cruise vacation until a couple months after, in the relative lull of last August. We have been able to travel some because we have been watchful and careful and limited in our contacts, always wearing masks properly and washing up.

Like most all of you, our lives over these last 22 months have been in and out of being stuck in isolation, sometimes in fear of infection, in fear of the death or dying of ourselves or others, and facing the reality of death or debilitating illness of friends and neighbors and family.

Even though we can count up the numbers for COVID deaths, they seem countless to us. The problem is, those numbers are too large for us to really to get our heads around them. It’s easier for us to just say “countless.”

Most of us know between 150-300 people well enough to remember any real details about their lives. Even when we were younger, in High School or earlier, we really never went much farther than that in how many people we can know well.

9-11 Losses

More than 10 years ago, when the Twin Towers collapsed in New York, we really couldn’t catalogue in our own minds nearly 3,000 people that died in those attacks. We only knew it was thousands of people we probably didn’t know.

But we could understand the great loss of 415 first responders which included 343 members of the New York Fire Department. That’s a number we can better understand. That fits better with our ability to count faces.

COVID vs. Viet Nam

When we hear that 850,000 Americans have died of COVID-19 disease or complications, we can say that is far too many, but we can’t really understand what that means in terms of faces we might have seen. And to think of 65 1/2 million who have been infected with Coronavirus in the United States alone, that number makes so little sense to our brains that we push it aside and just think of it as a lot.

Here’s why we just can’t take it in. During the years of the Vietnam conflict, beginning with the first US military death on June 8, 1956, until the last recorded death with military cause of US vet in 2006, 58,220 American military personnel died from hostile action or other causes. that was over about 50 years in total, although our deep entrenchment in Vietnam was less than 10 years. Still, we know the number is too high. Still, we know friends or family, if not close then extended, who died because of Vietnam.

So far, California has lost nearly 78,000 people to COVID. In just 22 months, in our state alone. That’s nearly 20,000 more people than our nation lost among military men and women in all of the Vietnam war.

Those Enormous Covid Numbers

The Current reported number of deaths from COVID is 850,000 in America. If the death rate were steady, which it hasn’t been, that’s 18, 500 every week. That’s still to big to think about as individual people. How about 2,640 every day? That’s more than twice the size of the town I lived in for more than 10 years growing up. If we break it down to every hour, it’s 110 people. That is my whole graduating class from High School. It is almost 2 people every minute of every day for 22 months. And that is even with our isolation, facemasks, limited travel, working from home, schools closed, disinfecting everything, and on and on. And lately the infection rate skyrocketed again.

The numbers related to COVID cases are so overwhelming, many people had made a new category for them. It’s called a conspiracy. It can’t be true. I have had people tell me in just the last few months that since they did not personally know of anyone who really died because of COVID, it’s all a big hoax that the government is using to control us.

Compared to some of you, my circle of friends and family is fairly small. I have met many hundreds or thousands of people, but the ones I know by name is so much smaller. Still, I have suffered the loss people I know because of COVID. I have many others reported to me as friends of my friends who have been taken by COVID. Many friends have had and recovered from COVID, some have not really recovered.

Bobbi is medically fragile because of her heart condition, and I am nearly 70 and spent most of my life overweight, so I have been aware of what is needed to be careful and safe. A facemask is a part of my kit when I leave the house, I have spares in my office, in my car, and in my bag. I limit my contact with others, always wearing a mask around those I don’t know well and those who have had contact with the sick ones.

I have spent countless days, and many weeks, where I did not spend any time working outside my home. My physical contacts even with people of the church have been limited in time and space and touch for your safety and for mine.

Getting Stuck Is Like a Sickness

We are living, as most of you are, stuck in the relational quicksand of quarantine. It has worn us out from the grief of separation, from the inability to be with someone who has surgery or goes to hospital. It has limited our ability to have timely funerals and memorials for every cause of death, not just COVID. It has limited our ability to minister to youth, the shut-in and the elderly.

