Experiencing Hope/Expressing Hope
(Mark 11:1-24)
Sometimes we have a conception that people who approach life in a lighthearted manner don’t take things seriously enough. We often believe that they don’t care about things, that they have a kind of laize faire approach toward life, that they have adopted a blended "don’t worry, be happy" "hakuna matata" attitude.
Could it be that for many people, who approach life with a lightheart, they do so because they have a sense of hope that we don’t completely understand or know nothing about? And if we knew and understood the reason for the hope that they profess, their actions would make complete sense to us.
Peter told the Persian believers in his first letter, "Always be ready to give a reason for the hope you profess."
So, what is our hope?
All too often, hope is pessimistically defined as the little boy did when he said: "Hope is wishing for something you know ain’t gonna happen."
Hope is not wishful thinking.
In 1965, naval aviator James B. Stockdale became one of the first American pilots to be shot down during the Vietnam War. As a prisoner of the Vietcong, he spent seven years as a POW, during which he was frequently tortured in an attempt to break him and get him to denounce the U. S. involvement in the war. He was chained for days at a time with his hands above his head so that he could not even swat the mosquitoes. Today, he still cannot bend his left knee and walks with a severe limp from having his legs broken by his captors and never reset. One of the worst things done to him was that he was held in isolation away from the other American POWs and allowed to see only his guards and interrogators.
How could anyone survive seven years of such treatment? As he looks back on that time, Stockdale says that it was his hope that kept him alive. Hope of one day going home, that each day could be the day of his release. Without hope, he knew that he would die in hopelessness, as others had done.
Such is the power of hope that it can keep one alive when nothing else can.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl, successor of Sigmund Freud at Vienna, argued that the "loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect on man." As a result of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl contended that when a man no longer possesses a motive for living, no future to look forward, he curls up in a corner and dies. "Any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in camp," he wrote, "had first to succeed in showing him some future goal."
Some years ago a hydroelectric dam was to be build across a valley in New England. The people in a small town in the valley were to be relocated because the town itself would be submerged when the dam was finished. During the time between the decision to build the dam and its completion, the buildings in the town, which previously were kept up nicely, fell into disrepair. Instead of being a pretty little town, it became an eyesore.
Why did this happen? The answer is simple. As one resident said, "Where there in no faith in the future, there is no work in the present."
For a Christian -
Hope is complete confidence that
God is at work performing His will even when
we don’t see it.
I would like us to look together at a passage of scripture that gives us an idea of how hope experienced properly becomes hope expressed properly - Mark 11:1-24.
Scene 1: Palm Sunday entrance into Jerusalem (1-11)
First lets look at scene 1, the perfect text for Palm Sunday. Read text:
The plan goes off without a hitch as the two disciples do as they have been told. They place their cloaks on the animals while the crowd paves the road with theirs, adding tree branches to their festive carpet. The whole picture conveys celebration and honor, reminiscent of the victory parades with which triumphant kings and generals in Old Testament times were welcomed. The shouts of "Hosanna" and blessing are cries of praise to God.
Hope is expressed in joyfilled worship.
Hope expressed as joyfilled worship was a dynamic that many in scripture where keenly familiar with. In 1 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat lead the army of Judah against the tremendously stronger armies of Moab and Ammon with the worship team at the head of the army trusting God for victory, a victory that Judah won without use of weapons, only worship.
The bondage of Israel in Egyptian slavery was broken by the worship of Moses in Exodus 3.
Paul and Silas spend what could have been a lonely night, shackled in prison worshiping. They knew that God was up to something, and they expressed their hope for what remained unseen in worship. Then the very foundation of the prison was shaken, and Paul and Silas were set free.
Application to worship celebration -
However, our hope as Christian goes far beyond attendance at corporate worship. As one commentator has written: "This account is often misnamed the triumphal entry. Jesus does appear to be at the zenith of his popularity, even acknowledged as the Messiah, but the crowd shows no appreciation for the suffering and death to which he must soon submit himself. Only five days later, some of these people will clamor for his crucifixion, even if the crowd then is not entirely composed of the same individuals as here."
This leads us to the second and third scenes in Mark 11.
