156 Sermon Illustrations on Hope

”The times may be bad, but they are the only times we are given.”

Gloom is a fund-raiser’s secret sauce. Spicing direct-mail appeals with threatening scenarios can be profitable for those whose ministry or livelihood depends on raising donations. Whether it is a relief organization fighting hunger, or a “faith mission” overspending its budget, or a secular organization like the ACLU warning (as it did in a recent mailing) about the “threats to basic rights” from the Christian Coalition, just a dash of panic in a chowder of dire news is a key ingredient in motivating people to part with their cash.

While there is abundant bad news with which to season fund-raising, confidence and hope remain the salt and pepper of Christian living. About five years ago, Christian social critic Richard John Neuhaus was being driven from the Pittsburgh airport to a speaking engagement. During the drive, one of his hosts persisted in decrying the disintegration of the American social fabric and the disappearance of Christian values from our culture. Cases in point were too numerous to mention, but Pastor Neuhaus’s host tried anyway. After the tedious drive, Neuhaus offered these words of advice: “The times may be bad, but they are the only times we are given. Remember, hope is still a Christian virtue, and despair is a mortal sin.”

A PEOPLE OF HOPE

Ancient philosophers such as Aristotle did not think hope was a virtue, but rather a passion — something that hindered rational living through unrealistic expectations. Nevertheless, from the first, Christians valued hope as a positive trait.

Easter is a time to remember that Christians are a people of hope. The New Testament writers consistently link hope with the Resurrection and the coming reign of God. Peter opens his first letter this way: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance… kept in heaven for you who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Note how Peter links the New Birth, hope, resurrection, our heavenly reward, and the Last Day. Biblical hope is eschatological: it looks forward to a good outcome based on God’s power and God’s character demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus. That first Easter not only demonstrated God’s power and covenant faithfulness, it also transformed the status and destiny of the human race.

Athanasius, the great fourth-century defender and definer of orthodoxy, calls the Christian transition from death to life the “first cause of the Savior’s being made man.” “For no longer now do we die as subject to condemnation,” he writes, “but as men who rise from the dead we await the general resurrection of all.” Thus our hope is not for this life alone, but for the fullness of future life. “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,” Paul writes, “we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19).

FIXED ON GOD’S FUTURE

This otherworldliness (or more precisely, future-worldliness) of Christian hope used to be a favorite target of skeptics and liberal theologians. “Pie in the sky by and by,” they charged, was a way of encouraging complacency and satisfaction with a seriously flawed political and social order. Not so, contemporary theologians respond. Precisely because Christian hope is fixed on God’s future, believers are freed from the security-loving ties that would bind us to the present order. Like Wilberforce who risked reputation and fortune to fight the slave trade, like Father Damian who gave his life to care for lepers, like Jim Elliot who forfeited his life to bring a violent people the gospel of peace, we are not to be tied to success, security, wealth, or power.

Rather, we are to be open to taking risks for God, to being pioneering agents of godly change. Knowing that God has secured our future, we can work for the world’s salvation and well-being, relieving suffering, discrimination, ignorance, and injustice wherever it is found.

Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazines — — ctap0395mrw5T40245320

In search of hope without tragedy.

“Hope: The Heart’s Great Quest” By David Aikman Servant 220 pp.; $9.99, paper

About 500 pages into “The True and Only Heaven,” his expansive book about the life and death of optimism, Christopher Lasch wondered about the possibility for a rebirth, not of optimism, but of hope. Optimism’s confidence in unending and universal progress, he had observed, lived on evidence that things were going well and were likely to go on getting better. With such a flimsy basis, optimism could not survive the persistent experience of tragedies that have so cruelly walloped the human family. Now the question is, can we find a hope to replace our lost optimism? What we need, Lasch mused, is “a more vigorous form of hope which trusts life without denying its tragic character.” Is there such a hope?

Though he does not include Lasch’s book in his impressive list of sources, David Aikman has written his own answer to Lasch’s question. There is indeed the sort of vigorous hope that Lasch looked for. There is a hope that is based in God’s promise rather than evidence of human progress. The promise is a new creation rather than gradual improvement on the old one. Thus, Christian faith offers a life beyond the “tragic character” of this world to hope for and Someone above our tragedy-prone existence to trust our hope in. It is, therefore, a hope that will survive adversity and tragedy. And, since our spirits need hope as much as our lungs need oxygen, I can only applaud Aikman’s passion to show that Christian hope is the one and only true hope.

To support his purpose, Aikman, for many years a foreign correspondent for “Time” magazine, succinctly surveys the faith of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam in 21 pages and then — in 47 fast-turning pages — neatly reviews the major thinkers from the Age of Enlightenment to the New Age to show that other religious faiths offer no hope at all and that any hope that secular thought offers is a false one. This done, he reviews what the Bible along with selected theologians teach us about Christian hope. All this is done with the sprightly style and easy-to-open packaging that we would expect from a seasoned reporter.

Aikman shows quite splendidly that what Christians are given to hope for is a life of bodiless blessedness after we die and a good world for us all to live in later on. But just as important as what we may hope for is who we put our hope in — not ourselves nor signs of progress, but the Maker of the universe who is now Christ the Lord.

But granted the greater importance of what we hope for and in, it is also interesting to think about the sort of experience that hope is. Aikman tries out a few definitions and quickly rejects them; hope, he cautions, is not a desire or a wish. Nor is it a disposition. It is, as the Bible suggests, more like an eager expectation — which is close enough, I suppose — except that eagerness is, after all, a lively desire, and we often expect things we certainly do not hope for (“Expect the worst and hope for the best.”).

But not to quibble about definitions of so slippery a thing as what actual hoping is. Aikman senses the difficulty, so he offers a few vivid metaphors, like this one: “Hope is like the lion in the forest, triumphant over all the animals, patient, never hurried, always king of his domain.” Taste in metaphors, as in all else, is indisputable, so enjoy this one if it illumines what you do when you hope.

What motivates Aikman, in any case, is the effect of Christian hoping on daily living. Christian hope provides its own evidence in the miraculous manifestations of its power in the life of people who have it. It is fitting, then, that Aikman should save to the last chapter a review of how Christian hope for the next world “revolutionizes” the “way ordinary people live their lives” in the present one.

It is probably true that most Christian people do not spend much time “eagerly expecting” life in heaven or in the new earth. What most of us consciously worry about and hope for is fixed on the same worldly things that everybody else hopes for. We hope for the good things we eagerly desire for our families and friends and for ourselves, things we believe are possible, things none of us can be sure of. We hope for our children’s safety, happiness, and success. We hope for our own comfortable retirements. We hope for the healing of our spouses’ diseases. And the like. (Saint Paul says that we are most miserable if we have hope only for this life, but it is equally true that we are also pretty miserable if we have no hope for this life.)

So it seems natural that we should want to know how our Christian hoping for life in God’s future affects our chances of getting what we most hope for in our present. Is there any connection? Aikman is eager to prove there is. And, as a triumphant climax to his objective research, he offers us several personal examples of “The Fruits of Hope.” The fruits are harvested from some ordinary people’s extraordinary experiences of the power of hope. He tells their stories, quickly, without commentary, on the run, like those nifty little paragraphs at the front of “Time” that tell us what we really need to know about the week that was.

A man on his way to a golf game gets a message that his daughter was seriously hurt in a car crash. He bolts for the hospital. On his way, he prays with just “a flicker of hope that someone was listening.” There was. The man’s daughter survived and is, besides, now happily married.

A woman whose marriage is on the skids is sailing off Hawaii and sees a double rainbow over the island and reads it as a sign of hope.

A young lady plagued by an ugly skin disease goes to a Billy Graham rally with hope for a cure. She got what she hoped for and is now a professional model, high on the power of high hopes.

