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Hope
SERMON – 10.15am, Emmanuel Church, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Sunday 15th November 2009
Colleen Nichol
I wonder if you had a similar thought to mine when you heard this morning's three Readings: "Whatever can be said about THOSE?!!" That certainly was my reaction when I read them together for the first time last Sunday.
But then a jewel of a verse emerged from the Hebrews passage that spoke to the unnerving pieces of the Daniel and Mark passages ... a jewel that began to glow with an increasing iridescence as the week wore on. It is a verse that brought into focus something central to each of the three readings. Listen again to Hebrews 10 verse 23
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
I would like you to hold this jewel at the corner of your eye, allowing it to shimmer there as I take us back for a moment into each of the 3 readings. So hear it once again: Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
All three readings make reference in one form or another to the concept of APOCALYPSE, (sometimes called "the End Times" or "the Day of the Lord") – a cosmic cataclysm in which God destroys the ruling powers of evil, punishing the wicked and redeeming the faithful. However this concept has been used and abused, interpreted and misinterpreted through the centuries, conjuring up a whole array of awe-striking and terrifying images, it always was intended to be a harbinger of Hope. So lest you fear that I am about to launch into a doom and gloom sermon on "the End Times", fear not. What I am going to speak about is HOPE... because radical hope is at the very core of apocalyptic literature; it is its very rasion d'etre.
You see, apocalyptic literature arose in times of such crisis and persecution and hopelessness that surely only God's direct and mighty intervention would suffice. It was rooted in the assurance that God would be a sustaining presence in the time of trial and that God's goodness and justice would ultimately prevail. So it is in fact a message of radical HOPE in the face of the most hopeless of circumstances! ... a call to "hold fast to [a]confession of hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
To get an appreciation for the magnitude of this bold proclamation, we need to look briefly at the historical setting of each of our readings. At the time of Daniel's writing in the 2nd Century BCE, Judea was under the grip of the Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV, who was determined to wipe out the distinctive Jewish identity. He plundered the Temple and outlawed religious practices – striking at the very cornerstones of Judaism. Not only was circumcision, and keeping the Sabbath and making Temple offerings prohibited but Jews were required to make sacrifices to other gods. Public execution awaited those who disobeyed the king by remaining faithful to the Torah and those who fled to the wilderness were slaughtered on the Sabbath when they would not fight. Surely a time of crisis and persecution and hopelessness if there ever was one!
Fast forward to the time of Mark's Gospel thought to have been written just prior to the Roman re-conquest of Jerusalem with the destruction of the city and the Temple with it in 70CE. Both Jesus and Mark would have seen the writing on the wall: with the increase of political conflict in Judea and Galilee, and based on prior experience of brutal Roman reaction to resistance, they would have anticipated severe repressive measures.
Then there is the writer of Hebrews with his reference in chapter 10 verse 25 to "the Day [of the Lord] approaching. He is writing somewhere between 60 and 100CE at a time when the fledgling Christian community is being scorned and persecuted for its faith.
And so into each of these three scenarios there comes this timeless proclamation – articulated differently in each passage (and in Mark just outside the snippet we heard this morning) but all bearing the same message: "hold fast to [your] confession of hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.
Now what does all this have to do with us? While we, sitting here, are fortunate enough not to be suffering political or religious persecution, I wonder if there are other circumstances in our lives that threaten to snuff out our hope... something in our lives that distracts us from God's great goodness and challenges our hold on faith? In the face of such things, how do we "hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering"?
We do it by keeping our sights set firmly not on the crisis that so threatens to pull the hope out from beneath our feet, but rather on "he who has promised [to be faithful to us]"; on our God who has promised to remain with us through whatever comes our way, with the assurance that God's greater good shall prevail.
A few pages back in Hebrews Chapter 6 verses 19-20, the writer offers a most beautiful image of how we can keep this focus. He begins by describing our hope as "a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul". And then, using Jewish Temple imagery raised to new indestructible heights, he goes on to proclaim that this is a hope "that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered". Here we glimpse a HOPE that touches up against the very essence of God. And in the touching it is ignited and empowered and transformed.
So is there for any of us a concern or crisis or sense of hopelessness that weighs us down with deep anxiety or despair? If so, let us hold that situation in our minds now as we hear again these strong words: We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. Now let us imagine ourselves taking this faith-eroding situation and cradling it in HOPE – however fragile, however fraught with doubt or nagging questions this Hope may be – and with this Hope "[entering] the inner shrine behind the curtain, where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered." Where the very essence of God, known through Jesus, waits with such a tender longing to ignite and empower and transform our fledgling hope.
And now imagine reemerging from that Holy of Holies accompanied and sustained by none other than Jesus himself, with our HOPE so reenergized and transfigured; with our souls awash in deep peace and unwavering strength. Imagine now living from that place! ... a place that empowers us time and time again not only to live with Hope for ourselves, but to live fully into our calling to be Hope for one another.
So in the face of whatever circumstances come our way, let us indeed 'hold fast to this living, breathing, God-encountering confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful' ... in Life ... in Death ... in Life Beyond Death ... he who has promised is faithful. Thanks be to God!
Amen
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