When I was in high school, our football team was the worst in the state. Game after game, year after year, we lost.
In my Freshman year, I would go to the football games and see signs that read, "Destroy Anderson High." And we would lose the game.
In my Sophomore year, I would go to the football games and I noticed the signs had softened just a bit so that I would see signs that read, "Hurt J.L.Mann High." And we would lose the game.
In my Junior year, I would go to the football games and I noticed the signs had softened up a little bit, and I would see signs that read, "Maintain Dignity Against Dixie High." And we would lose the game.
In my Senior year, I would go to the football games and I noticed the signs had softened up a little bit more, and I would see signs that read, "Welcome Greenwood High." And we would lose the game.
My high school seemed to be a school without hope. Then one day, when I was in college, I picked up the newspaper and there was a banner headline. "Woodmont High School Breaks 72 Game Losing Streak."
The reporter interviewed the coach and he was asked to explain how they finally won a game. All he could say was, "It’s about time."
Amazingly enough, they won the next game.
And then, incredibly enough, they won the game after that.
This time when the reporter interviewed the coach, the coach explained their wins by saying, "All we needed was hope. Somewhere around the 20th or 30th loss, our school started accepting the fact that we always lose. We forgot that it is possible to win. I’ve been teaching tactics and strategies and working these boys out in practice, but that is not what helped us win. All we needed to win was the one thing we had lost long ago. Hope."
Several years ago, my son was playing on a baseball game, and like my high school football team, they simply couldn’t find a way to win. They’d lost every game that year. Finally it was the day of their last game. The dug out was like a funeral home. Not a single kid was cheering the other kids as they went to bat. They were just waiting for the game to be over so they could go home.
I stuck my head in the dug out and told these 7 year olds, "Hey guys, you can win this game. After all, you’re only 25 runs behind."
One of the kids heard me and said, "Hey, that’s right. We are only 25 runs behind. We’ve never been this close to winning before."
It was as if there was an electric jolt that went through the dug out. When the next kid at bat hit the ball right so that it rolled through the legs of the first baseman, the entire dug out was celebrating and high fiving each other. The excitement and confidence of our team must have totally confused the other team.
In the bottom of the last inning, one of our players scored the winning run.
I remember thinking that if I had known all they needed was hope, I would have visited the dug out long before that last game.
I remember reading several years ago about an experiment that was conducted by the psychology department of Duke University. They wanted to see how long rats could swim. In one container they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container they made the hope of escape possible for the rat. The rat swam for several hours before finally drowning. The conclusion of the experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We usually say, "As long as there is life, there is hope." The Duke experiment proved, "As long as there is hope, there is life." (Bruster & Dale, How to Encourage Others)
Someone once said, "Cynicism is cancer of the spirit. The bad cells of hopelessness attack the good cells of the soul and, if undiagnosed, will eventually destroy the soul. (Fred Smith)
We need hope in our lives.
But we all know what it is like to feel that all hope is gone.
In our Old and New Testament readings we encounter the experience of a loss of hope.
In the Old Testament, Ezekiel stands before a great battlefield. He sees before him a valley of dry bones. The battle is long over with. The vultures have been there and gone and all the flesh has disappeared. Even the armor has been stolen by the grave robbers. All that is left is a valley of dry bones.
God asks Ezekiel, "Can these dry bones live?"
And with despair in his voice, Ezekiel admits, "God only knows."
In our New Testament lesson, Jesus and his followers arrive at the home of Lazarus, only to find out what Jesus already knows. Lazarus is dead. The grieving sister approaches Jesus and with thinly veiled anger says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
The loss of hope is a terrible experience.
A woman walks out of a doctor’s office after hearing that she has cancer. What hope is there?
A father hangs up the telephone after receiving a telephone call from the police and learning that his rebellious son has been arrested. What hope is there?
A husband or wife can’t speak to each other because of the depth of their anger toward one another. What hope is there?
Where does one go when there is no hope?
To the grave.
When there is no hope, all is finished.
People need hope for the future. That woman walking out of that doctor’s office after hearing her diagnosis needs hope for the facing of her cancer.
The father receiving that phone call from the police needs hope for his son’s future.
We need hope.
