BIBLE READINGS: Romans
15:4 -13; Matthew 3: 1-12
SERMON
One of the main themes of Advent is Hope. In Romans 15:13 we hear
the words of Paul: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
We know that faith, hope and love will last forever (I Corinthians
13), but if the greatest of these is love, the most overlooked has been hope.
Hope is one of the most crucial attitudes we need to foster in a world which
reinforces hope-less messages day after day. By far the highest cause of death
among teenagers in the western world is suicide – a stark reminder of the
hopelessness that has gripped a generation who, of all people, we would expect
to be full of hope. Why is it that children, in their 3rd and 4th grades, have
hopes of being firemen, nurses, astronauts etc., and five years later will
answer the question. “What do you want to do when you leave school?” with a
sullen, “Dunno”?
And it’s not just young people. A loss of hope seems to be
everywhere in our western society. As scientific discoveries increase the
potential for improving the quality of life for all people, the number of
hungry and homeless people in the world increases annually. Wars still rage.
The incidence of depression increases. Even the great victories we celebrate
don’t seem to last. It really doesn’t look like humanity is able to solve its
most basic problems, let alone those which carry a degree of complexity.
A Google search on the word “hope” will bring up many interesting
sites. There is an interesting story a few years ago about an online
publication called Hope Magazine. While there are some great stories archived
on the site, there wasn’t a great deal of hope generated by the message which
greets the visitor to the web site’s home page: “We regret to announce that
Hope Magazine has ceased publication, effective with the November/December 2004
issue.” There’s not even any hope for a magazine about hope! What a tragic
symbol of hopelessness!
There’s not a great deal of cause for optimism around us. But
optimism and hope are not the same things. There is a sense in which optimism
is superficial. It would seem to be linked to external evidence that things are
going to improve. In the absence of such evidence, optimism fails. Hope, on the
other hand, does not take its cue from signs of a positive future in the world
around us. Hope goes deeper. It takes its cue from God.
Optimism can be misplaced: There were once a pair of identical twins.
They were alike in every way but one. One was a complete optimist who always
looked on the bright side of things. The other was an utter pessimist, who
constantly complained and only ever saw the down side
in every situation.
The parents were so worried about the boy’s extremes of optimism
and pessimism that they took them to a child psychiatrist, who suggested an
idea. “On their next birthday, put the boys in separate rooms to get their
presents. Give your pessimist son as many wonderful presents as you can. Spend
up big and wrap everything up expensively. And give the optimist a box of
manure.”
It seemed a fairly extreme thing to do,
but the parents were desperate. So they decided to
take the psychiatrist’s advice. When the twin’s birthday came they had bought
lots of wonderful presents for their pessimistic son and placed them in a
separate room: the most expensive, top of the range bike; the newest game
console with the latest games; brand name running shoes and t-shirts; and a top
of the range skate board.
In another room the parents placed a box of horse manure for
their optimistic son.
And then they let the boys into the appropriate room to get their
presents.
Hopefully listening at the door, they heard their pessimistic son
complaining, “I’ll probably crash and break my leg on this skateboard; I’ll
never get the hang of the gears on this bike; I bet I won’t be able to play
these video games; these shoes probably aren’t ‘in’ anymore; and I bet I’ll
spill something on this T-shirt the first time I wear it!”
Disappointed, the parents crept to the door of the second room
where their optimistic son had been given nothing but a box of horse manure. To
their utter amazement they heard squeals of delight and anticipation coming
from inside the room. Opening the door, they found the boy excitedly throwing
manure into the air, yahooing at the top of his voice.
“This is fantastic!” He cried out. “Where there’s this much
manure, there’s just gotta be a pony!”
This kind of Pollyanna style, blind optimism is not the hope
spoken of in scripture. Cornell West says of the difference between hope and
optimism - “Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there’s
enough evidence to say it looks pretty good out there, things are gonna be better… hope looks at the evidence and says, ‘it
don’t look good at all.’ But we’re gonna make a leap
of faith, go beyond the evidence, to create new possibilities based on visions
that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic action, always
against odds, no guarantee whatsoever, that’s hope.”
Vaclav Havel said: “Either we have hope within us or we don’t. It
is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world. It is an orientation of
the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is
immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope in
this deep and powerful sense is not… a willingness to invest in enterprises
that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for
something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It
is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that
something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.” Hope is not the
anticipation of a future reward, of things turning out for the better. It is
what we have when there is no assurance that such things will happen!