Aikman’s own marriage had broken down before he got it into his head to write a book about hope. While he researched and thought about hope, he and his wife were reconciled and now have a new hope for their family.

These are the sort of “fruits” that Aikman offers to show how Christian hope affects — in a “revolutionary” way — how “ordinary people live their lives.”

What can I say? Aikman’s “fruits” baffle me. Does he mean to say that putting our hope in Jesus Christ for the other world gives our hopes for life in this world a better chance of coming true? But where is the connection? Maybe he means that God rewards us for hoping for eternal life by giving us what we hope for in this one. Or maybe he means that Christian hoping emits such a potent psychosomatic energy into our lives that we make our own hopes come true. Then again, it may be that Aikman has no idea of how hope does it and wants only to celebrate the fact that it does.

Geriatric hopers like me will permit themselves some skepticism. We just have too many crushed hopes under our belts to be easily persuaded that our Christian hoping improves — in any predictable sense — the odds that our human hopes will come true. Our hunch is that Aikman’s zeal for a nifty evangelical finish ran ahead of the sounder journalistic instincts he demonstrated along the way.

And yet, I do not wish to discount Aikman’s message. Certainly, when we keep hope alive for a victorious ending to a long struggle, we are encouraged to fight on and on until justice wins. Martin Luther King taught us that. And certainly a vivid hope for God’s kingdom rooted in Christ’s resurrection keeps the hope for victory alive. Bishop Tutu gives a resounding witness.

Certainly there is a therapeutic link between hopefulness and healing — both physical and psychological. It is being celebrated in the best of medical circles these days. And Victor Frankl has moved many of us to awe with his story of how the power of hope for what was obviously impossible — escape from the death camp — made the doomed life of prisoners who hoped to escape it infinitely richer than those who gave up hope.

It must be wonderfully true that nothing is ever accomplished, no poem written, no painting painted, no wall constructed, no enterprise begun, no family kept together, and no life reborn unless somebody hoped it could be done. But these are different sorts of links between hope and life than Aikman hints at with his amazing fruits. And besides, as Rabbi Maurice Lamm’s lovely book “The Power of Hope” (1995) assumes, the energy that links hoping to the getting of what we hope for is as powerful in the lives of people in general who have a hopeful disposition about this present life as it is in the lives of Christians in particular who hope for the promises about life to come. And besides, is there not a wee irony in celebrating the possibility that Christian hope of going to heaven improves our chances of putting off the trip? (”Everybody,” I have heard, “wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”)

I wonder whether the author’s fantastic “fruits of hope” would have persuaded Christopher Lasch that he had found the “more vigorous form of hope which trusts life without denying its tragic character.” I fear not. They seem instead to hint that Christian hope offers an escape from tragedy. And to that extent, it denies that life need have a tragic character. Perhaps Aikman’s evangelical enthusiasm for immediate and transparent results may have obscured his apologetic purpose. But I do not want to carp. He set out to demonstrate that the gospel offers a well-founded hope for a happy ending to our tragic history, and he succeeded, for which he deserves a good deal of praise for a lot of work well done. His book, in spite of my cautions about the ending, will give any reader a fine overview of all that has been thought and said about the gift of hope, for which nothing is more essential to the life of the human spirit.

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Copyright (c) 1996 Christianity Today, Inc./BOOKS & CULTURE May/June 1996, – Vol. 2, No. 3, Page 23 – – bcmay96mrj6B30236423

Land mines are everywhere in Cambodia, and so are their unsuspecting victims.

Stepping on a land mine usually means losing more than a limb. It often means losing job, home and family as well. It sometimes means losing hope. "Because they are disabled, they think they are useless with a meaningless life," said Iv Vanna Rith. "They are concerned about their living every day."

Rith, executive secretary of the Khmer Baptist Convention, knows what it is to survive as a land mine victim. A small land mine blew off his left leg just beneath the knee. Unable to support his wife, he lost her. But unlike many land mine victims, Rith did not lose hope. "I have testimony of the resurrection of Jesus Christ who died on Calvary on the cross for us, for everybody, and on the third day, Jesus rose," Rith said. Rith has been taking that testimony to other disabled land mine victims in Phnom Penh, so they, too, might have hope.

One key worker with Cooperative Services International (CSI), the Southern Baptist humanitarian aid agency, prayed a handicapped Christian like Rith would come forward to impact land mine victims for Jesus Christ.

"Many have lost wives. They have no means of being able to support themselves. They have no house. They have no food," the CSI worker said. "Rith is able to identify with these people and minister to them effectively."

Rith learned the Scriptures while living in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand from 1981-89. There he discovered the importance of prayer.

"I had nothing for food, nothing. When I was in starvation, I started to pray again to God. Two days after my prayer that we would have food, they brought food to the Thai border camp," Rith said.

When Rith returned home to Phnom Penh, he brought nothing but his Thai Bible with him. He eventually began attending Russey Keo Baptist Church. There he received his calling to the ministry and began to pray for God's direction.

In 1995 he accepted a job surveying the handicapped for CSI.

"While he was conducting the survey to ask such information as felt needs, personal biography and other details about their receptivity to the good news of Jesus Christ, there were 29 handicapped who made professions of faith during that three-month period," the CSI worker said.

Because disabled people could access it easily, the base of a Buddhist temple high on a hill was chosen for a worship place for these new believers. Rith preached his first sermon there Nov. 4, 1995, to 31 amputees.

Since that first meeting, about 100 people have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior just as Rith, 36, did when he was 28. Rith baptizes the new Christians only after they understand the commitment to Christ that baptism symbolizes. He has baptized 11 physically handicapped Christians and one of their spouses.

"There were limbs. There were crutches, just everything along the river bank. They would take (their prosthetic devices) off and then swim out to be baptized," the CSI worker said. "One man had both legs missing. We just picked him up and kind of set him in the water, and he made his way over to where he was baptized. It was just awesome."

The "church" Rith started at the foot of Wat Phnom now meets in six groups throughout the city. Rith meets with each group about twice a week, once for discipleship training and once for worship. On his own time, the CSI worker trains and assists Rith.

God also has used Rith to impact the life of another handicapped Christian man who has been called by God as an evangelist to others who are disabled.

"The man Rith has been discipling one-to-one went on his own to a district where we have no existing churches and began to do some evangelism," the CSI worker said. "On his first encounter to the area, he had nine professions of faith. Well, in a month, they had about 21 decisions. There's a little pocket of believers that's meeting in this location now."

Rith, who also administers a small loan program funded by CSI to help handicapped people get established in small business, sees his ministry as a gift from God. "As Jesus has given us hope, we want to give them hope," he said.

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#4022

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War. The thunder of bombs, the wail of the wounded, the sharp smell of fear. “It’s something you never get used to,” muttered a U.S. Marine classmate returning from Vietnam; especially when the weight of responsibility falls directly on you.

I felt it years ago as a marine lieutenant, knowing that the lives of 50 men were in my hands. Later, in the White House, I never lost the brooding realization that every decision I influenced could mean life or death to soldiers fighting in the jungles of Vietnam.

But the most wrenching sense of responsibility hit one morning when I climbed into the back seat of the White House limousine, opened the newspaper, and saw a photo of a nine-year-old South Vietnamese girl running naked down the street, the jellied napalm searing her skin after a bomb attack ordered by a U.S. Commander [but see note below]. The little girl’s arms were stretched out as though in supplication, her face contorted in a scream of pain and terror.

The image earned the photographer a Pulitzer Prize and helped turn the heart of a nation against the war. But for me, there was no escaping a sense of personal responsibility. The photo was scorched permanently into my memory, whispering the haunting question: Was I responsible for policies that led to this small child’s agony?

