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.
