Hope

I was thinking today about the sadness in the world. 

Mike and I found out about this one family's story just yesterday; a little boy, eleven years old, is dying of cancer.  After an MRI confirmed some of their worries, the parents had to tell their son that there would be no more chemo or any other treatments.  He has months to live. 

Not too long ago someone shared a prayer request in our Sunday School class about someone he worked with; the previous Thursday night this woman's daughter wasn't feeling well.  She went to bed, and never woke up.  She was five. 

There are so many people who are battling cancer and other diseases.  Accidents leave individuals and families changed forever.  Instead of running carpools and giving baths they are grieving losses of one kind or another.  People are still sold, bought, and abused; this happens to adults and children alike.  We witness, as though watching the cruelest of reality shows, natural disasters take homes and vehicles and place them on top of other buildings or wash them out to sea.  Do we think about the people who are likely in those waves, below that water, amidst swirling debris and wreckage?  It's one thing to watch material possessions get destroyed by storms or earthquakes, but quite another to watch as human beings are dying.  I remember thinking that same thing as we watched the attacks on September 11, 2001.  This was no movie.  There were no special effects or stunt doubles.  It was real life.  Real suffering and dying and heartache and gut-wrenching sacrifice. 

All of these things played through my mind and I thought,"What do people have to hold on to if this is it?"  There is nothing.  There is nothing in this world that is solid, firm, dependable, unshakeable, indestructible.  There is nothing that belongs to this creation that will last once this world, this universe has expired.  There is no one alive on this planet who can claim never to perish.  Surely each one of us will breathe a final breath.  Surely there will come a time when we consider all of our days here on earth in a flash, and with joy, sorrow, satisfaction, and regret we will remember life; we will know that the time has come for that story that we have been telling with our living to see its final period.  Or exclamation mark, depending on the one telling the story, living the life!

But there is something else.  There is one who is solid, firm, dependable, unshakeable, indestructible.  There is one who was before this world was created and who will be long after it is gone.  There is one who can claim immortality, and what is more, eternality. 

I can't say that I don't have fears.  I can't say that I have arrived at that point in my faith at which I can look death in the face and cry,"I'm not afraid of you!"  I think I can quietly confess that I am not afraid to die in the sense that I believe that after I close my eyes for the last time, think my last thought, feel the last beat of my heart, I will be with the Lord God my Creator and Savior right then.  But when I think about scary situations or when my mind gets caught up in one of my irrational scenarios, my heart starts pounding, and I get tense, and I feel afraid.  At the same time I can tell myself that I have nothing to fear in the end.  And what is better is that these aren't just words that I can try to comfort myself with...but instead I have real, substantial hope.  Just as certainly as I will face death, my own and probably that of at least some of the ones I love, I certainly have hope because Christ conquered death.  He conquered the very thing which brings me such anxiety and distress.

Hope is the true balm, the only salve for our sorrows.  Again, if all we have to hold onto is here, the things that are before us, the people that surround us, then sorrow is sure to swallow us up.  But if indeed Christ was raised from the dead, then we can believe that the promise that we also will be raised from the dead is sure.  And if we will be raised from the dead then we can say with confidence,"Death, I am not afraid of you!"  Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (15:54,55) tells them,"'Death has been swallowed up in victory!'" and reminds them of what the prophets said,"'Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?'"

When I look at the anguished faces in the pictures that I see from Japan, or when I think of the family telling their young son that there is nothing else the doctors can do for him, or imagine any of the other tragic, heartbreaking scenarios that take place all the time all around the world, I get overwhelmed by emotions, and feel desperate.  There is only one place to go when those feelings come, there is only one place to go when confronted with those images.  There is only one place to go for the people in those images.  The throne of the risen Lord is where we will find comfort.  His promises are what we have to help us through the valley of the shadow of death.  The hope that we have that this is not all there is is his salve for us as we suffer, as we face trials and experience grief.  We have something more to hold onto, something more to look forward to, something more to offer others.

Today I replayed in my mind a video we watched in our worship service one Sunday.   You may be familiar with it (there are many versions on youtube) - "That's My King...Do You Know Him?"  It is a sermon by Reverend Dr. S.M. Lockridge and it makes me want to stand up and shout.

What he said.

I am so grateful that I know him.  Knowing him has given me hope.  That is the only comfort for my sorrows.  And yours.

Do you know him?