In the years that followed, my life and that of the little girl strangely converged. Her name was Phan Thi Kim Phuc, and she was rushed to the hospital by the photographer, where she was treated for third-degree burns. Her wounds were so severe that every time they were cleaned and dressed the pain caused her to lose consciousness.

Later, the Communist Vietnamese government discovered that she was the “girl in the picture” and paraded her endlessly in anti-American propaganda. She was forced to pull up her sleeves and exhibit the deeply ridged skin to visitors from around the globe.

Then, as an adult, her life changed dramatically: A group of believers introduced her to the joy of new life in Christ. Eventually she went to Cuba where she met a young Vietnamese man who shared her faith. They married, and on their honeymoon the young couple defected to Canada. Getting off the plane in a strange country, without money, without family, and without friends, Kim Phuc was buoyed up only by her intense faith. “God guided me.... I go by faith,” she told an NPR interviewer. Today the couple lives in Toronto with their small son.

Meanwhile, back in the White House, I too fell at the feet of God and discovered new life -- a life that took me from the corridors of power to the walkways of prison cellblocks. But over the next two decades, the image of the little girl in the photo hovered in my memory, with its haunting question.

Then one day last fall, I opened the newspaper and a second photo jumped out at me: Kim Phuc, now 33 years old, laying a wreath of flowers at the Vietnam War Memorial. There she stood, slim and radiant before the black polished granite, with a remarkable message: She was extending forgiveness to those who had once bombed her family and countrymen. “I have suffered a lot from both physical and emotional pain,” Kim said. “Sometimes I thought I could not live, but God saved my life and gave me faith and hope.”

The sea of veterans in American uniforms spread out before her brought back terrifying memories of war and suffering, as Kim later told a reporter. Yet she prayed for strength to utter words of grace and hope: “Even if I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bomb,” she said, “I could tell him we cannot change history, but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace.”

When she finished her brief but poignant remarks, the veterans rose to their feet, exploding in applause. Several broke down and wept. “It’s important to us that she’s here,” one veteran said. “For her to forgive us personally means something.”

And it “means something” to that old Nixon hatchet man as well. The frail, South Vietnamese woman, once so powerless, reached out across the years, as it were, to the man who once held so much worldly power and spoke words of forgiveness and reconciliation.

It is a fitting image for Easter, when we celebrate the power of the Resurrection over the forces of death itself. A world of sin will never be free of war and destruction. Time and again we are promised that THIS is the “war to end all wars.” But time and again the promise proves empty, and conflict breaks out somewhere else in new forms. As G. K. Chesterton once quipped, original sin is the one doctrine empirically verified by 3,500 years of human history. The only power that conquers sin and evil is the Cross; the only power that provides real peace is the Resurrection.

From Kim Phuc’s first picture, the world learned the horrors of war; from the second picture, the only source of peace. Nor does her story end there. Kim and her husband have nursed a secret dream to attend Bible college someday. When I retold their story on my radio program, “BreakPoint,” several Bible colleges called to ask how they could help the couple’s dream come true.

The world will always be full of wars and rumors of war, but Christ’s resurrection brings peace -- supernatural peace -- to those who give their lives to him.

________

COPYRIGHT(C) 1997 BY CHRISTIANITY TODAY, INC/CHRISTIANITY TODAY MAGAZINE.

MARCH 3, 1997 VOL. 41, NO. 3, PAGE 96; 7T3wh7T30967225

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Update (in file):

Daily Record, April 13, 1997, page A-13, by Anne Gearan (AP).

The American officer who ordered napalm dropped was John Plummer. He had reports the village was unoccupied by civilians and was traumatized by the photo. He ended up divorced twice and developed a drinking problem; the picture confronted him in wakefulness and sleep. In 1990 he committed his life to God and left his job with a defense contractor to become a Methodist minister. On Nov. 11, 1997, Plummer and some of his friends sat far back in the crowd as Kim spoke. Afterwards he spoke to her.

[Holwick: Some believe his role in the incident has been exaggerated while others say it is a case of mistaken memory - that no Americans were involved in the incident except as photographers and doctors. At this point in the war, most of the fighting was done by Vietnamese themselves and the South Vietnamese air force was responsible for dropping the napalm, not Americans (see http://www.ndqsa.com/myth.html).]

REALISTIC SELF-KNOWLEDGE: WE ARE SINNERS

Browning tells us that what won him for Christ was this, that while others tried to soothe his angry conscience, and kept urging that, really, things were not nearly so bad as he was making out, Christ looked him in the eyes and told him bluntly that he was a desperate sinner, worse, much worse, even than he realized. And that, queerly enough as you might think, the man was not discomfited but heartened. Here at last, he felt, is one who understands and knows the facts. And since His desperate diagnosis is so accurate, may not His optimism also justify itself even in me. Well does He know what is in human nature, and yet, knowing the worst, He still has confident hope.

... A. J. Gossip, The Galilean Accent

According to a Baptist Press release, 16-year-old Jennifer Cody attended a Southern Baptist-sponsored youth camp in July 1987. She had missed the registration deadline at The Church on Mill in Tempe, Arizona, where she attended, but a boy canceled his and that made it possible for her to attend. She not only went to the camp, late one evening she asked Jesus Christ to come into her life as Lord and Savior. After returning home from camp, she went to Michigan to visit relatives. Then, with her mother, Susie, she boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 255 on the evening of August 16, bound for Phoenix and home. You know that story: the second worst airline accident in American history - with only one survivor, a little girl [not Jennifer]. [Plane lost power on takeoff, crashed into highway embankment.] Thank God, Jennifer had gotten saved barely a month before. And thank God for Christian camps.

From page 66-72, “Anatomy of a Plane Crash.” LIFE magazine, April 1988.

Article on crash of flight 255. Pictures, explanation of reasons for crash, several personal stories. Lone survivor was 4-year-old Cecelia Cichan, who was found strapped in her seat underneath her dead mother. Father and brother also killed in crash.

*

Version in Sermon (Easter 1988):

According to a Baptist Press release, 16-year-old Jennifer Cody attended a Southern Baptist youth camp last July. She had missed the registration deadline at her church in Tempe, Arizona, so she didn't think she'd be able to go. However, a boy canceled his reservation at the last minute and they were able to squeeze her in. She not only went to the camp, late one evening she asked Jesus Christ to come into her life as Lord and Savior.

After returning home from camp, she went to Michigan to visit relatives. Then, with her mother, Jennifer boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 255 so they could fly home to Phoenix. It was August 16, 1987.

Less than a second after takeoff Flight 255 had its first hint of trouble - the pilot's control column started to vibrate. The jet climbed slowly, and began to roll to the right and to the left. After fourteen seconds it should have been 600 feet in the air. Instead, it was only 45 feet up. The pilot had forgotten to lower his wing flaps.

At 222 miles per hour, it clipped a light pole in a parking lot and sheared off 18 feet of wing. Flames burst from the left engine. The plane struck another light pole. It banked 45 degrees to the left and slammed into the concrete embankment of a highway. The explosion scattered debris and bodies for half a mile.

Emergency squads scrambled over the wreckage. Firefighter Dan Kish thought he heard moaning. His partners turned off their hose and listened. They spotted a woman lying in some debris. They checked her for breathing, but she was dead. Then they saw an arm move beneath her. It was a little girl, deeply burned but alive, and still strapped in her seat. She was the only survivor.

It was a little girl, but it wasn't Jennifer. (It was Cecelia Cichan) Out of 156 dead, only 3 were in a condition to be viewed by next of kin. Jennifer was not among those 3, either.

If Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead, then Jennifer's death can never be anything more than a senseless tragedy. But if he was really raised, then Jennifer is in heaven with him right now, and someday her spirit will be clothed with a glorious new body. It will be recognizable, indestructible and glorious. Just like the glorious body of Jesus.

Jennifer had been saved at summer camp less than one month before. Her trust in Jesus gives a hope that can never be destroyed.

[Originally this was illustration #1]

I am a mother of three (ages 14, 12, 3) and have recently completed my college degree. The last class I had to take was Sociology. The teacher was absolutely inspiring with the qualities that I wish every human being had been graced with. Her last project of the term was called “Smile.” The class was asked to go out and smile at three people and document their reaction. I am a very friendly person and always smile at everyone and say, hello anyway... so, I thought, this would be a piece of cake literally.

Soon after we were assigned the project, my husband, youngest son, and I went out to McDonalds, one crisp March morning. It was just our way of sharing special play time with our son. We were standing in line, waiting to be served, when all of a sudden everyone around us began to back away, and then even my husband did. I did not move an inch ... an overwhelming feeling of panic welled up inside of me as I turned to see why they had moved. As I turned around I smelled a horrible “dirty body” smell ... and there standing behind me were two poor homeless men. As I looked down at the short gentleman, close to me, he was “smiling”. His beautiful sky-blue eyes were full of God’s Light as he searched for acceptance. He said, “Good day” as he counted the few coins he had been clutching. The second man fumbled with his hands as he stood behind his friend. I realized the second man was mentally deficient and the blue-eyed gentleman was his salvation. I held my tears as I stood there with them.

The young lady at the counter asked him what they wanted. He said, “Coffee is all, Miss” because that was all they could afford to sit in the restaurant and warm up, they had to buy something (they just wanted to be warm). Then I really felt it ... the compulsion as so great I almost reached out and embraced the little man with the blue eyes.

That is when I noticed all eyes in the restaurant were set on me ... judging my every action. I smiled and asked the young lady behind the counter to give me two more breakfast meals on a separate tray. I then walked around the corner to the table that the men had chosen as a resting spot. I put the tray on the table and laid my hand on the blue eyed gentleman’s cold hand. He looked up at me, with tears in his eyes, and said, “Thank you.” I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, “I did not do this for you ... God is here working through me to give you hope.”

I started to cry as I walked away to join my husband and son. When I sat down my husband smiled at me and said, “That is why God gave you to me, honey ... to give me hope.” We held hands for a moment and at that time we knew that only because of the Grace that we had been given that we were able to give. We are not church-goers but we are believers. That day showed me the pure light of God’s sweet love.

I returned to college, on the last evening of class, with this story in hand. I turned in “my project” and the instructor read it ... then she looked up at me and said, “Can I share this?” I slowly nodded as she got the attention of the class. She began to read and that is when I knew that we, as human beings and being part of God, share this need to heal people and be healed. In my own way I had touched the people at McDonalds, my husband, son, instructor, and every soul that shared the classroom on the last night I spent as a college student. I graduated with one of the biggest lessons I would ever learn.... UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE.

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Pastor Dick Lewis

The dozen women, donned in white gowns and mortar boards, walked into the sanctuary of the Church at Rock Creek -- and into a new life -- as they "graduated" from an innovative new ministry designed to move Arkansans from welfare rolls to payrolls.

The women, all of whom have been receiving Transitional Employment Assistance (TEA) funds from the state, participated in a six-week "Life Skills Workshop" developed and implemented by the Little Rock church's ministry arm, Rock Creek Care Center.

The workshop, held for six Fridays, taught participants fundamentals in lifestyle management, from values to interviews in an unusual hand-in-hand effort to combine ministry with governmental reform. Following the Dec. 11 ceremony, each graduate met with prospective employers at a job fair held at the church as part of the process.

Lisa Davis, 30, said that since attending the classes "they have taught us budgeting, values, forgiveness and how to be a positive role model for my children also."

"What I get out of this is ... hope," Davis said. "Before I started taking this class, I had jobs here, jobs there, just being lazy. I didn't want to go to a job or keep a job for a month. I had a job at Children's Hospital and kept it for about two weeks and quit it. I became totally dependent on the TEA check."

Her comments showed that many of the women have more to deal with than seeking a job. She noted Rock Creek pastor Mark Evans "taught us about accepting God into our life and this is where God taught me about forgiveness, because in November last year I got shot. They tried to teach me to deal with the guy that shot me, to forgive him.

"I have been feeling more positive about myself and my outlook on what I want to do, and I didn't have that outlook at the beginning," she commented, adding she wants to finish her high school education and move into the field of abused and neglected women and children.

Like fellow participant Lisa Davis, Anita Williams, 35, found herself "just sitting at home every day doing nothing but watching TV," prior to attending the classes. "Now, hopefully, I'm going to find a good job, finish school, get a GED and continue training in computers."

Also like other participants, Williams attended a variety of classes that included career-boosting information about filling out a job application, personal conduct and dress during an interview. "We had a lot of people coming out and telling us about their careers and a couple of ladies from the DHS (Department of Human Services) come ... teach us about budgeting. We had a lot of interesting things going on about clothing and, you know, life."

Rock Creek member Shirley Shackleford serves as workshop administrator, "making sure we contact presenters, do scheduling and programming, making sure the ladies understand what their requirements are," she explained. "Our focus is on setting goals, positive thinking, budgeting. We will coordinate through the Department of Human Services for personal needs, such as GEDs. I also fill out progress reports on attitude, participation."

Shackleford, who also is on the staff of Here's Life Inner City, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, said she has served as the workshop's administrator for more personal reasons.

"I was, at one point, a welfare recipient," she said. "I was a single mom for 11 years and I raised three children and there was a point in my life where I needed to rely on the state to help me. There were no programs like this at the time. I have a burden and a heart for this."

While the workshop reflects a desire by federal and state government to help move people from welfare to work, Evans said the church sees it as a ministry meeting needs. "The Care Center is the beginning umbrella of how we minister to people by meeting their needs and, ultimately, leading them into a relationship with Christ," he said.

Of the 12 who completed the workshop process, eight have made personal decisions for Christ.

Evans worked with Shackleford and church members to develop the content, he said, "to give the real-life, hands-on, 'Here's how you can take principles and apply them to your life.' These are things like job interview skills, how to prep a resume, learn some things about yourself and to make proper decisions. We also want to show them what the Bible says about how Jesus teaches how to take the time you've been given and make the most of it."

He said the church will continue in the welfare-to-work process, assigning mentors to counsel graduates for a 12-month period and holding its next Life Skills Workshop -- with a new group of participants -- in February.

If the workshop appears to be an extreme departure both in how churches minister and in how government moves welfare recipients to work, it is. Hope Center in Little Rock, held at a First Church of God facility, piloted the project and has seen about 80 graduate from the program. Rock Creek used the Hope Center as a model for their workshop.

Evans said church member Joan Adcock, also a Little Rock city director, planted the idea for a welfare-to-work ministry after her work with the Hope Center. "About the same time, government started talking about welfare to work," Adcock recounted. "We started praying over that and started understanding that God was calling churches to come forward in welfare-to- work."

Adcock noted the Little Rock board of directors recently approved six community centers for welfare-to-work initiatives, as recommended by the board's site base committee. "Every one of those came in with a faith-based component," she said. "I expected more of a government element."

As foreign as it seems, will Arkansans see more churches working in partnership with government to accomplish welfare reform?

"I believe so," remarked Larry Toller, one of Gov. Mike Huckabee's liaisons to DHS. "It stands to reason that the church has numerous resources available to it. It can be an extended family. It has a vast number of volunteers who are not only willing but able to help folks."

