Message: Grieving A Passing Lapse in Hope
As I watched the multitude of people chase and try to hang from the Air Force Cargo Jet, hoping beyond hope to remove themselves anywhere away from the location of their fear infested lives, my stomach pounded in my throat. The news cast portrayed what seemed be thousands on the tarmac whose panic you could feel a half a world away in my safe American home, and continued all week long!
I thought about our veterans who had left parts of themselves there and a thousand other places like it, on behalf of our safety, and the pain they must be experiencing increased my angst manifold. I wanted to punch something. Bash in and destroy something, do something, be something. Be somebody more than just an observer. I also wanted to blame someone or something.
That’s how I began to compose this week’s message Monday night. I was so proud of myself for coming up with some words to express my feelings, and then I looked at it again Tuesday morning and was disappointed in the whole effort. You deserve better than a “War Correspondent’s dispatch” on A Sunday morning, which to me is what I was trying to convey seems to comes across as.
More importantly, God deserves so much more when we come to His House to; praise, glorify, and magnify His Holy and precious name. A Sunday morning must be about God and His family, and how we live together, work together, worship together, and not focused on just one person’s observations of the world, or anger in general. When I begin a message based on my feelings and thoughts instead of concerning myself with your challenges, and God’s availability to you, His love, and care for our lives, well, that’s when a reset is probably in order.
So let me try this again from a more reflective Christian perspective, that is more about empathy for others instead of being imbedded with anger and emotion.
To all of you who have served your country in the last several decades, the rank-and-file service members, those who police our streets, both mine and your Church’s hearts goes out to you! We want to say thank you, your work is not in vain, and your service will never be forgotten by us. We meet in a church without fear for our lives by the American Privilege we all bask in (regardless of if it’s recognized or not), by the gift your service affords us. Thank you! We love you and we are praying for you!
We are living in very confused times that frustrate and upset our very being. One can not watch the bedlam and fear that is driving millions of people in countless venues without being provoked into gloom. But we cannot lose hope!
And if you are watching the news and wondering what has happened to our society, country, and planet. Speculating on just how bad things can go in this world that we are experiencing, you are not alone. And it is right and proper for us to grieve and pray for people in the midst of affliction. But we must not lose our way in hope!
To care and hope for the best in other people and then to take those concerns to God is the beginning of real healing that is available to all of God’s children. That authentic healing is possible when we actually listen to the Lord and remember that a meaningful conversation involves two-way communication, listening and speaking. And then, listening some more, and then actually being prepared to follow the Lord’s promptings in our hearts, and holding on to hope!
Remembering that God will not have you contradict His word, and that He is not a God of anarchy but the author of still waters and green pastures. You who are grieving, hope is out there, and when we are in doubt of where and how He is leading us, we have a whole family in God to help us discern the path God is setting forth for us. For confirmation, just look at what Lord has worked with countless of our ancestors throughout scripture. Hence, there is no substitute for your Bible!
Your angst about how the world is heading is very real, and nothing new. This is not something that is happening to you all alone. Again, you are not alone in the challenges that you are witnessing. Solomon got it right when he instructed in Ecclesiastes 1, that the world has seen our kind of challenges before. Starting at verse 9-11;
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
In fact, as you read all of what Solomon wrote in the chapter, you get a sense that Solomon is battling his own depression for the hard times his own actions had contributed to. Solomon is trying to teach his own children not to make the same mistakes that he is guilty of, when in reality, leading by example is always the best way to ensure that the next generation has a chance for something better.
When you get right down to it, we are witnessing more of the same. Of a fallen world, with fallen people trying to find their way in a world of darkness. It’s easy to get lost in our thoughts, and revert to that place you go to in your despair. I know where you go when you go to that place, and more importantly so Goes your Lord!
So often we take our lives and the events that we are witnessing as one offs. In our heads the narrative plays “never before in the history of the entire world has there ever been…”; bla, bla, bla! But there’s more to it.
Instinctively we look at our lives and world as a sort of freeze in time with no beginning and no end, and the younger you are the more immortal and eternal this life, this present walk seems to be. You look at the pain and suffering on the television or on your phone and think; “this gore and pain is going to last forever!” But it won’t!
