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FOREVER HOPEFUL
Romans 8:18-25
Sometimes life hands us some tricky situations. Former President Ronald Reagan likes to tell a story which he says is true about a newspaper photographer out in Los Angeles who was called in by his editor and told of a fire that was raging out in Palos Verdes. That's a hilly area south of Los Angeles. His assignment was to rush down to a small airport, board a waiting plane, get some pictures of the fire, and be back in time for the afternoon edition.
Breathlessly, he raced to the airport and drove his car to the end of the runway. Sure enough, there was a plane waiting with all the engines all revved up, ready to go. He got aboard, and at about five thousand feet, he began getting his camera out of the bag. He told the fellow flying the plane to get him over the fire so he could take his pictures and get back to the paper. From the other side of the cockpit there was a deafening silence. Then he heard these unsettling words: "Aren't you the instructor?"
Some of us have been in situations like that one. Our lives have been going along smoothly. We thought we were in control, when "oops!" a little voice has whispered in our ear, "Aren't you the instructor?" and we realized we were in trouble.
OUR TEXT IS A RECOGNITION THAT LIFE DOES NOT ALWAYS OPERATE ACCORDING TO PLAN.
St. Paul writes, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Some of us know about those "sufferings of the present time."
Norman Vincent Peale writes about walking down the street, when he saw his friend George approaching. It was evident from George's downtrodden look that he was deeply concerned about something.
Dr. Peale asked him, "How are you, George?" While that was meant to be a routine inquiry, George took him very seriously and for fifteen minutes enlightened him on how bad he felt. Finally Dr. Peale said to him, "George, I'm sorry to see you in such a depressed state. How did you get this way?"
"It's my problems," George said. "Problems--nothing but problems. I'm fed up with problems. If you could get me rid of all my problems, I would contribute $5,000 to your favorite charity."
That got Peale's attention. He said, "Yesterday I went to a place where thousands of people reside. As far as I could determine, not one of them has any problems. Would you like to go there?"
"When can we leave?" answered George. "That sounds like my kind of place."
"If that's the case, George," Peale said, "I'll be happy to take you tomorrow to Woodlawn Cemetery because the only people I know who don't have any problems are dead."
That's true. To be alive is to have problems. Some problems are big. Some are small.
Some of us have health problems. We're not alone. Each Christmas and sometimes at Easter choirs all over this country perform Handel's immortal "Messiah." This work has endured and thrilled audiences for almost 250 years. The next time you hear it try to remember that five years before composing Messiah at the age of fifty-two Handel suffered a stroke. Isn't it comforting to know that people can often come back from strokes, cancer, heart attacks, the loss of a limb, etc. and live noble, productive lives?
Some of us have money problems. It's no disgrace. When he was young and impoverished, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his own paintings. Mozart was so poor that he was unable to buy wood to heat the shabby room in which he lived. He sat with hands wrapped in woolen socks to keep them warm, while he composed the music that was to make him great. He died of consumption at the age of 35, his vitality lowered by constant hunger, cold, and lack of proper nourishment. Just six people followed the cheap coffin and even they turned back because it started to rain. His pitiful funeral cost exactly $3.10.
We have health problems, money problems, family problems. We are alone and lonely. We have problems at work and at school. We are unhappy about our appearance, we are hurting with the heartache of a broken relationship, we are grieving over a loved one no longer with us. There's nobody in this room who does not have problems.
Our text, though, is not about problems. It is about hope. It is about positive expectation. It is about a Creator God who is at work bringing order out of chaos, joy out of pain, character out of conflict. "For the creation waits with eager longing," writes St. Paul, "for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God." (RSV)
St. Paul paints a magnificent picture of a world in which hope is triumphant. The good news is we can live in the light of that hope today. What does it mean to live with such hope?
IT MEANS, FIRST OF ALL, DON'T SHUT THE DOOR PREMATURELY ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FAVORABLE OUTCOME.
In 1912, at the second Indianapolis 500, Ralph DePalma took the lead after only two laps. For more than 6 hours he not only kept the lead but increased the distance between himself and all competition. At the end of lap 195 (the race is 200 laps), DePalma had a 5 ½ lap, eleven-minute lead. Any fool could see that he had the race won.