Gov. Mike Huckabee, who spoke to graduates, said following the ceremony, "I've always believed very strongly that the absolute key to welfare reform is faith-based ministries to people. Government can give a sterile check, a class, but it takes a human being to wrap their arms around a person and say, 'I love you and you matter, not because this is a job to me, but you are a person like me.' That's the difference."

Helen Webb, DHS economic services supervisor, agreed, explaining "the most important thing is that the churches are giving of their time and efforts and hearts. We at DHS are involved with paper. The churches are able to provide these ladies the Life Skills Workshop where they can learn life skills to go out and get a job so they can got out and help their children."

"We're in a new paradigm," Toller noted. "There has been a paradigm shift in welfare reform. Whereas in the past, welfare was an entitlement, now we're calling it Transitional Employment Assistance. This is time-limited.

"Presently, state law requires a two-year time period for a person who is able-bodied to move from dependency to self-sufficiency," he said. "That's a big jump, considering that we've had decades of the mind-set that this is an entitlement. Now we have a new approach. Federal law requires no more than five years and state law (enacted in 1997) is two."

Toller noted because federal and state law "both encourage churches' involvement in the welfare-reform movement, we're looking for ways to make that happen. The plan for Arkansas is each county has what's called a TEA coalition made up of private citizens, business leaders, elected officials, community leadership and pastors. They'll try to fill in the holes and take down the roadblocks."

For Brenda Rudley, 21, the roadblocks to help were rooted in personal self- esteem. "I wasn't working, I was just at home laying around watching stories every day. I had low self-esteem and attitudes toward other people. Before I started coming here, I would let people put me down just because I'm not working. Coming to this program, having someone telling me I can do something makes me a better person.

"I know that just by going through this program I'll better myself and my kids," said Rudley, the mother of three. "Before I leave here today, I want to get a job not just for the money but because I like to work. I'm ready to go out there and make some money and further myself."

Huckabee recognized the many personal battles fought by welfare recipients like Rudley wanting to make a change in their lives as he spoke to the women during the graduation ceremony.

"Remember not what the people around you say when they tell you what you can't do," he urged, "but what God says you can do. If you'll plug into him, you'll realize that the greatest strength you'll ever have in your day is the strength that he supplies. The best way to get self-esteem is not for somebody to give it to you, but to let God get into you when you answer his call."

Evans urged other churches to "pick up" on the welfare-to-work ministry. "It should be the future of welfare reform. It's not only something that the government needs, it's something that the church needs to do.

"As a pastor, I need to lead my church to do this kind of ministry because this is what Jesus told me to do," he said. "I want us to look at our future relationship and how we continue to develop our ministry plan in partnership with people like the Department of Human Services.

"It's incredible what kind of changes can take place," he remarked. "The government has thrown money at the problem. They stepped up to the plate when the church backed away and got out of the ballpark. It's time for the church to get into the ballpark, step up to the plate and work in partnership with DHS. They can't do everything else the church can do."

*

As I ate breakfast one morning, I overheard two cancer doctors conversing. One complained bitterly, "You know, Bob, I just don't understand it. We used the same drugs, the same dosage, the same schedule and the same entry criteria. Yet I got a 22 percent response rate and you got a 74 percent. That's unheard of for metastatic cancer. How do you do it?"

His colleague replied, "We're both using Etoposide, Platinum, Oncovin and Hydroxyurea. You call yours EPOH. I tell my patients I'm giving them HOPE. As dismal as the statistics are, I emphasize that we have a chance."

________

Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul

Copyright 1996 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty

Aubery & Nancy Mitchell, R.N.

The little country schoolhouse was heated by an old-fashioned, pot-bellied stove. A little boy had the job of coming to school early each day to start the fire and warm the room before his teacher and his classmates arrived.

One morning they arrived to find the schoolhouse engulfed in flames. They dragged the unconscious little boy out of the flaming building more dead than alive. He had major burns over the lower half of his body and was taken to the nearby county hospital.

From his bed the dreadfully burned, semi-conscious little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his mother. The doctor told his mother that her son would surely die - which was for the best, really - for the terrible fire had devastated the lower half of his body.

But the brave boy didn't want to die. He made up his mind that he would survive. Somehow, to the amazement of the physician, he did survive. When the mortal danger was past, he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly. The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so much flesh in the lower part of his body, it would almost be better if he had died, since he was doomed to be a lifetime cripple with no use at all of his lower limbs.

Once more the brave boy made up his mind. He would not be a cripple. He would walk. But unfortunately from the waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs just dangled there, all but lifeless.

Ultimately he was released from the hospital. Every day his mother would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling, no control, nothing. Yet his determination that he would walk was as strong as ever.

When he wasn't in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair. One sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get some fresh air. This day, instead of sitting there, he threw himself from the chair. He pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him.

He worked his way to the white picket fence bordering their lot. With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence. Then, stake by stake, he began dragging himself along the fence, resolved that he would walk. He started to do this every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard beside the fence. There was nothing he wanted more than to develop life in those legs.

Ultimately through his daily massages, his iron persistence and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk haltingly, then to walk by himself - and then - to run.

He began to walk to school, then to run to school, to run for the sheer joy of running. Later in college he made the track team.

Still later in Madison Square Garden this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run - this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the world's fastest mile!

---------------

By Burt Dubin, from Chicken Soup for the Soul, Copyright 1993 by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

Stuck on the Road to Emmaus: The secret to why we are not fulfilled.

------------------------------------------------------------------

They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

-- LUKE 24:32, NRSV

Frankly, it’s hard to figure out in middle-class, twentieth-century North America what it means to follow Jesus. It’s hard to discern what dying to self looks like in any given instance. Do I pursue a job promotion, or is this “selfish ambition and vain conceit”? Do I take a holiday in the Bahamas, or is this a damnable failure to be “rich toward God,” a failure to give to someone in need when I have material possessions? Can I buy a season’s pass at a ski resort, or is this gross self-indulgence?

Most Christians I meet feel stuck. They started a journey, but somewhere, somehow, got stranded. They feel like they’re living on the border. There they sit, swapping rumors about God. Or they just stop talking about God at all. They can talk about everything else with ease and eloquence, but their tongues thicken, twist, grow mute about naming and proclaiming God. And this: they feel that the most their faith amounts to is just that: mere talk. They’ve joined a talking cult.

Where is this huge, exultant freedom for which Christ set us free? Why do I still fret over downturns in Asian markets, get irked by reckless or doddering drivers, harbor grudges over petty slights, care more about my rhododendron bush than about the soul of the boy who broke its branches playing street hockey? Why can I sustain a capacity to explore, in my mind, vast tracts of an imaginary world, but can barely focus my prayers on God for more than 30 seconds at a go?

The most wondrous, breath-taking truth I’ve ever contemplated is the story of the triune God and his ways with humanity -- with me. But a fly tapping on the window can distract me from this story. Ten minutes of my morning set aside for appropriating the story’s meaning into my life seems a sacrifice, and sometimes, just a nuisance.

As a pastor, I hear and see all the time those who want to have a deeper, richer experience with Christ, but they find themselves instead whiling away their days. Their days pass in a blurring swiftness and yet drag on in a dreary sameness -- in jobs they dislike, in relationships that baffle and hurt them, with financial worries and health problems.

They don’t feel fulfilled. And they carry a secret dread: Is there more, and I’m the only one missing it? Or worse: Is this it, and everyone’s pretending it’s enough?

Jesus, newly risen from the dead, joins with two of his disciples -- one’s name is Cleopas, and the other is not named -- as they walk to the village of Emmaus (Luke 24:13–35). Jesus asks what they are discussing. Gloomily, they tell him about “Jesus of Nazareth,” a “prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” They speak about how the religious rulers handed him over to be crucified. “But we had hoped,” they say, “that he was the one to redeem Israel.” They tell about the rumors told by womenfolk -- more troubling than consoling -- of his resurrection. One thing is for sure: the tomb is empty, bodiless.

