Love and Hope
I Corinthians 15:1-11
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
January 18, 2009

At the dance, Chuck talks with a girl from a nearby school.  She asks, “Is it true that some burnout from your school overdosed this week?”  “Yeah,” he replies as he walks away.  He is tired of the subject.  Since Pete overdosed on Wednesday, no one talks about anything else.

Chuck knew Pete.  He did not travel with him, but Pete was in a few of his classes.  Nobody expected Pete to go as far as he did.

Even in the car on the way home thoughts spin through Chuck’s tired mind, “Was the overdose accidental or was it deliberate?”  Certainly things had not been going well for Pete.  He was flunking; his girl had broken up with him; he had been kicked off the basketball squad.  Feeling a tinge of guilt, Chuck wonders, “Didn’t anyone care about Pete?  Did he have no one to talk to?  Should I have?” He slips into his room and under the covers.  Instantly he is asleep.

In a nightmare, he rode a flimsy raft on a foggy river.  The wind doused him with spray and chop splashed him.  The combination chilled him thoroughly.  He drifted, no, was propelled by wind and stream.  Onward he was thrown.  Frantically, he tried to paddle to the bank.  His hands produced no effect.  He poised to dive overboard to swim to terra firma.  He strained and strained; he could not get free.  Some mysterious force cemented his feet to the raft. Helplessly, frantically, he tore onward into a gray fog – no destination, just the gray fog.

Suddenly, Chuck awakens!  His body and pajamas are clammy from a cold sweat.  His chest heaves as he struggles to catch his breath and settle his mind.

Having calmed, he flops onto his back, contemplating: “I am being shoved into the future.  But, how do I go on?  I need a friend, an ally.  Going it alone is too intimidating.  Did Pete have that problem?  Was he alone facing a threatening future?  Did he have anyone who cared?”

Do you have an ally?  Do you have someone who cares about you?  Do you have someone who loves you?  A few of you may be saying under your breath, “No”, but that is not true.  Not one person in this room can answer, “No.”  Categorically, every one of us is loved.  At least one person cares for us.  At least one person does not think that we are impossible.  At least one person treasures us.  Who?  Tell me!  God!  God loves us!

That is a keystone message from the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus!  Why die over something which makes no difference?  The cross is craziness unless we grasp what God is saying to us.  The cross makes sense only when we understand it as God’s way of telling you and me how greatly God treasures us.   A favorite verse of mine communicates the meaning of love through the cross.  Jesus said in John 15:13, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  There can be no greater demonstration of love than that!  Jesus did it for us!

Why resurrect Jesus and promise to resurrect us?  The resurrection is meaningless unless we feel the desire of God to have us.  God loves us so much that God would die for us!  God loves us so much that God never wants to be separated from us, even by death!

Being loved lifts the spirit.  Being loved empowers our coping with difficulties.  Being loved reduces anger and other depressing emotions.  Being loved energizes us.  Feeling loved allows defenses to gather dust in the corner of the mind. Being loved, as the Epistle of John says, enables us to love – “we love because he first loved us”.  I John 4:19  Being loved gives us courage – we know that we do not face the future alone.  We have an ally, God!

Love is a key to appreciating what God did through Jesus!  This is why the Apostle called it “good news.”  Not just news – good news!  Isn’t that marvelous?

We catch Ruth walking early in the morning.  Even if she wants to sleep, her arthritis wakes her.

She walks under a tree and hears baby birds screeching for breakfast.  Mother robin fills an open mouth.  Ruth chuckles at the demanding, noisy, gaping infants.  For several minutes, she delights in the family of robins.

She remembers when she was a young mother and brought the goodies home to her children.  Her eyes fill as she recalls those glorious days – days of glory that she really did not appreciate at the time – so busy.  Now, memory forgets the dirty diapers, the tiredness, the arguments.  She remembers mothering and feels warm inside.

Turning the corner, she nearly steps on a dead rabbit.  Ruth stares at the insides squeezed outside by tires.  An insuppressible lump chokes her. She can hardly breath.  “Will I end up like the rabbit?  What is life?  Baby birds.  Dead rabbit.  Time in between.  If this is all life is, how do I go on?”

Do you feel like Ruth?  Do you feel your life is futile, not going anywhere?

God announces through Jesus, “Do not be troubled!  There are many dwelling-places in my Father’s house…; for I am going there on purpose to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I shall come again and receive you to myself, so that where I am you may be also….”  John 14:1-3
 
We are not rabbits!  We are the friends of Jesus Christ!  We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ.  Greater than that, we belong to his communion of saints – that immense and blessed community of believers from Peter and Andrew, James and John, through the centuries, from every race and nation, of every time and place – all who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  By his grace, we will spend eternity with him.  Our destiny is glory with the resurrected Christ!  He is our hope!  The Apostle proclaimed: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures… .   vv.3-4  Hope, hope that we too will be raised and will join Jesus in glory!  Eternal hope!