Truth is we are indeed immortal (we are in the business of forever), but this reality, this walk, and our participation in it; is fleeting. As we prepare for the new reality of our eternal future by inviting all who are willing to join God’s family, our time in this walk is as what Isaiah described in our first Call to Worship reading today from Isaiah 40:6-8;
6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
Perhaps an even more profound reading begins at Isaiah 40:3 when we hear: “a voice of one calling in the wilderness / prepare the way for the Lord…” That when I am in need of God I usually feel like someone in the wilderness. All alone and then the Lord rescues me from my isolation and despair. You who are grieving take heed!
In this life, people like you and I come and go as our lives burn bright as the firefly in summer and then eb in the autumn of our lives into our assorted futures, (whatever they may be, as determined by each of us with the Lord). And yet each of us is a work of majesty as a creation of our Lord’s grace. Special and one of a kind. By keeping this in mind we can also begin to understand the magnitude of just how big the challenges are that we face across our focus of the world this morning. With literally hundreds of millions of people in need, our minds become quickly overwhelmed by the challenge to even begin to contemplate what is needed.
Isaiah provides us insight of where we need to begin to look for answers to our search for greater meaning in our lives, specifically with verse 8. Reading again;
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
When I learn who God is, and what I am not, things begin to fall in place. In addition to our Lord’s word enduring forever, His insight for our lives (which are like grass), is embedded throughout scripture.
It’s amazing to think that each time we return to scripture, God’s word has a way of reaching us in different ways with new meaning cropping up all the time, when we are in His Spirit. God’s active verbiage, full of grace, hope, and life, actually grows within us providing greater insight as we are ready for ever more growth in His Spirit.
With reflection and growth in mind, let’s look at today’s second Call to Worship reading, this time from Psalm 31:1-5;
1 In you, Lord, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
2 Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.
3 Since you are my rock and my fortress,
for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
4 Keep me free from the trap that is set for me,
for you are my refuge.
5 Into your hands I commit my spirit;
deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.
The trap David mentions could very well be the trap of my own ego and thinking like the rest of the world instead of allowing God to guide our lives.
David is asking for the Lord’s help in dealing with all of those gut-wrenching images, those hard to understand, challenges, and all of the heartaches from a life full to the brim sometimes in pain. Our knowing that at times David (‘a man after God’s own heart”), of all people experienced being overwhelmed by life itself, gives me hope.
But what does all of this have to do with the sad state of affairs we are witnessing cross cutting our lives in these confused times? Perhaps, we need to look at a template God provides us when dealing with adversity to help ourselves and others through our; “Grieving A Passing Lapse in Hope” or out and out grieving a loss of hope. A couple of points already mentioned to remember:
- The bad stuff you are witnessing has happened before.
- You are not alone in your grief!
- Don’t let Satan separate you from God and His family.
- We need to be in relationship with our Lord!
- Praying for strength and for the best for others.
- Active and proactive prayer.
- Prayer is the access to the greatest power in the universe, and our existence.
- Praying for strength and for the best for others.
(Just remember it’s for God’s glorification, not yours!)
***Let God be your rock of refuge and the fortress of your relief by;
- Reading His scripture.
- Relying on God’s & your family (Body of Christ).
- Following the guidance of His Spirit.
As a community of faith in God’s Church, we must work on these good habits both individually and together as a family throughout the week and not just on a Sunday morning. Realizing that our Church as in Peter’s Day will experience times of grief, heartbreak, and despair. This is the human condition for people living in a fallen world, but we are not helpless and there is cause for hope in our future. Today’s message reading from Peter’s first letter to the scattered people of God, is instructive. Again from 1 Peter 1:3-12;
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
*Side Note; regardless of what is unfolding in society all around us, we have each other, and together we have it within us to bring light to other people who are looking for something better than the grief, despair, and the loss of hope many are experiencing right now.
10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
What the prophets only saw through revelation, we know from scripture. What many Christians have hoped through faith, we may yet experience through witness, the good that may come from serving God by serving others through action, prayer, scripture study, and sharing the goodness and kindness that has followed us through God with the people He places in our lives.
Amen!