Jesus listens, and then speaks. “Oh, how foolish you are,” he says, “and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”

When they arrive at the village, these two persuade Jesus -- whom they still do not recognize -- to eat with them. He does, and as Jesus breaks the bread, gives thanks, and gives it to them, “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ “

The heart condition of these people is actually twofold: slow and burning. That is a strange affliction, and, I think, common. One definition of Christ’s followers might be that: people of the slow, burning heart. Sorrow and hope, awe and self-pity, wonder and worry, believing and doubting, yes and no mix loosely in us, tugging us one way, jostling us another. Jesus walks the road with us. But we can look straight at him and not recognize him. Jesus opens the Scriptures to us and often something happens within -- a warming sometimes, a scorching at others. And just at those moments when finally the scales fall from our eyes and we see that, behold, it is he, it is Jesus! -- at that wondrous moment, he often up and vanishes.

Our encounters with the risen Christ are mostly like that: enigmatic, fleeting, mere glimpses, little ambushes. And we’re left with the question, “Didn’t our hearts burn within us? Didn’t they?”

For the last two years, I have been invited to speak, briefly, to a group of men and women enrolled in a 12-step program our church offers. As the pastor, I am to assure these people that if they get stuck anywhere in the journey, I can help: diagnose accurately, treat effectively, and heal.

Both times I’ve done this, I have felt sorely inadequate. Some of these people -- you can see it in their faces -- have homemade maps of hell tattooed into their flesh. I’ve felt like a kid who studied a book on the Vietnam War talking to veterans who lost eyes, limbs, buddies, and part of their souls in that place. What have I to say to them?

I tell them the story of the road to Emmaus. I tell them that there is a way that grief both blinds us to Christ and yet also makes us see him like we never have before. This journey -- whether 12 steps or 12 million steps -- is haunted by “what ifs” and “whys,” by the pain of loss. It is a journey of nostalgia and lament. One refrain of the journey is “but we had hoped... .” (v. 21). I tell them that Jesus walks with us but seldom do we recognize him. When we do, the moment of epiphany, the moment of seeing the risen Christ before us, is often sparked and sealed, not by grand gestures, but by simple, homely things, like nail marks in the hand, like the breaking of bread in thankfulness. I tell them that just as suddenly as we can see Jesus appear, suddenly he can disappear again. I tell them we are the slow-hearted and the burning-hearted, the two things criss-crossing each other.

OUR ENCOUNTERS WITH THE RISEN CHRIST ARE MOSTLY LIKE THAT; ENIGMATIC, FLEETING, MERE GLIMPSES, LITTLE AMBUSHES.

One of our persistent cultural myths is the myth of fulfillment -- the promise that, on this earth, the fullness of all I truly need and all I really desire awaits. And it’s not just a Hollywood myth. It’s a Christian one, too. Maybe it’s especially Christian.

Me, I’m one book away from fulfillment, one conference shy, one significant experience or insight short. If I’m slain in the Spirit, or attend a marriage retreat, or go on a missions trip, or get involved in a real community of fellow believers, or pray more, I will be fulfilled. That’s the myth. It pushes and lures me personally. It is the constant thing I am asked to dispense as a pastor, apothecary-like, to all the spiritually, emotionally, physically unfulfilled people who come to me.

The problem is, I don’t see fulfillment this side of the Jordan promised in Scripture. I see joy promised and peace. But also tribulation, soul-piercing. I see that the “great cloud of witnesses” who surround us, cheering us on, have among them those who “faced jeers and flogging ... were chained and put in prison ... were stoned ... sawed in two ... went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated ... wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” What’s more, “none of them received what had been promised” (Heb. 11:36–39, NIV).

The portrait of the faithful is not a portrait of the fulfilled. What defines them -- what defines all of us on the road to Emmaus -- is hope. What defines them is a slow, burning heart. What defines them is a yearning: knowing in their bones, in spite of loss or sorrow or aloneness, that there is Something more, Something else, Something better. What defines them is a hauntedness, a shaky but unshakable conviction that the Christ they see now through a glass darkly, in little fleeting puzzling glimpses, they will see one day face-to-face.

But for now, on this road, their slow hearts burn.

We don’t know anything more about these two disciples on the road. We read on, and Luke tells us that they ran to tell the other 11 disciples, and that Jesus himself showed up again: calming their doubts, demonstrating his resurrection, opening their minds to the Scriptures, commissioning them for world missions, promising to endow them with power from on high (Luke 24:36–53).

But these two get lost in the crowd. Who is Cleopas? He flits into the story and then out, never heard from again. Who is the other one? She or he hides forever behind a thick scrim of anonymity. Unlike Peter, whose rashness and cowardice and then unflinching courage stamp him with vividness; unlike Thom as, whose mix of stubborn doubting and steadfast believing evoke the man with particularity; unlike Paul, whose gruffness and tenderness, canniness and honesty, irritableness and long-suffering make him unmistakable, unforgettable: unlike such as these, these two are mere silhouettes. We see them in dark outline, devoid of feature.

Except this: their hearts are slow and burning. They are, I think, Everyman.

Were they fulfilled after this? No more fights with the spouse? No more shouting at the kids? No more days of feeling -- you know that feeling -- both empty and heavy inside? No more doubting, no more despairing, no more fretting over whether the trickle of money will ever catch up with the torrent of bills? Never again missing the risen Jesus in their midst?

We don’t know, because we’re not told. But if the stories of the other disciples give any clue, the best response to the question, Were they fulfilled? is to answer, That’s the wrong question. Was Paul fulfilled? Was Peter? Was John? It’s the wrong question.

Fulfillment is heaven’s business. What Paul, Peter, John, Cleopas, and the other one knew was that the thing they had hoped for -- that Jesus is the one who is going to redeem not just Israel, but the whole world -- is a sure hope. Their yearning was not a hollow wistfulness, a whistling in the dark. It was, in fact, a homing device in the heart, drawing them on no matter how long the road, no matter that the “day is almost over” (v. 29), no matter that their hearts are slow with doubt and broken with grief. Even then -- especially then -- their hearts still burn, and they know this journey is a good one, leading Somewhere.

And it’s never taken alone.

______________________________________

Mark Buchanan is pastor of the New Life Community Church, Duncan, British Columbia, Canada.

Copyright (c) 1999 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine. July 12, 1999, Vol. 43, No. 8, Page 55

Christianity has never had a very strong presence in Japan. In fact, with industrialization, Japan has become one of the most secular nations on earth. But right now, thousands of Japanese are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ in a new, or should I say old, way -- and they're embracing it.

The evangelist responsible for leading this spiritual awakening might surprise you. He's none other than Johann Sebastian Bach.

That's right. The German composer who died 250 years ago is bringing Christianity to Japan through the beauty of his music. Now there are reports of thousands of Japanese, inspired by his cantatas, converting to Christianity. It's a testament to the power of art steeped in a biblical worldview.

Christianity has never been widely embraced by Japanese culture. When European traders and missionaries came to the island nation in the 17th century, they met with mixed success: Commerce thrived, but the Gospel languished. But Japan eagerly embraced the music of Western culture.

Shinichi Suzuki even developed a method to learn to play classical instruments that became famous worldwide. But now, through a resurgence in Bach's popularity, that music is providing a foothold for evangelism that trade and traditional approaches never have.

Bach's popularity is so great that the classes at the Felix Mendolssohn Academy in Bach's hometown of Leipzig, Germany, are filled with Japanese students. These students are learning about more than the music of the great composer -- they learn about the spirit that moved him to write: that is, Bach's love of God.

