The Lutheran Hour
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"Hopeless"
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Text: Luke 24:18-19
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! A dead Messiah is worthless and His cause is hopeless, but it is the living Lord Jesus Christ who comes to us today. Having conquered death and grave, He now confronts the seeming hopelessness of the human condition. God grant His grace to us all. Amen.
It was shortly before Christmas when two nine-year old girls were walking down the street. As they walked, they came upon an old neighbor who, dressed in a worn, woolen jacket and working with a pair of equally tattered and threadbare gloves, was pulling weeds from the base of an old tree in his yard. This day the girls stopped to speak with the man and find out why he had undertaken such a strange job on a frosty December day.
The man told the girls he was getting the yard in shape as a Christmas present in honor of his mother. He added, “She was my only family and this house the only home I have ever known. When she died, I decided to keep up her yard and her trees as best I could. I do this in her memory every Christmas.” Although such thinking was foreign to the girls they were neither afraid nor threatened by the man. Soon they found themselves helping him by pulling the weeds which were choking the yard’s other bushes and trees. The man thanked them, shook their hands, and gave them each a quarter. He said, “I wish I could pay you more for your help, but this is all I’ve got right now.” And although this story takes place a number of years ago, even back then a quarter wasn’t very much for an afternoon’s work.
The next day on the way to school, the girls decided to take a little longer route, a detour which took them past the old man’s house. They looked with pride at their workmanship, and they also took a serous look at the old man’s house. While the owners of other dwellings had hung Christmas lights along their rain gutters and had draped their mailboxes with greenery, the house of the old man had nothing.
That’s why, after school they took an old peanut butter jar and scotch taped a label on it which read, “Our Friend’s Christmas Present.” The two quarters they had received from the man was a good beginning; a beginning supplemented by earnings from baby-sitting, allowances, and anything else they could do. Nickels, dimes, and quarters clinked into the jar. Enough money went into the jar so that, two days before Christmas, the girls were able to buy the old man a Christmas card and a pair of new gloves. The gifts, along with a warm apple pie supplied by a supportive mother, were delivered on Christmas Eve. The man read the card and then slowly, gently, almost lovingly freed the gloves from the bright paper around them. Then, to the girl’s astonishment, the old man held the gloves to his face and he cried. He cried the tears of a hopeless, forgotten man who had been remembered and had been given new hope.
Hopelessness. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl barely survived a Nazi concentration camp in the 1940s. He described hopelessness this way, “When a prisoner no longer saw hope for the future, he quickly would begin to decline both physically and mentally. Then, one day without warning, he simply would give up. No barking of threats brought any response. The prisoner just laid on his bunk corpse-like, uncaring, barely moving.”
Hopelessness. Scripture is filled to overflowing with hopeless people. When Adam and Eve did that one thing they were not supposed to do, they felt hopeless and tried to hide themselves from their loving Creator. When Cain was punished for having killed his brother Abel, you can hear the hopelessness in his cry to God. He said, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (Genesis 4:13-14). Hopelessness. After God’s man, the prophet Elijah, had been God’s instrument in defeating the priests of Baal, he was filled with hopelessness. In the Old Testament’s book of 1st Kings, Elijah asked God to let him die saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers” (1 Kings 19:4). Only a short time later that same prophet complained to God how he felt all alone (1 Kings 19:10).
Hopelessness. Read through the Old Testament and you will have to look hard to find a prophet who managed to escape the feeling of hopelessness. Look at the Gospels, the narratives of the life of Jesus, and you will find hopelessness looking back at you. Hear the cries of the mothers of Bethlehem who mourned their children who had been killed by Herod’s soldiers. Listen to the plea of a man whose daughter was dying; see the tears of a mother who was burying her son; the sadness of sisters who had placed their brother in a cold, stone tomb. Hopelessness. Read, and you will learn of lepers who were banished from their homes, their families, and future; you will hear the story of a woman with an issue of blood which had defeated the best efforts of the doctors; you will be told of souls who were possessed and persecuted by malevolent demons. There were tax collectors who were shunned by respectable folk, and a woman whose lifestyle had taken her to that place in time where she was about to be stoned by a self-righteous mob.