The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. "We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the regular teacher said, "and I’d be
grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind." The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, "I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs." When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much. But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?" The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. "No, no," said the nurse. "You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live." Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: "They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?" (Bits and Pieces, July 1991)
Those of you who saw the movie "Titanic," will remember that portion of the film that portrays the last moments of the sinking of the ship. All of the life boats are gone, but the people are scrambling to hold on. As the ship sinks, the mass of people move toward the portion of the ship that remains above water. As the ship descends into the water, the people desperately hold on. One would almost wonder why? All hope seems gone. But one of the images I have of that film is that of the baker who is next to the fictional stars of that movie. The baker was hanging on the to the back of the ship as it sank. He was not fiction, he was a real man, and he later described the experience of holding onto the sinking ship as like being in an elevator that was moving swiftly down. He hung on, and he survived, because he didn’t give up.
Hundreds of people died, even though they held onto their hope, but no one lived who gave up hope.
The Battle of Britain was a fierce and terrible event in World War II. Their city of Coventry was destroyed and thousands of Londoners were slain in the streets as the Germans tried to teach a lesson to the British and to force the English to submit. The lesson did not take. The people huddled in bomb shelters and subway tubes. In one of them, four year old Julie Andrews was learning to sing, while the people’s Prime Minister told Hitler that England would rather die than submit. "We shall never flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender."
Where does one find hope? An ancient story from the Middle East is told of a man who had been sentenced to die. The man obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty’s horse to fly within the year--on the condition that if he didn’t succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. "Within a year," the man explained later, "the king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly." (Bernard M. Baruch)
That is a form of grasping at straws!
It’s better than nothing, but not by much.
Where do we find our hope? Not hope that is fleeting or "pie in the sky" kind of hope, but a lasting hope that endures and survives all of our trials and difficulties?
There are some common threads in our Old and New Testament lessons. Not only are these two readings about a loss of hope, they also speak of a resurrection of hope.
How do we resurrect hopes when things seem so utterly hopeless?
First, we need to know that God is present in our lives. If we want more than a grasping at straws kind of hope, if we want true lasting hope, we need to know that God is present in our lives.
In the Old Testament, Ezekiel looks over the battle field. He feels the hopelessness of a battle that has been lost, and a war that has failed. But God is with him. In Ezekiel we read, (Ezek 37:1-2), "The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry."
Likewise, in the New Testament Lesson, Mary and Martha and all of Lazarus’ family and friends gather for a funeral. The body has been in the grave for 4 days. But God is with them, through the presence of His Son, Jesus Christ.
In Ephesians (2:12-13), the author writes, "remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ."
Without God in our lives, we do not have a complete and sturdy hope for the facing of our lives.
The second thing we need is the Word of God spoken in our lives.
In the Old Testament, Ezekiel looks out at the hopeless valley of dry bones. Can they live again? Of course not. But God commands Ezekiel to preach to the dead. As we read a few moments ago, (Ezek 37:4-10) "Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ’Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’" So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ’This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’" So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-- a vast army."
Without the Word of God being spoken to the dry bones, the dry bones would have remained lifeless.
In the same way, in the New Testament, Lazarus remains dead until the Word of God is spoke through the Son of God, when he addresses the grave and says, "Lazarus, come forth."
The Psalmist wrote, (Ps 130:5), "I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope."
Jesus answered the temptations of the devil by remembering the words of the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, (Matt 4:4) "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Without the Word of God, we have only the Words of Humanity on which to lean for our understanding and hope, and that will always be insufficient.
Thirdly, we need to trust in God above all else.
Hope as the world knows it is in thinking, "Give me what I want, give me what I want, give me what I want."
Hope as the Christian knows it is in praying, "Not my will, but your will be done."
In Ezekiel, the prophet is asked by God, "Son of man, can these bones live?" I said, "O Sovereign LORD, you alone know." And there is a trust in God. Not a bitterness, but a leaning onto the Lord and trusting in God.
In a similar fashion, in the New Testament, there is a trust in God by trusting in the Son of God.
When Jesus reaches the home of Lazarus, Martha approaches him and says, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask."
Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again."
Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
Real hope is found in God.
Lasting hope is found in trusting Him.
In Proverbs, we read, (Prov 3:5-6) "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."
Copyright 2005, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com