Then DePalma's engine threw a rod. With his sizable lead, though, he needed only to clank along for five laps. Toward the end of lap 199 the car quit clanking and died altogether. As DePalma watched helplessly, Joe Dawson--who had been eleven minutes behind him--won the race. (1)
Too often we sit back and view a situation as if the outcome is already decided. If the doctor tells us that only one person in ten comes back from a certain kind of surgery, we assume that we will be one of the nine who don't make it. Why not assume that we will be that tenth person who does make it? Somebody's got to be. Why not us? Why not assume the best. If we don't make it, all the worry in the world won't help. And a positive expectation just might improve our chances.
There is a mounting body of evidence that our bodies respond to hope. It is still not a foregone conclusion--but the evidence is mounting. We know we can worry ourselves sick. Is it possible to believe ourselves well? Perhaps.
Douglas V. Steere tells about a friend in New York, a great eye surgeon, who has kept careful records on several hundred cases, and they seem to him to establish the fact that in his operations, the life view of the patient affects the amount of anesthesia that it is necessary to use in order to put him under, and affects the rate of healing of the tissues after surgery. This doctor's study suggests that it pays to expect the best. (2)
That is true in all of life. Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor that she would never be able to write anything that would have popular appeal. What if she had listened to that gloomy assessment of her chances? Who could ever succeed if we listened only to the prophets of doom?
Dr. Eugene Brice tells about a father and child who stood looking at Holman Hunt's picture, titled "Christ Standing at the Door Knocking." They gazed for a few moments at the picture of Jesus standing motionless before that closed door, his hand raised as if knocking repeatedly. The father said to the child, "I wonder why they don't let him in?" And after a moment's thought, the child replied, "I know why. I'll bet they're down in the basement, and they can't hear him knocking." Some of us need to get our thoughts out of the basement. Hope means, first of all, that we do not shut the door on the possibility of a favorable outcome.
HOPE ALSO MEANS THAT WE DON'T LET OUR PROBLEMS DESTROY OUR CHARACTER.
You may be familiar with Edgar Jackson's "The Message of the Maples." Jackson had a stroke and for a while lost his speech. But he eventually regained it and then moved to a farm near Corinth, Vermont. There he met a writer named Edward Ziegler. Ziegler went to see Jackson for some help with several personal problems. He was a fan of Jackson, had read many of his books, and thought perhaps Jackson might be able to help him with his difficulties.
After they had talked awhile, Jackson took Ziegler out to see his pasture. A former owner had once planted maple trees around the entire three-acre perimeter to avoid digging postholes and setting posts for a fence. He waited for the trees to grow, then strung them with barbed wire from tree to tree, enclosing the pasture.
Jackson and Ziegler looked to see how the barbed wire had affected the trees. Some trees had fully incorporated the wires, eventually growing around them and continuing upward. Others were twisted and deformed and had never gotten over the intrusion of the wires into their tender systems.
Some people, explained Jackson, are like the trees that grew around the wires and went on with what they had to do. Others are like the stunted, deformed trees. Their difficulties have ruined their lives and left them smaller, meaner, and unhappier.
If we are wise in the way we handle our difficulties, said Jackson, then we will be able to incorporate them and go on. Our lives will grow tall and straight and we will live triumphantly. (3)
We may not be able to control our circumstances, but we can control the effect that they have on us spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. How do we do that? We do it by entrusting them to the One who loves us enough to give His own Son in our behalf. Only then do we find the resources to make it through difficult times.
L.B. Bridgers served as a Kentucky pastor with his wife and daughters. Tragedy struck and he was called home from a winter meeting. His family had perished in a fire that swept through their home. Now he was alone. How do you cope with such umitigated sorrow and still maintain your character? L. B. Bridgers stood in the ashes of his home and wrote:
"All my life was wrecked by sin and strife, Discord filled my life with pain,
Jesus swept across the broken strings,
Stirred the slumbering chords again."
That is how it is done. I don't know of any other way. All of us have problems. How important it is that we not close the door too soon and call any situation hopeless. With God nothing is impossible. Regardless of our circumstances we can go on. Others have done so--confidently, triumphantly, even joyfully--by the power of the Christ who is faith, hope and love.
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1. Jerry Miller, "Up Jumped the Devil: Legendary Losers of the Indianapolis 500," Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. (Spring, 1989), pp. 19-20.
2. Douglas V. Steere, TOGETHER IN SOLITUDE (New York: Crossroad, 1982).
3. Martin Thielen, GETTING READY FOR SUNDAY'S SERMON, (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990).
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