Gift of Hope; 12.8.19; Rebecca Ellenson; ICCM
Have you heard the story about the identical twin boys? They were alike in every way but one. One was a hope-filled optimist who only ever saw the bright side of life. The other was a dark pessimist, who only ever saw the down-side in every situation.
The parents were so worried about the extremes of optimism and pessimism in their boys they took them to the Doctor. He suggested a plan. “On their next birthday give the pessimist a shiny new bike but give the optimist only a pile of manure.”
It seemed an extreme thing to do. After all the parents had always treated heir boys equally. But in this instance, they decided to try to Doctor’s advice. So, when the twins birthday came they gave the pessimist the most expensive, top of the line racing bike a child has ever owned. When he saw the bike his first words were, “I’ll probably crash and break my leg.” To the hopeful son they gave a carefully wrapped box of manure. He opened it, looked puzzled for a moment, then ran outside screaming, “You can’t fool me! Where there’s this much manure, there’s just gotta be a pony around here somewhere!”
How do we look forward with hope when we find ourselves looking a pile of manure? The prophet Jeremiah wrote in what was widely seen as the darkest of times. The Southern kingdom of Israel had already been overtaken by the Assyrian empire’s army. The Babylonians were gaining strength and threatening to overtake the Northern kingdom of Judah. Jeremiah often sounded like the pessimistic twin in the story—but in Chapter 29 verse 11 he sang out like the hopeful twin, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”
Hope is more than optimism. It is connected to faith and trust. In Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1, we read, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We hope because of the steadfastness of God, even when things seem as bad as they can be.
I learned a lesson about hope the year a woman named Nancy died right before Christmas. Her husband Antti told me about the day Nancy had been diagnosed with Leukemia. They were distressed and still somewhat disbelieving as they drove home from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. He told me she turned to him and said, “Honey, we’ve got to look for the gifts in this.” That
was her approach through the many years she lived with the disease. She squeezed out of her diagnosis all that it had to teach her and those close to her. Nancy faced the disease through her faith and proved the truth of those words of Paul’s:
…we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
The disease itself was not a gift, but Nancy
found the gifts in it. I remember sitting with them in the hospital the week
before she died. She spoke in her quiet,
gentle way about the blessings that came for her, and for Antti and for their
family through the suffering. She
commented that many people were all too ready to seize control and deny their
pain, and thereby miss the blessings to be found by going through
suffering. She pointed my attention to
the two-edged character of life, to the mystery and majesty of it — to the
gift to be found in the suffering. Most of the important things in life have
that double-sided reality, including the gospel. Real truth requires that we see the whole,
both sides.
Because of her depressed immune system Nancy was not able to attend a Sunday morning worship service. So, three weeks before she died their family gathered on a Saturday for the baptism of her latest grandchild. The sanctuary had been decorated with freshly cut pine trees. We glimpsed the mystery of life and death as we stomped our snowy boots around the baptismal font. Nancy stood next to me as I dipped my hand into the water and washed the top of a tiny head and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I prayed the prayer whose words are taken from our Old Testament reading for today: “God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we give you thanks for freeing your sons and daughters from the power of sin and for raising them up to a new life through this holy sacrament. Pour out your Holy Spirit on this child, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord., the spirit of joy in your presence.” And as I made the sign of the cross on his forehead, I spoke the child’s name and said the words, “child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ, forever.”
As we stood there, next to the altar rail, we all knew another day was coming. I was thinking ahead to the words I would soon say when we began the funeral service for Nancy–
When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
I was thinking about the sign of the cross I would make, not on her forehead, but on her casket, draped in the pall that symbolized the last leg on that baptismal journey, calling on those same promises of new life for Nancy and promises of comfort and hope for all of us who would remain.
Today, on this second Sunday in Advent, we
look forward in hope toward another mystery: the mystery of Christmas, the
incarnation. It is when we feel fear or
grief or uncertainty that the prospect of hope is most needed. Grief and loss,
fear and uncertainty, suffering and pain don’t take a break for the holidays. Christmas
marks the beginning of a life that encountered suffering and hardship all along
the way. It is the beginning of a life
that suffered pain and death. Christmas
is the beginning of Jesus’ walk through all of life with us, with all its stark
realities. This season gathers in all
the sorrow we know and gives us a promise to hold on to.
In every season we need the hopeful message of Christmas that God so loved the world that Jesus, God’s only son, was sent that whoever believes in him might not perish but have eternal life. The coming of the Christ is about God being one of us, knowing loss, knowing sorrow, knowing health and failing health, knowing human weakness, knowing all of what it is to be human, even death. The message of Christmas is that Christ came, as an infant, to live our lives, to grow with us, to serve us and love us and lead us.
We are not promised lives of comfort and ease. Even when it seems like we’ve opened a box of manure—there are gifts to be found. Through steadfastness and the encouragement of the scriptures we may have hope and glorify God in all things. Amen.