In the face of evidence that would seem to dismiss an optimistic
world view, we hear the words of Paul: “May the God of hope fill you with all
joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the
Holy Spirit.”
Paul did not write in a time of great optimism. His world was full
of military takeovers, imprisonment and personal suffering – not all that
different from our world today! Yet Paul saw beyond his circumstances to
promises that defied the worst the world could do. Paul found the source of his
hope in the Holy Spirit.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu tells a parable about a light bulb that
shined so brightly and proudly, it eventually became convinced that its
impressive achievement was due to its own merit and skill. One day the light
bulb was taken out of the socket and placed on a table. Try as hard as it
could, when it was disconnected from the source of its power, it could do
nothing. If we are going to retain hope in a world where all the logical
evidence suggests things are hopeless, we need to stay connected to the source
of hope – God’s Spirit. To do so makes a prophetic statement. To remain
hopeful, and model that hope day in, day out, is a challenge to all the powers
of negativity and the prophets of doom and gloom. It offers hope to those who
struggle against despair.
These four weeks of Advent are a time when hopes can be high. At
least, people’s hopes seem to be generated by the season of peace, goodwill and
approaching “Christmas cheer”. We’re hoping for fine (but not too hot) weather.
We have hopes for our Christmas Eve and Day services that they may
be full to overflowing!;
for family get-togethers (“please, let everyone get on this year”);
for safe travel;
and for the gifts we place under the tree to be ‘just right’
Many a graduating High School student is hoping for good results
and admission to university.
Maybe some of our hopes for the future will be translated into New
Year’s resolutions where we will make a commitment to make our hopes happen.
But some of these hopes are beyond our control. We can’t really influence
someone else’s behaviour or their moods. We can’t control the weather. Those
exam results are pretty much dependent on what has already been done, and we
can’t go back and re-do them.
What are your hopes – not just for Christmas, but your broader
hopes?
Michael Frost tells this story: Vienna, Europe, the period
leading up to WW2. Three Jewish psychiatrists, two learned masters in the
field, one the young apprentice.
The first master is a man named Sigmund Freud. He has spent years
studying people, striving to understand what makes us tick. He’s reached the
conclusion that the most basic drive in human beings is the drive for pleasure.
It’s our need for pleasure that explains why we do what we do, how we live.
The second master is Alfred Adler. He too has spent years studying
human behaviour. His studies have led him to disagree with Sigmund Freud. Adler
is convinced the bottom line explanation for human
behaviour is power. All of us grow up feeling inferior and powerless. Life is a
drive to gain control, to feel we are important.
The third man is a young up-and-coming psychiatrist by the name of
Victor Frankl. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of his mentors. But before
his career gains any momentum there’s a hiccup – a little altercation called
WW2. The Nazis invade and its dangerous for Jews. Freud and Adler are world
renowned scholars and so manage to escape Europe before Hitler invades. Frankl
is not so lucky. He is arrested and thrown into a Nazi concentration camp for
four long years.
After the war is over, Frankl is released from the concentration
camp and resumed his career. He reflects upon his time as a prisoner. He noticed
something quite strange – the people who survived were not always the ones
you’d expect. Many who were physically strong wasted away and died, while
others, who were much more weak physically, grew
strong and survived. Why? What was it that enabled them to hang on through a
living hell?
Frankl reflected on the theories of his mentors. Freud’s pleasure
principle couldn’t explain it. For four desperate and terrible years, the men
in that camp knew only pain, suffering and degradation. Pleasure was not a word
in their vocabulary. It wasn’t pleasure that kept them going.
What then of Adler’s theory about power being the basic human
need? That didn’t fare well either. Frankl and his fellow Jews were completely
powerless during their time in the concentration camps. Each day they stared
down the barrel of a loaded gun, were treated like animals, felt jackboots on
their faces. They had no power and no prospect of power.
Victor Frankl came up with his own theory. The difference between
those who survived and those who perished was hope. Those who survived never
gave up their belief that their lives had meaning, that, despite everything
going on around them, it would one day end and they would live meaningful,
purposeful lives.
What is the basic human drive? The one thing that gives life value? The ability to live with a sense of meaning. Not
pleasure. Not power. Meaning.
Acknowledgements: Chris Lockley