Depression is Deadly

It can all wear on us deeply. It can be downright depressing. It can be hard to find the hope for living that we really need. The funeral home has noted a rise in suicide deaths. Crime statistics have shown in increase in violent crime and murder. Automobile deaths are up, even though there is less traffic.

I have done funerals for 25 year-olds whose isolation led to destructive life habits, for suicide victims less than 40 years old, and for murder victims over just the last year. Although I have usually done about one funeral a month for families in the community, one week I did 3. Most of the funerals I have done are for people younger than I.

And in another week or two, there will be the funeral for Savanna, Tim and Bunnie’s daughter.

There is a lot of despair. There is a lot of depression, there is a lot of isolation at a time where our lives need relational restoration. So lets talk about. . .

Finding Our Hope in Christ

because

Without Hope We Despair

Psalm 42:5 Begins with these words:

“Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil?” Psalm 42:5a CSB

The exact same words are repeated at least three times in the Psalms also- in 42:11 and in 43:5.

The truth is, when we loose sight of our Savior because of our struggles, our souls sink and our lives stink.

But it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can get lost in the losses, stuck in the statistics, rusty in our relationships and itchy in our isolation. But we need not stay stuck in the sickness of our struggles.

>>>Read with me the whole of Psalm 42:5:

Psalm 42:5 CSB

5 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God.

David was struggling. His hope was spent, his life was limited, his soul was stained, his future was fragile. He was focusing on his struggles instead of his savior. And David had to talk himself into what to do. He told his dejected, downcast, beat up soul to put his hope in God. He made a declaration he would still praise him, no matter what life looked like. He stated what he knew about who his Lord really is: My Savior and my God.

When we turn our downlook into an uplook, our depressive inlook becomes a new outlook. That’s what God does.

I have a dear friend who found me again on Facebook a couple years ago. She began to tell me about the deep struggles of her life, and her health challenges, and needing care and needing to live in a chair part of her life, about her struggles and her hope and her efforts at self-healing.

She kept a firm faith in God, but because of abuse had lost her faith in Christians, and ultimately in Christ. But in these last weeks I got some incredible messages from her. She was dying in her despair, even though she was sure of her Lord.

As she received some good news from some lab tests, she began to share about how she was healed of leukemia many years ago with the help of a faithful chaplain in Portland whom I had met years ago. His advise to her was to put her hope in Christ, to accept him in his roles as Son, as Savior, and as Lord. When she did this she was healed. She was telling the story to her new doctor, and the Lord reminded her that he had not changed, and that healing could be hers again through Jesus Christ. Finally, and gloriously, the light went on in her heart, and she returned to believe in the wonderful name of Jesus. That was Thursday. Isn’t God Good!! My friend, whom God loves, is now detached from her despair and secured in her hope through Jesus,

And she can sing with David,

A Song of Celebration for God’s Good Work

Psalm 52:9 CSB

9 I will praise you forever for what you have done. In the presence of your faithful people, I will put my hope in your name, for it is good.

And she can know . . .

How the Lord Values Her

Psalm 147:11 CSB

11 The Lord values those who fear him, those who put their hope in his faithful love.

For this was prophesied by Isaiah for us, that

When God’s Salvation Shows itself

Isaiah 51:5 CSB

5 My righteousness is near, my salvation appears, and my arms will bring justice to the nations. The coasts and islands will put their hope in me, and they will look to my strength.

People far and wide may know his hope.

Our First Hope Is In Yahweh

Lamentations 3:24 CSB

24 I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.”

Our Hope is Promised in Christ

Matthew 12:17 CSB

17 so that what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

Matthew 12:18 CSB

18 Here is my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

We Hope In the Name of Christ

Matthew 12:21 CSB

21 The nations will put their hope in his name.

Our Hope Promised In Christ

Romans 15:12 CSB

12 And again, Isaiah says, The root of Jesse will appear, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; the Gentiles will hope in him.

Finding Our Hope in Christ

1 John 3:2–3 CSB

2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.

Finding Him

Finding Hope

Finding Holiness

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