Hope lifts the spirit.  Hope empowers our coping with difficulties.  Hope reduces anger and other depressing emotions.  Hope energizes us.  Hope releases creativity.  Hope lets us love.  Hope gives us courage – we have a future!

Hope is the second keystone for living that we receive from God through the cross and resurrection.  Thank God for resurrection hope!

Martin finds a position, marries Nancy, buys a house and has a daughter, Chrissy.  Life is good.

On a Friday, about a quarter-after-five, Mike comes up to Martin and asks if he would like to go for a drink after closing.  Martin does not do that.  He always wants to get home to Nancy, Chrissy and their home.  But, Mike whines, “I really need to talk to someone.!

“Okay,” Martin agrees.

Mike swallows one sip and gushes.  He and his wife had not been doing well for a couple of years.  But, Mike figured that they were no worse off than most couples.  Really, they were okay.

Last night, she asked for a divorce!  There is another man!

Two hours later, Martin arrives home.  Having phoned Nancy that he would be late, she receives him warmly.  Little Chrissy, in her cute bunny pjs, rushes to be picked up.  He lifts her and they exchange hugs and kisses.  Then, drawing both wife and daughter into his arms, he gives them both a long hard hug.

Nancy asks, “What is this all about?  You sure do get mellow on an empty stomach.”

“I am a blessed man.  You two mean so much to me.  I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Then, he explains to Nancy how down Mike is over the loss of his wife, concluding, “He is like a dead man inside.  He has lost his reason for living.  It is so sad.  I feel that I was able to help him some.”

Nancy gives him a hug, saying sweetly, “I am glad that the Lord put you there for him.”

For our emotional health, we need hope, we need to be loved – we need an ally – and we need to love, we need to be an ally.  Do you have anyone to love?  God gave us love and hope in the cross and resurrection of Jesus.  But, it is both sinful and an indication of poor mental health when we think of ourselves as cisterns, cisterns into which God pours love and hope – pours, pours, pours into us love and hope that we freeze.  The temptation is to come to Jesus and ask for love and hope so that we will feel better – the feel-good religion.  That is a sinful self-image and bad theology.  The proper self-image and theology is to approach Jesus and ask for love and hope, and for the grace to pass it on.

It may surprise you to know that caring outreach is one of the most important things you can do to increase your own well being.  It’s encouraging to note that outreach to others as an essential expression of self-caring is a psychologically valid principle, quite apart from the fact that it also is a firm part of our faith’s understanding of the good life.  Howard Clinebell, Anchoring Your Well Being, (Upper Room Books, Nashville, 1997), p. 28.

In front of the house in which I grew up was a triangular pond.  I enjoyed that pond!  When the wind blew, its surface rippled.  When the air was still, its surface would reflect the beauty of the crop-striped hillside.  For decades I have looked at the pond and still enjoy it when I visit my brother.  One summer we had a drought.  The water level dropped.  Algae died.  Fish died.  Debris accumulated.  The pond stank!  A pond without a steady flow of fresh water dies.  So do we if we do not receive love and hope.  When water flowed into the pond again, the pond thrived.  Fish grew.  Tame and wild ducks swam on it.  Turtles popped up their heads to survey the world of the walking.  The pond became alive.  And, the pond passed on its water to the garden downstream.   A healthy pond forwards its water to make the next area thrive.  We are like the pond.

And, who modeled this?  Jesus!  Jesus gave up his life on the cross to bless us with the offer of love and hope.  He passed love and hope to the Apostle Paul.  The Apostle felt blessed!

And, what did the Apostle do with the love and hope?  He tells us in the text: “I handed on to you … what I … had received….”

Do you have anyone to love?  (Love is such a sentimental word as we use it, and not what the New Testament writers meant -- too mushy.  The word “ally” comes closer to the working concern of Christian love.)  Do you have anyone for whom you may be an ally?

I think of the mission support and work that you do through this church and in the community, and I know that some of you get it.

If you do, thank God for the privilege of passing on the love and hope of Christ.

The Apostle Paul proclaimed that Jesus was crucified and resurrected.  So what?

By the grace of God in and through Jesus Christ,
…we are loved by God.
…we are hopeful, because we have a future.
…we are members of the eternal communion of saints, and
…we love.

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