Between Fear and Hope

Too often we are tempted to turn them into words of dread and fear, like we have with that dratted Christmas song that has annoyed me for years: “...you'd better watch out, you'd better not cry....”

I don't think that we will ever scare anyone into being joyful at Christmas-time,

nor will we be able to scare anyone into heaven.

After all, lots of people heard Jesus in person 2,000 years ago, and only a few took it to heart.

Some heard the one who is Lord and master when God spoke, and others just heard thunder, the scriptures report.

Or, referring back to the song with which we began, some will see the dust cloud “coming 'round the mountain” and get ready for a visitor, and others will dismiss it as just the wind blowing.

Over the years I have collected an impressive array of unsolicited promises from persons in hospital beds,

promises volunteered to me in fear about the outcome of a particular illness or malady.

“Things are going to be different, pastor, when I get out.

You'll be seeing me on Sunday real soon.

I'm going to take some time to work on one of the projects like quilting or Family Promise, ...”or whatever we had been discussing.

Very few of those things ever come about.

They were promises made to try to buy-off God, or at least head off a lecture that they thought I was going to give them.

They were promises made without meaning, made in fear.

And they are empty words, useless words.

How different it is when I hear things that are said in confident hope and joy.

---Bette McCrandall has seen as much suffering and difficult circumstances as anyone would want to face, and yet she comes to us and with a wide smile tells us about her plans to go back to work in Liberia.

--A volunteer tour leader at New Windsor Service Center told me, This is truly a joy for me. They keep asking me to come back. This is the fourth year that I have volunteered 3 months of my time to live and work here.

--A person announced that the schedule of medical tests were not ultimately worrisome, because of confidence in the doctors' and technicians' skills, and even more, trust that God's promise of home-coming is what is needed in the end.

--Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko (Pop-yeh-LOOSH-koh) of Poland.

Beginning in 1980, he regularly led worship for the striking steel workers in Gdansk,

and shared the message that that they could be spiritually free in in the midst of physical enslavement.

He helped to support families suffering because of the struggle;

he sat in court with the families of those on trial;

he celebrated a monthly Mass for the Country, on behalf all the imprisoned and their families.

Fr. Popieluszko insisted that change should be brought about peacefully; the sign of peace was one of the most poignant moments of each monthly Mass for the Country.

After torture and intimidation,

in weak health, overworked,

enduring threats of death,

could still say I am not afraid.

and so the communist government marked him to be brutally murdered 25 years ago last month.

They estimated that 500,000 people attended his funeral.

His death perhaps hastened the end of the communist regime.

How strong is a person who is armed with the love of God; so strong that governments cannot stand it.

We remember, too, that a frightened government sent a band of soldiers to capture the Lord Jesus who was armed only with the Word of God.

How different are the words spoken or heard in hope from the words that are spoken or heard in fear!

How is it that we shall hear the lessons today?

Are they fearful, or hope-filled?

If they are fearful words,

they may lead to strife and violence among us as we try to prove ourselves worthy of avoiding the terrors the lessons pronounce.

If our lessons are hopeful words,

words of anticipation,

then we have a chance to live and to love,

to reach out where we could not do so before because of fear.

Let it be good news—the Lord is coming!

How then shall we regard the gift of time which is given to us.?

If we hear this announcement fearfully

Behold the days are coming

then perhaps we would draw a clock-face that has no numbers and no hands,

in a futile attempt to deny the message.

If there is no time then he cannot come!

But if we hear that message hopefully,

then perhaps we could draw at least three different clock-faces depending on which part of the message one wants to emphasize.

If we draw a face with numbers but no hands, perhaps it would represent the message You shall not know the day nor the hour of his coming.

If we draw a face with the hands pointing at 11:55, it can remind us that Behold, I stand at the door and knock, that there is still time for us.

If we draw a face with the numbers all clustered together with the hands, perhaps that would be a way of saying I do not desire the death of any of my saints.

--that Jesus wants to be present to us all right now.

Each of these three stands as a corrector of any of the excesses of any one of them.

They are all valuable insights,

they are all spoken in hope and faith.

They are all quite different from the one who fears time.

The days are coming 'round the mountain.

Hurray, make ready!

We understand the point that the eyes of faith allow us to look at life around us quite differently than would otherwise be the case.

The prelude today is Bach's introduction to the great Lutheran chorale Wake, Awake!

Is the hymn one of fear, or joy?

40 years ago when I first started hearing that piece, it was played ponderously slowly, with the melody played by the loud trumpet of approaching doom.

Over the years, I began to realize that Bach is a much better theologian than that.

It is not the trump of doom, but the announcement of the dance at the great feast....like the kids jumping up and down when you arrive home in the nick of time for the birthday party.

and so the piece is played in a much more sprightly tempo than years ago.

Are we gathered around words of doom or of hope?

I choose hope!

He'll be coming 'round the mountain;

make ready the feast! Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.