"hopelessness"

In Jesus Holy Name April 23,2023

Text: Luke 24:17 Easter III Redeemer

“Hopelessness”

Test data released by the Illinois State Board of Education once again shows the Chicago Public Schools system has not prepared students to meet proficiency in core subjects. Nearly 80% of Chicago Public Schools students cannot read at grade level. Just 15% met proficiency in math. What future do they have if they cannot read? Some cannot even tell you what time it is when looking at the numbers on a clock, they have to use their phone. Hopelessness. The result. They wander the streets of Chicago and destroy property and people.

Chris Harris, who was a Border agent for 21 years and retired in June 2018, stated that the agents are overwhelmed. “I know a lot of guys just want to leave.” Morale among Border Patrol agents is at an "all-time low". One agent when asked about morale said "We are being mandated to work six days a week at 60 hours per week. It is causing a strain physically as well as emotionally. Personally I am exhausted. I can deal with the work as it is but a 60-hour work week every other week is taking a toll." We feel hopeless.

Max Lucado in his new book: “Unshakable Hope” writes: “We’ve never been more educated and entertained. We have technological tools our parents could only dream of, and we are saturated with information, amusement, and recreation. Yet more than ever, we are starving for hope. In America alone, the suicide rate has increased 24 percent in less than twenty years. If a disease saw such a spike, it would be deemed an epidemic. People are dying from a lack of hope.”

On a recent interview on Fox and Friends with Ansley Earhart he stated that 84% of Americans describe themselves as being under severe stress. Sometimes, I just feel like our society is coming unraveled. We’re worn out.” Hopelessness fills our culture.

Hopelessness. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl barely survived a Nazi concentration camp in the 1940s. He described hopelessness this way, "When a prisoner no longer saw hope for the future, he quickly would begin to decline both physically and mentally. Then, one day without warning, he simply would give up. No barking of threats brought any response. The prisoner just laid on his bunk corpse-like, uncaring, barely moving."

Life can feel impossible sometimes. There's never enough time to get all of the homework done, break-ups happen, the relationship with your parents might be rocky, and friendships go through conflict. Divorce happens, depression and hopelessness often follow. Sometimes life can get so overwhelming that you want to crawl into your bed and never leave the safety of your covers.

Hopelessness. The bible is filled to overflowing with hopeless people. When Adam and Eve did one thing they were not supposed to do, they felt hopeless and tried to hide themselves from their loving Creator.

When Cain was punished for having killed his brother Abel, you can hear the hopelessness in his cry to God. He said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me" (Genesis 4:13-14). Hopelessness.

After God's man, the prophet Elijah, had been God's instrument in defeating the priests of Baal, he was filled with hopelessness as he ran for his life from Jezebel. Elijah pleaded with God: "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." Hopelessness. (I Kings 18:20ff)

Stand by Pilate's side as he washed his hands of the blood of the innocent man he had cowardly condemned to death. Pilate was in a hopeless situation. Hear the desperate demand for release which came from the mouth of an unrepentant thief on the cross. He only wanted to escape the executioner and return to his life of crime. Stand with the mother of Jesus, at the foot of the cross; imagine the emotion that washed over her as she watched her own flesh and blood die on a Roman cross to save sinful souls from death, sin, and damnation? How hopeless she must have felt.

Very early on Sunday morning after Sabbath restrictions concluded there are two followers of Jesus walking home to Emmaus. They had been with Jesus and the disciples for the Passover. They witnessed the trial and crucifixion of Jesus on Friday. They knew He was dead. Their hopes were destroyed. And now on the road their body language explains their emotional state. “…their faces were down cast.” Hopelessness. Two heavy-hearted disciples slouching their way home to Emmaus. By the slump in their shoulders, you’d never know today was Resurrection Sunday. By the looks on their faces, you’d think Jesus was still in the tomb. “We were hoping that he would free Israel,” they lament With sadness in their voice they tell a stranger, who had joined them, their story. There was a prophet from Nazareth, they said, who worked miracles no man had seen, even bringing the dead back to life.