Writing on this resurgence of Bach's music for Civilization, the magazine of the Library of Congress, Uwe Siemon-Netto reports that his Japanese interpreter asked to start the day with one of Bach's cantatas. She selected one whose lyrics declare that God's name is Love. "This has taught me what these two words mean to Christians ... and I like it very much," she said.

As Siemon-Netto points out, Bach's music was once celebrated as the "fifth gospel" -- praise that has never been more aptly said of Bach's work than it is in Japan today.

What began as an interest in the brilliance of the music has led to an understanding of the richness of God's grace. Masaaki Suzuki, founder of a school for Bach's music in Japan, says, "Bach is teaching us the Christian concept of hope." And Yoshikazu Tokuzen, of Japan's National Christian Council, calls Bach nothing less than "a vehicle of the Holy Spirit." And the revival his music is causing indeed confirms that.

At the end of every one of his works, Bach inscribed the initials "SDG" -- shorthand for Soli Deo Gloria, "to God alone be the glory." Little could he have imagined what purposes God would have for his work, even hundreds of years after his death.

And Bach could hardly have imagined that his music would contribute to the evangelization of Japan.

Bach's legacy is a sterling illustration of C.S. Lewis' maxim that the world does not need more Christian writers -- it needs more good writers, and composers, who are Christians. And when we produce art that is really good, art that reflects a biblical worldview, its richness will endure through the ages -- Soli Deo Gloria.

---------------

Uwe Siemon-Netto, "The Gospel According to J.S. Bach." Civilization: The Magazine of the Library of Congress" (Feb/Mar 2000); p. 45-49.

___________________

Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

*

At the base of the Statue of Liberty is a sonnet by Emma Lazarus entitled "The New Colossus". Have you read it lately?

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I can still recall a geography lesson from elementary school in which we learned that the southernmost point of Africa is a point which for centuries has experienced tremendous storms. For many years no one even knew what lay beyond that cape, for no ship attempting to round that point had ever returned to tell the tale. Among the ancients it was known as the “Cape of Storms,” and for good reason. But then a Portuguese explorer in the sixteenth century, Vasco De Gama, successfully sailed around that very point and found beyond the wild raging storms, a great calm sea, and beyond that, the shores of India. The name of that cape was changed from the Cape of Storms to the Cape of Good Hope.

Until Jesus Christ rose from the dead, death had been the cape of storms on which all hopes of life beyond had been wrecked. No one knew what lay beyond that point until, on Easter morning, those ancient visions of Isaiah became the victory of Jesus over our last great enemy. Suddenly, like those ancient explorers, we can see beyond human death to the hope of heaven and eternal life with the Father. More than that, we dare to believe that we shall experience in our own human lives exactly what the Son of God experienced in his, for the risen Christ says to us, “Because I live, you shall live also.” This is the heart of the Easter faith.

__________

Robert Beringer, The Easter People, CSS, 1984, p. 14

*

When you think all is lost, remember: the Father is still on his

thrown, the Holy Spirit is still in the business of saving souls, and

Jesus is coming again.

I like that story about

the boy and his father who were planning a fishing trip for the next day. That evening as the father was putting his son

to bed,

the boy hugged his father's neck and said, "Daddy, thank you for

tomorrow." by Vernon O. Elmore p.9,10

A true man has a regard for his word. A father had been six months on the Pacific coast. Returning home by way of Chicago, he met a friend who said, “Stay with me a week; we may never meet again.” The father answered, “I should enjoy your hospitality, but I have sent word home that I shall be there Saturday night. Wife will be expecting me, I must go. I can not disappoint the hopes I have awakened in that loving heart.”

The Holy Spirit will never disappoint any hope awakened by any promise of God.

If you are a believer, the minute you leave this body, you're going home. And the body is put to sleep. That's the way the early Christians spoke of their own who died. In fact, they called the place of burial, the graveyard, the koimeterion, and that really means a rest house for strangers. It was the word for the inn that was closed to Mary and Joseph.

Such places were all through the Roman Empire, and we get from it our word cemetery today. A cemetery is a resting place, a sleeping place. What do we call sleeping places today? We call them motels and hotels. You don't weep, do you, when your loved ones write, "We're going to spend a week at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco?" We congratulate them and think it's wonderful. We miss them if they're close to us and are going to be away from us, but they're asleep up in the Hilton Hotel.

Well, that was the feeling of the early church. They took their loved ones and put them out in the cemetery, in the ground, when they were asleep in death, and called it the koimeterion.

________

J. Vernon McGee

On one occasion Michelangelo, the great artist, turned on his fellow artists in a spirit of indignation. Said he: “Why do you keep filling gallery after gallery with endless pictures of the one ever-reiterated theme, of Christ in weakness, Christ upon the Cross, Christ dying, most of all, Christ hanging dead? Why do you concentrate on that passing episode, as if that were the last word and the final scene, as if the curtain dropped upon that hour of disaster and defeat? At worst, that lasted only a few hours. But to the end of unending eternity, Christ is alive! Christ rules and reigns and triumphs!”

Michelangelo was right. Even though the cross is vitally important because of the redemption Jesus accomplished for us there, we must not emphasize His death to the exclusion of His resurrection victory. We should think of Him now in His glorified state in heaven.

________

“Choice Illustrations.” W.W. Clay, pg 93-94)

It is said, "While there's life, there's hope." This seems to describe the case of the six Navy pilots who left their aircraft carrier on a scouting mission during World War II, searching the seas for enemy submarines believed operating in the area. When they tried to return, they could not find their ship. It seems that while they were gone, the captain had ordered a war-imposed blackout of all lights on the ship.

Over and over the frantic pilots radioed, asking for just one light so they could see to land. The pilots were then told of the blackout and that it could not be lifted even for them. After several appeals and denials of their requests, the ship's radio operator finally turned the switch to break radio contact.

Rather than risk the lives of thousands on the ship, the pilots were forced to ditch in the cold Atlantic and from there into eternity. The pilots left the ship thinking they would be able to return, but found that this was misplaced hope. In what are you placing your hope?

[Judging from the multiple versions, this is a popular illustration. But note the changes in university, survival times, and escape mechanism]

A few years ago the psychology department of Duke University carried on an interesting experiment. They wanted to see how long rats could swim. In one container they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown.

In the other container they made the hope of escape possible for the rat. The rat swam for several hours before finally drowning. The conclusion of the experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We usually say, “As long as there is life, there is hope.” The Duke experiment proved, “As long as there is hope, there is life.”

-- Bruster & Dale

=========================================================

Another version, from Rev. Mark Adams, Kerux Sermon #4511

In the early 1990s an experiment on endurance was conducted at the University of California at Berkeley. The experiment involved placing Norwegian field rats in a tub of water, where they were forced to swim until they grew exhausted and finally drowned. During the first experiment, the researchers discovered that on the average, these rats were capable of swimming for over SEVEN HOURS before drowning.[*]

A second experiment was conducted, exactly like the first but with one exception. This time, when a rat was getting too exhausted to swim any longer, the researchers would remove the rat from the tub of water for a few seconds, then put the rat back into the water to continue swimming. THESE rats were able to swim for almost 20 HOURS before perishing.

The researchers concluded that the rats in the second group were able to swim so much longer than the first group because of one factor: they had HOPE. They had experienced a rescue -- and what kept them going was the HOPE that they would be rescued again.

[This version has been attributed to Chuck Smith's radio broadcast, "The Word for Today"]

* Other versions say the first group survived only 17 minutes.

=========================================================

Another version, from James Chandler at SermonCentral.com:

A group of graduate students did a very bizarre experiment. They took lab rats and put them in a tank of water and placed the tank in a totally dark room. They went into the joining room and monitored them with video equipment. The rats swam for almost six hours before giving up and drowning.