Hopelessness. Of course, there is the hopelessness recorded in those days which led up to Jesus’ crucifixion. Visit the disciples who berated themselves for having ignored their Master’s request for prayer in Gethsemane’s Garden, and who had deserted Him when He seemed to need them the most. Talk with Peter who, wishing to see what was happening to Jesus, ended up denying His Lord with three vile and villainous curses. Stand by Pilate’s side as he washed his hands of the blood of the innocent man he had cowardly condemned to death.
Hear the desperate demand for release which came from the mouth of an unrepentant thief who wanted nothing more than to escape the executioner and return to his life of crime. Stand with Jesus’ mother, Mary, at the foot of the cross; what emotion would she have felt as she watched her own flesh and blood die to save sinful souls from death, sin, and damnation? Judas, one of Jesus’ closest friends, ended his life holding fast to the seemingly hopeless conviction that he had betrayed innocent blood. Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus had not confessed their faith in Jesus while He was alive, but they came forward to bury His corpse. How had their fearful reluctance made them feel? Those days, almost from beginning to end, were filled with the hopelessness of humankind.
Little wonder, after Jesus’ crucifixion, His followers were filled with lonely desperation and despair. That was certainly the case for two of Jesus’ disciples who discussed the events of the Savior’s death as they walked along the road to Emmaus. When they were joined by an unrecognized and seemingly unknowing stranger, they confessed, “We had hoped. We had hoped Jesus, one of God’s mighty prophets, a man mighty in action and speech, was going to be the one to redeem Israel. We had hoped that once, but not anymore. Our hope ended when the chief priests and our very our own rulers delivered Him up to our enemies and had Him condemned to death on the cross. We had hoped things would be different, but we don’t have that hope any more. We had hoped a great many things, but our hopes were put to rest when Jesus’ body was placed into His borrowed grave.” Quite rightly, they knew having a dead Messiah is the same thing as having a dead dream. A dead Messiah is worthless and His cause is hopeless.
Hopelessness. Recent opinion polls say that many people – the majority of people who are being asked – no longer suppose their future is going to be a grand one. No matter what the lyricists say, most folks no longer believe you can wish upon a star and have your dreams come true; they don’t believe the sun will come out tomorrow; they don’t think everything is coming up roses. Listen to many of the lyrics of modern rap and you will hear the persistent, pounding rhythm of frustration, anger, and hopelessness.
Some time ago – or so I’ve been told – the Hayden Planetarium in New York City issued an invitation for people to apply to be part of the crew on the first journey to another planet. Amazingly, about 18,000 people handed in their registration form. It was found that the vast majority of the people who had volunteered to leave here to go there did so because they were discouraged with their lives on this planet and thought they might find a better life somewhere else. Hopelessness.
I don’t know if that story is true. I do know the letter I am holding in my hand is. It is a 19-page handwritten note I received this past week from a 62-year-old woman who lives in Portland, Oregon. Page after page, paragraph after paragraph, screams of a heart filled with hopelessness. The woman relates her conviction that if she talks to someone, that person is almost always guaranteed to be nasty, cruel, and abusive. She speaks of how her mother ignored her and her sister had stolen from her; she tells of a husband who threw her out of their house; and how a stranger forced his way into her cheap, filthy apartment with a knife, raped, and nearly killed her.
She concludes, “I have spent all my life trying to be good, sweet, gentle, and loving; kind, as is my nature. Even so,” she concludes, “there is no happiness for me, only cruelty. God has made sure He has beaten me down into less than nothing. God hates me and I want to be dead. He claims He loves me… (it’s) a lie! God has refused to set me free. He enjoys seeing me suffer.” Hopelessness. She knows a dead Messiah is worthless and His cause is hopeless.
Now, you may not have experienced all the pain which has come to this lady, but you understand hopelessness, don’t you? What is at the root of your feelings? Have you been terribly let down by another person? Have your marriage promises, “‘Till death us do part,” once uttered with total faith and complete conviction, become bitter in your mouth because of falseness and faithlessness? Has a work associate undercut you or a friend betrayed you? Did you become acquainted with hopelessness because your plans for promotion have not been realized, or when a trusted person’s pledge and promise was found to be phony? Was it sickness, death, or broken dreams which brought hopelessness into your life?