Scenes 2 & 3: Second cleansing of the Temple (12-19)
Cursing of the fig tree (20-24)
Usually when we read the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we stop, end of the story. However, I don’t think that the cleansing of the Temple and the cursing of the fig tree occur here by coincidence. Contextually, the stories are intricately connected with one another, and can only be fully understood in light of one another.
Read text:
The context is still worship, we know that because the central scene is the Temple, the center of Jewish worship. However this time we witness the problem of misplaced hope in misunderstood worship.
Now who could have expected this sight? The Messiah, having been led in apparent triumph into the city, enters the temple, arousing the expectations of pro-Jewish, nationalist action. Instead, his attack threatens the sacrificial, worship center of Judaism itself. Jesus begins to wreak havoc with the tables and chairs set up for changing various regional currencies into the proper shekels needed to pay the temple tax or purchase animals for sacrifice.
At this point, I have to stop, and say, "Hold it Jesus. These guys need to be here. They are providing a necessary service that is required for their worship because of Old Testament law. What are you doing?"
My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,
but you have made it into a den of thieves.
The term thieves, here, is interesting. If it is given the meaning it most likely has in Matthew’s parallel passage (insurrectionist), then Jesus may be accusing the leaders of having converted the temple into a "nationalistic stronghold."
The issue centered on the merchandising and traffic through the temple forecourt, called the Court of the Gentiles. It was being used as both an emporium and a shortcut across the temple mount. Jesus wanted it cleaned for the Gentiles. That is, he felt constrained to cleanse the temple courts of Jewish defilements and then to restore it to its use as a place of worship for the Gentiles. This was a sacred enclosure for prayer, open to anyone and especially non-Jews who were otherwise excluded. The commercial traffic prevented this.
This passage is not about buying and selling on the church grounds. It is about oppression and discrimination that is thinly disguised as worship, which takes advantage of others, and effectively keeps others out of the Kingdom. Jesus’ is speaking to those who are lining their pockets at the expense of others.
Have you ever met the kind of oppression and discrimination that was designed to take advantage of you or to keep you out?
Jesus’ concern here is reaching the lost nations beyond the border of Israel and bringing them into the family of God.
Alan was an elder at a church in southern Illinois during a previous ministry. His approach to evangelism was that we’ll keep the doors open, and when people realize they need Jesus they’ll come, and we’ll be here. Alan, also, held strong racial prejudices. He once attended a Camp meeting, where some others around the table where talking about their burden for seeing their churches effectively minister to the African-Americans in their communities, and he said, "You mean, you would let them worship with you."
Now, take a look at the bookend verse for the cleansing of the Temple. These verses bracket the text, forcing our interpretation of the text into a specific direction.
You can pray for anything, and if you believe,
you will have it.
A sermon on "Believing Prayer" is suggested by 11:23-25. Notice the conditions to real praying: 1) no half-heartedness; 2) no lack of conviction; 3) no uncharitableness to others.
However, let’s keep these verses within context. Now look again at what is there. Jesus curses the tree. He clears out the Temple. He speaks about a house of prayer for the nations. He says whatever we pray for we will get.
What do you think Jesus is hinting that we pray for? Don’t go wandering off into other statement of Jesus on prayer. Out of this context alone, what is Jesus’ burden of prayer? His heart for prayer is for lost people coming into the family of God.
That’s the prayer that God is inviting us to in Mark 11. This isn’t a health and wealth gospel passage. This is a passage where God invites us into worship, which joins him in his program, and expresses hope by praying for lost people.
Hope is expressed in prayer for the lost.
Just do this with me. Take the phrase "house of prayer for all nations", and replace "for all nations" with the word "everywhere" (because "for all nations" means "everywhere" doesn’t it?). Now take the first letter of each of these words, what does it spell? HOPE!
This brings us back to what Al and I have been talking about for the last six weeks. Being a "Lighthouse", a conduit of God’s hope and love, he can use us to shine so brightly that others are drawn to him. Being a lighthouse begins with prayer. We develop a prayer list. We start praying for those around us, the people who live in the five houses next to you and across the street or hallway. Pray for open doors to share Christ. Pray regularly and practice "prayer-walking" - lifting your neighbors to the Lord as you walk past their homes.