The students then took another set of lab rats and put them in a tank of water and placed that tank in a room where there was a small lamp. Their hypothesis was that the light would give the rats hope and they would survive longer. As it turns out, the rats swam almost 17 hours, much longer than the rats in total darkness. Something about the light enabled them to survive longer.

She was a physician's wife. He was a man of a strong, sunny nature

who carried good cheer into his patient's homes to sustain them in

weakness and discouragement, and still carried back enough to fill his

own home. His frail wife needed all the sunshine and vigor of his

personality to sustain her; and it did not fail. She seemed to live so

much by the strength of his spirit that, when he passed away suddenly

after a month of especially hard work, her friends said, "It will kill

her!"

But the ties between husband and wife were too strong to be broken

by the incident of death. The memories of the past were as real as his

presence had been. The religious life and the faith in God that they

two had shared together did not fail her. By the doorway of the living

room, she fastened the card that he had sometimes left in short

absences on his office door: "Gone Out--Back Soon."

Those who came with consolation, went away themselves consoled.

They felt, behind this frail form and lips that smiled while they

quivered, a mysterious power, a spiritual experience that had united

two souls in a marriage that death itself could not annul. More than

one went out from her presence to find, in the years that followed, a

strong, although secret, consolation in the deathless companionship

through memory of his lost ones, and in the cheery suggestion of that

brief message. The Gospel of Jesus is in those four words: "Gone

Out--Back Soon." --Youth's Companion

It was a balmy October afternoon in 1982. Badger Stadium in Madison Wisconsin was packed out. That day there were more than 60,000 die-hard University of Wisconsin football fans watching their team take on the Michigan State Spartans. It didn’t take long to determine who the better team was. Michigan State was moping up the field with the Badgers. But what seemed odd was that even as the score became increasingly lopsided against their team, there were bursts of applause and shouts of joy from the Wisconsin fans. How could they cheer when their team was getting trounced so decisively? It turns out that 70 miles away the Milwaukee Brewers were beating the St. Louis Cardinals in game 3 of the 1982 World Series. Many of the fans in the stands were listening to portable radios and responding to what was going on in another game, in another sport, in another place.

There is something to be said for being plugged into what is going on elsewhere. Sometimes, the things that are going on where you are become extremely difficult. So as Paul writes in Romans 8, he wants to make sure that our faith in God affects the perspective in which we view our circumstances. No matter how difficult or even desperate our situation seems, Paul says we can face it with hope.

Two psychiatrists were at a convention. As they visiting, one asked, “What was your most difficult case?”

The other replied, “I had a patient who lived in a pure fantasy world. He believed that an uncle in South America was going to die and leave him a fortune. All day long he waited for a letter to arrive from an attorney. He never went out, he never did anything, he merely sat around and waited for this fantasy letter from this fantasy uncle. I worked with this man eight years.”

“What was the result?”

“It was an eight-year struggle. Every day for eight years, but I finally cured him... then that stupid letter arrived!”

[Some would say it is just as stupid for Christians to anticipate their eternal inheritance.]

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #10465]

No one who was old enough to take it in will ever forget September 11, 2001. We see passenger jets flying out of a clear September morning, the flashes of flame, the destruction, the death, and the valiant acts of heroism. It is well to remember and to mourn the victims this day. But let me raise the question of why we memorialize those who have sacrificed for us. What's our object in doing so?

The answer is gratitude. As we mourn and remember the sacrifices of those who went before us, we ourselves, out of gratitude for what they did, commit ourselves to defend those values for which they died -- principles we hold so dear: freedom and human dignity.

Gratitude: John Calvin said gratitude was at the center of the Christian life, and G. K. Chesterton called it "the mother of all virtues." It was gratitude for living in a free country that caused me to put on the uniform of a United States Marine officer during the Korean War. We do our duty to our country out of gratitude for those who went before us to defend the liberties we hold so precious.

I love the scene at the end of the movie SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Ryan, who is now seventy years old, returns to Normandy, and he is looking at the grave marker of Captain Miller, the man who died to save him during World War II. Ryan is on his knees. The grave marker is a stark, white cross. He addresses Miller, now long dead: "I've tried every day to live up to what you did for me ... I hope I've lived a life worthy of your sacrifice."

On this anniversary of the attacks, we ought to be looking at the sacrifices people made for us and asking ourselves whether we are living lives worthy of their sacrifices.

In addition to gratitude and duty, we remember because good can come out of those vicious terrorist attacks. It is, of course, a biblical principle that God works through human suffering, tragedies, and defeats -- sometimes to do His greatest work.

These acts of war served as a wake-up call. There was a lot of utopian discussion going on in the nineties about how Western liberal democracy had won the great ideological contest for the twentieth century. We forgot this is a dangerous world and that evil is real. Now we know better, and even the postmodernist has to agree there is evil.

And just as the great World War II generation saved the world from Hitler's evil, so this generation must become great for this moment. It is our calling to be great in defense of liberty and freedom and human rights, to defend good against evil today.

The war on terrorism is, by its nature, slow and treacherous. We must not allow ourselves to become discouraged or fatigued.

On this September 11, after looking back with gratitude, we need to look ahead. Our hope lies in our resolve to do our duty that our gratitude inspires. Our hope lies in the lessons we have learned for the future. And our hope lies in our confidence in a sovereign God -- that in the end, right will prevail, that civilization can be preserved, and that America and her allies, in defense of freedom and in opposition to evil, will triumph.

And just like that scene in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, let us also this day look at the cross as Ryan did. May we live lives worthy of the supreme sacrifice Christ made for us.

FURTHER READING & INFORMATION

BreakPoint's "9/11 Worldview Resource Kit" answers questions many Americans are asking. It includes Timothy George's book IS THE FATHER OF JESUS THE GOD OF MUHAMMAD?, Chuck Colson's WHEN NIGHT FELL ON A DIFFERENT WORLD: HOW NOW SHALL WE LIVE?, and a "BreakPoint Weekend Special" CD including two interviews with Chuck Colson recorded after September 11 and a year later.

"A Fact Sheet on Just War Theory," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 3 December 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/A+Fact+Sheet+on+Just+War+Theory.htm

"Making Biblical Sense of This National Tragedy: Learning from the Events of September 11, 2001," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/Making+Biblical+Sense+of+This+National+Tragedy.htm

"Comforting Children in a Time of Crisis: A reading list for children in the wake of terror," BREAKPOINT ONLINE, 2001. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/Home/Comforting+Children+in+a+Time+of+Crisis.htm

BreakPoint commentary no. 020703, "Exhausted and Elated: A Just War Justly Fought." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Exhausted+and+Elated.htm

BreakPoint commentary no. 020530, "'Love Our Enemies' or 'An Eye for an Eye'?: The Morality of War." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Love+Our+Enemies+or+An+Eye+for+an+Eye.htm

BreakPoint commentary no. 020327, "Hating War while Loving the Warrior: A New Kind of War Film." http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Hating+War+While+Loving+The+Warrior.htm

Peggy Noonan, "A Heart, a Cross, a Flag: What Arose from the Ashes," WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6 September 2002. [see HolwickID #18012]

Adam Keiper, "Commemorating Attacks: Pearl Harbor and Now," NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, 6 September 2002. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-keiper090602.asp

Peter L. Bergen, "Portrait of the Enemy," BOOK WORLD, WASHINGTON POST, 8 September 2002, BW03. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43692-2002Sep5.html

Amitai Etzioni, "American Society in the Age of Terrorism," The Communitarian Network, September 2002. http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/pop_AmericanSociety.html

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Copyright © 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.