Addressing a faceless audience, I cannot speak with each of you individually; nor can I hear an account of your personal pains and problems. What I can do is recognize your state of mind and heart, and, by God’s grace and through the support of countless souls who already know the Savior and keep this broadcast on the air, tell you what Scripture has told us. You need to know while a dead Messiah is worthless and such a cause will always be hopeless, a living Lord, a risen Redeemer, can and does bring hope where there is only darkness, despair, and depression.
To the lady in Portland, Oregon, who shared her terrible story, but not her name or address, I want you and your heartbroken brothers and sisters to know this: the crucified Christ lives. You have experienced pain beyond imagining, hurt beyond the telling. You have been rubbed raw by the cruelty and callousness of many who surround you. But do not listen to the lies of Satan, do not make the mistake of thinking Jesus should be numbered among those who wish to compound your complaints and increase your suffering. He does not. He is nothing like that.
Let me explain. Have you been rejected by those who should love you? So was Jesus. The crowds He had come to save called for His crucifixion. Even so, He endured their rejection so you might be accepted into His Father’s home. Have you been tormented by the people who are closest to you? So was Jesus. His church plotted His death; His government turned its back on Him; and His own disciple betrayed Him with a kiss. Those Jesus loved beat Him, crowned Him with thorns, lied about Him, and nailed Him to a cross. All this Jesus willingly suffered so all who believe on Him might have a friend, a Redeemer, an intercessor, in this world as well as in the next. Has your life been filled with pain and problems? So was Jesus’. Have you prayed your cup of suffering might pass from you? Jesus prayed that prayer, as well. Have you felt forsaken? Then hear your Savior’s cry from the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama, sabachthani.” (My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?) Although you cannot understand the depth of His love, by the Holy Spirit’s power you can believe Jesus was forsaken by everyone so you would be forgiven, free, and have someone to lean upon.
Have you ever thought there will never be an end to your trials and torments? Banish that idea from your mind. A risen Christ – a living Christ – says, “Because I live, you shall live also.” The day is coming when none of the difficulties and deceptions of this world will ever be able to touch you. That is the truth which the living Lord Jesus revealed to those hopeless disciples who walked the road to Emmaus. Using the prophecies of Scripture, Jesus showed them that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer, die, and rise, so that all who believe on Him might be freed to live. A living Lord came to them even as He comes to you today and wants you to see Him for who He really is – your risen friend and omnipotent ally. Your enemies are His enemies. He entered this sinful world not to be part of your persecution, but to save you from it.
In 1957, a churchman of the Lutheran Church in Hungary spoke to a small group of people gathered at the Lutheran World Federation in Minneapolis. Bishop Ordass – that was his name – told of what he had suffered. As a leader of his church, he had vigorously protested when the Communists confiscated church schools. For his protest he was sent to prison for 20 months. After that period of incarceration, Bishop Ordass was jailed a second time, a longer time. A tall, impressive man, the Bishop told of those six years. This is what he said: “They (the communists) placed me in solitary confinement. It was a tiny cell, perhaps six by eight feet, with no windows, and soundproofed. They hoped to break down my resistance by isolating me from all sensory perceptions. They thought I was alone. They were wrong. The risen Christ was present in that room, and in communion with him I was able to prevail.”
If ever a man should have felt hopeless, it should have been Bishop Ordass. Days, months, years, were spent without human contact. He never knew when, or if, his persecution and pain might end. While the Bishop was in such straits the living Lord Jesus came and provided companionship and hope for a man who was the target of human hatred and spiritual scorn. Centuries before, another man – a hated and hounded man – had experienced the presence of the same Savior. Knowing the long-lasting love and great grace of the living Christ, Saint Paul wrote: “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:11-13).
All things through Him who strengthens me – that is the risen Savior we preach to you today. The Savior of the cross is also the Savior of liberation and life eternal; He is the Savior who banishes hopelessness. If you need to know more about Him, please call us at The Lutheran Hour Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for April 6, 2008
TOPIC: Old vs. New TestamentANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus responds to questions from listeners. I’m Mark Eischer.
KLAUS: Hello, Mark, and hello to our Lutheran Hour listeners. Well, let’s dig in, shall we?
