It's About Hope...

As we begin this Holy Week journey, I want to add one more bible verse to all that we’ve just heard.  And it’s from Paul’s letter to the Romans in chapter 8.  He tells them:

Hope that is seen is not hope at all.

            For who hopes for what is seen? 

But if we hope for what we do not see –

            We wait for it with patience.

There was once a little boy who lived in the city.  He and his family lived on the third floor of an apartment building.  And the thing this boy enjoyed more than anything else was sitting by the window and looking down on all the people passing by.

One day, some men came along and dug up the sidewalk underneath the window.  They were going to put in a new one.  But the little boy didn’t know that.  He just saw the fresh dirt.  And after the workmen went home that afternoon, the little boy ran down the stairs and started digging in the dirt.

Just across the street from where the little boy was digging there was an old man sitting on a park bench.  The old man came and sat on that bench every day because like the little boy he loved to watch the world go by.

When the old man called saw the little boy digging, he asked, “What you doing?”

The little boy looked up with a great big smile and called back, “Planting seeds.”

The old man laughed to himself and then said, “You know tomorrow they’re going to come pour concrete for the new sidewalk.  Those seeds’ll never grow.”

But the little boy didn’t listen. He just kept digging.

So the man called louder, “Hey, those seeds’ll never grow!”

And the boy looked up at the man, and with the assurance that only a child possesses, he said, “They might.”

Well, sure enough the next day the workmen came back and poured the new sidewalk.  And a few days later it was dry, and the world began passing by under the boy’s window again.

And each day the little boy would come down to the sidewalk and he’d bend over and look.  And every day the old man across the street on the park bench would watch him and wonder.

Finally, one day, the old man’s curiosity got the better of him and so he called to the boy, “What are you doing?”

And again, the boy looked up with confident smile, and said, “I’m checking to see if my seeds have sprouted!”

And this time, the old man didn’t laugh because he suddenly realized was that he was witnessing something he’d lost long ago. He was witnessing hope.

Again, the bible tells us:

            Hope that is seen is not hope at all –

                        For who hopes for what is seen? 

            But if we hope for what we do not see -
                        We wait for it with patience.

And the next verse after that goes on to say: And the sufferings of this present age are nothing compared to the glory that’s about to be revealed to us.

As we make our way through this Holy Week, we are going to witness what many would consider a hopeless situation.

Those of you who are able to join us for our Seder supper and worship on Thursday night will notice a very different tone.  We will join with the other disciples in witnessing Jesus’ final hours before his arrest and crucifixion.

And if you come on Friday, it will be an even darker tone still as we witness Christ’s trial, crucifixion and burial.

By the end of the week all the hope and joy of Palm Sunday will be overwhelmed by the doom and gloom of the cross.  The crowd’s shout will change from, “Hosanna!” to, “Crucify Him!”

And the Christ who is celebrated and honored today will be beaten, ridiculed, spat on and finally killed, buried in a tomb and sealed beneath a stone like those seeds beneath the sidewalk.

And yet we, who believe, like the little boy in the story I just told, we who believe will witness all this and yet still believe that Christ will rise from the dead.

That’s what being a Christian is all about it’s about hope, and trusting that God can accomplish what the world claims is impossible.

He will raise his Son from the dead. And more than that, he will raise us from the dead, too.

And like the little boy in the story who went out each morning expecting to see his seeds sprouting through the sidewalk.  A week from now, you and I will come back here expecting to see Christ risen from the dead. 

Because, as we proclaim each Sunday we believe in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come.

And so may this Holy Week remind us of our hope and give us confidence in God’s ability to do the impossible.