J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Keeping Hope Alive ”
Scripture: I Peter 1:3-9
March 30 , 2008
It seems like this year, more than any other year, I’ve had more people tell me how they’ve been sympathizing with me over the busy Easter season. Maybe they’ve seen it in my face, but regardless of how they picked up on my weariness, they hit the nail on the head – it’s been a particularly busy Easter season; so much so, that I am somewhat relieved that it is over. Which is not such a good thing when you stop and think about it – Should any Christian, much less a pastor, feel relief after Easter has come and gone? I think not.
But then, many of you know how I feel. You’ve been busy, too. You’ve had family in. You’ve had meals to prepare. You’ve had eggs to hide. Now, that Easter is over you, too, have a chance to kick back and catch your breath.
Somehow I think we’re missing something important when we see the Easter season as another holiday to be endured than as a hope that is enduring. Somehow I think we cheat ourselves of a glorious opportunity to approach every moment in this life with an attitude of anticipation and a conviction that the best in life is yet to come.
That seems to be the viewpoint Peter takes in his first epistle. 1 Peter was written to a church that was reeling under the stress of persecution. Life was tough, and believers were beginning to feel uncertain about things ever getting any better.
So, as Peter begins to offer encouragement in this letter, he begins with what Christians must see as the bedrock of our faith – because Jesus lives, it’s not just tomorrow that I can face; I can face today. I can face whatever calamity has crept into my life because of what 1 Peter calls “the living hope” that is mine through faith in the Risen Jesus. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead” (v.3).
Maybe it’s just me, but I sense that this message of Easter hope is needed now more than ever. It’s as if people have reached their wits end regarding the economy and the environment, the war and the world’s instability. It’s as if people have had their fill of the gridlock that has engulfed our political process and are ready for a change. It’s as if people have said, “We will not accept the present malaise as inevitable. We believe things can become better, because we have the power to make them better.” This is a serious undercurrent in American life that every politician needs to be paying attention to.
But I am not a politician; I am a preacher. And yet I am paying attention to it, for this reason: things can become better in this country and in our world, but not because of what we bring about in our own power. Things can become better and hope can be kept alive because of what God brought about in Christ Jesus that very first Easter morning.
You see, the meaning of Easter is that all of the things that rob us of life have been defeated. Arrogance and jealousy and selfishness and greed have all been conquered through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Certainly, we must still contend with them. To be sure, we must still deal with them on a daily basis. But we don’t have to fear them. We don’t have to be intimidated by them. We have a power that, as Peter says, “shields us” from their effects so that in the process of contending with them, we emerge on the other side more secure in our salvation and more hopeful in our faith.
One of my favorite Bible stories is that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the three Hebrew boys whom Nebuchadnezzar threw into the fiery furnace. You remember the story. King Nebuchadnezzar had been counseled to erect an image of gold to which all of the people in Babylon were to bow down and worship. And they all did, except for the three Hebrew boys. They would not bow down, even when challenged by the king himself. Do you remember their answer to the king? “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold that you have set up” (Daniel 3:16-18).
What was there left for Nebuchadnezzar to do but to throw the boys into the fiery furnace. And so he did. But when he went to the furnace to see how things were going, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire? Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25).
I dare say Peter had this story in mind when he wrote to the churches, urging them to keep their hope alive in the face of the fiery trials that had come their way. “For a little while you may have had to suffer grief…but these have come so that your faith…may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:6-7). Peter was telling the church that because of the power made available to them through their faith in the Risen Christ, they could look their reality in the eye, as difficult and as painful as it was, and they could know that it would not have the last word, because Jesus would be with them, and his power would shield them and see them through.
Is there some part of your life that one week after Easter is still in need of Easter hope? Is there some situation you are facing or some challenge you are encountering that has you down and is causing you to feel defeated? Can today, you receive God’s Easter blessing into that difficult part of your life and trust yourself to it, because of how that blessing is imperishable and undefiled and unfailing?
Or perhaps right now your life is going pretty well. You can honestly say that everything is looking up for you at the present time. But is there someone God has put in your life that needs an Easter perspective? Is there someone you know who feels besieged and under attack and needs to be pointed toward the living hope that only Jesus can provide? It just seems to me that we turn away from the message of Easter far too quickly, as if Easter is just another holiday on the calendar that comes on one day and doesn’t return until the next year. It just seems to be that sometimes we are guilty of wasting the meaning and the message of Easter, confining it as we do to one week or even one day.
That reminds me of a story of an annual Easter tradition in a church up in Georgia. Every year, on Easter Sunday, the church was decorated with 500 Easter lilies. The lilies were arranged on the chancel in the shape of a cross. They were placed in each window of the church and across the altar rail and in front of the baptistery. Lilies were everywhere!
Each year, members were given the opportunity to have one of those lilies placed in honor or memory of a loved one for a donation of five dollars. You just paid your five dollars and the church would do the rest.
One year after the Easter service, a dear, sweet lady went back into the sanctuary after church and asked if she could have one of the lilies. Most members never asked what the church did with the lilies after Easter; most just assumed that they were taken to shut-ins and the hospital. “I have an aunt who’s in the nursing home,” the lady asked, “and I was wondering, if you didn’t mind, that I would take my lily to her. I’ll just pick one out.” And before anybody could stop her, she took one of the lilies from out of the window next to where she was standing. And in a voice loud enough to be heard in the most distant reaches of the church parking lot, she cried out with horror and dismay, “O my soul, it’s plastic!” And at that, people starting rushing back into the sanctuary, looking closely at the lilies and discovering that every last one of them was plastic also.
There was a board meeting called the following night, and the pastor and the chairman of the board felt as if they were facing a firing squad. One member after another shot questions at them. “How long has this been going on? Where do you hide 500 plastic lilies? What happened to all those $5 contributions?”
The chairman tried to explain that the money had not been used for dishonest purposes and that each year half the money raised from the donations was placed into the general fund of the church and the other half sent to denominational headquarters to be used for mission work in Africa and South America.
Then the pastor chimed in (which nine times out of ten is always a mistake). “Yes, and do you know what happens to real Easter lilies? Most people just take them home, water them for a few days, and when the blooms fall off, throw them away. We thought that was a terrible waste,” he concluded, “and you wouldn’t want to waste Easter would you?”
Right question, wrong solution. The message of Easter should never be wasted, because it contains more hope than anyone can ever handle. In the midst of life’s trials there is a Presence that sustains us and a power that shields us. In the midst of everyday challenges there is the promise of an inheritance that awaits us. In the midst of the slings and arrows of our human existence there is the confidence that what doesn’t (and cannot) kill us will only make us stronger.
But it must be a real faith, not a plastic one. Plastic melts when placed in the fire. Only what is genuine comes through refined and made pure.
You may still be recovering from your Easter holiday and all that it required of you. You may have thrown out all the ham and put up all the decorations. You may have finished all the candy and even discarded the last of the lilies. But by all means, keep that Easter hope alive. For it will point you past the pain of the present to the joy of God’s good future, which as the old hymn puts it, “gives strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” And who would want to waste a promise like that? Not me, and I hope, not you.