ANNOUNCER: OK. Today we have both a comment and a question. A listener says he’s been conditioned by science to believe only what can be proven scientifically. He says he envies those who believe strictly on the basis of faith alone. He would like to be strengthened in his Christian faith. That’s his comment.
KLAUS: OK, I think there are two ways we can respond. First: he says he only believes that which can be proven. I can appreciate anyone’s desire to know something beyond a shadow of a doubt. If you have something that is reliable, something you can trust, then you have something upon which you can build your life.
ANNOUNCER: But, unfortunately, there aren’t many such things like that, are there?
KLAUS: No, there really aren’t. People trust politicians, but politicians break their word. People trust the clergy, but we are sinners like everybody else. Some folks trust money, but there is inflation, deflation, recession, depression. People can trust love, but love can grow cold and bitter.
ANNOUNCER: All of which leaves little upon which one can rely.
KLAUS: Exactly, which is why our listener wants something that can be absolutely proven. So, what can we give to him? Today’s truth becomes tomorrow’s joke. What is there that can be counted on that will never change? What truth is true for all people for all time?
ANNOUNCER: Well, other than God and His Holy Word, I can’t think of anything.
KLAUS: I agree. A quick study of history shows us that. Nations come and go. Hitler’s thousand-year Reich didn’t last even three decades. World powers become second-rate and then they fade from sight. The scientific age encourages us to believe in that which can be proven. But doesn’t that still call for some kind of faith? At least faith in what is being said, or faith in the person who is saying it.
ANNOUNCER: So really, maybe it’s a matter of knowing the right person in whom to believe.
KLAUS: Yes, the right person. And for Christians, that right person – our faith – is put in Christ and the Triune God.
ANNOUNCER: Because God has never lied.
KLAUS: And because the Bible makes predictions and those predictions were fulfilled.
ANNOUNCER: Now, some critics might say those predictions that we read about in the Bible were actually made after the fact, to make it look like they had come true.
KLAUS: Yes, they do, and that’s wrong. The Bible contains predictions about Jesus that were written down centuries before the Savior was born. We don’t have the original manuscripts, but the oldest copies we do, we know that the ink, the literary style, the words, the material on which they were written, all help to establish the fact that they predate the birth of Christ. And Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. You can believe God, because God doesn’t lie. Ever. To anyone. Period.
To our listener I would say, “Yes, we stand on faith alone in Christ alone,” but our faith doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Faith doesn’t mean we put our brain on hold. We have faith because God has shown us again and again that His Word is true and He can be trusted. And what was our listener’s question, Mark?
ANNOUNCER: Well, his question is: Does the New Testament supersede everything written in the Old Testament? And can Christians simply ignore the Old Testament since it is only through faith in Jesus as our Savior that we can be saved?
KLAUS: OK. That one we can answer relatively quickly. The Old Testament is not made obsolete by the New. It doesn’t get thrown out. First, in it we can see God’s will for the lives of His people. Second, the Old Testament points to Jesus. And Jesus is indeed present in the Old Testament as well as the New.
ANNOUNCER: In fact, He was present at the creation of the world. Saint John says all things were, in fact, created through Him.
KLAUS: The Old Testament is important because, in an historical context, it defines what the Messiah would do and tells us how people could recognize Him. We keep the Old Testament because it shows Christianity is an historical faith.
ANNOUNCER: It’s the fulfillment of God’s promise made to Adam and Eve, and it is not a once-upon-a-time fairy-tale kind of faith.
KLAUS: There are a lot of other reasons why the Old Testament should be cherished, but let’s sum it up by saying we recognize and retain those 39 ancient books because they are God’s inspired, inerrant Word and from them the Lord speaks to us right now.
ANNOUNCER: This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Jesus Lives! The Victory’s Won” From On My Heart Imprint Your Image by Kathryn Peperkorn (© 2003 Christ Lutheran Academy)
“Jesus, Still Lead On” arr. Donald Busarow (© 2006 Concordia Publishing House)
“We Know That Christ Is Raised” arr. David Cherwien. From Hymn Interpretations, vol. 1 by David Cherwien (© 1992 Summa Productions)
“Allegro from Sonata no. 1 for Organ” by Charles Ore. From From My Perspective, vol. 3 by Charles Ore (© 1993 Organ Works Corporation) Concordia Publishing House/SESAC