Sunday, December 14, 2014
Advent 3
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 / Luke 1:47-55 / 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 / John 1:68, 19-28
Hope is not Optimism
A psychologist from a major research university was
interviewed on the radio. She said that all the data showed that
the single biggest key to living a healthy life is staying
optimistic. “Optimists have less stress, better marriages, and
healthier diets,” she said. She continued in an annoyingly perky
voice, “They tend to have a sunnier outlook on the world,
which translates to positive self-esteem and self-confidence.”
“Optimists,” she quoted from the latest study, “generally
believe things are getting better, humanity is improving, and
the world’s problems are being solved.” And, then, to clinch
her point, she said, “We also discovered that optimists tend to
live longer than other people!”
John the Baptist and Jesus might not have been
optimists. Both were dead before 40.
Think for a moment. I’m sure most of you here today can
think of someone you know who is extremely pessimistic, a
constant complainer, and cranky to boot, and yet they are
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living or have lived to a ripe old age. My grandfather used to
say that such people are too stubborn to die. Perhaps some
study should be done to see if stubbornness has any positive
health effects.
While optimists may be delightful to be around, always
cheerful and positive and while some Christians may be
delightful to be around, always cheerful and positive, Christians
are not necessarily optimists. Jesus Christ did not teach
optimism. In fact, at a few points in his ministry, he talked
about how the world was going to get worse and worse instead
of better and better. On the First Sunday of Advent this year,
our gospel lesson contained this sermon from Jesus, "But in
those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and
the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling
from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”
Optimists would not have heard that sermon gladly.
If Christians do not adhere to optimism, what do they
adhere to? Christians hold on to hope, and Christian hope is
fundamentally different from optimism. Christian hope locks
its steely eyes on the suffering of the world and faces it.
Christian hope acknowledges that things may not get better.
Christian hope testifies on the behalf of those for whom things
have gotten worse and worse.
While optimists are spreading their sunny disposition
around the world, Christian hope pushes its way into the
brokenness of the world and clears a path so that light might
invade the darkness. Christian hope provides that light when
hopeful Christians stand beside those who are broken, offering
them support and compassion.
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The essence of Christian hope is this – to believe that
serving others in God’s name is worth it. This is how
Christians hope – they have faith that the work they are doing
for others in God’s name is having a good effect, even though
that effect may not be obvious.
Christian hope is founded in Jesus Christ, of course.
When we say that Christians have hope, we mean at least two
basic things. First, in following Christ’s command to serve
others, they hope that the good they do for others in this world
is worth the effort, even though it often does not appear to be
so. Second, believing in Christ’s promise, they hope in the
world to come when all suffering shall cease.
This is the kind of hope that Isaiah expresses in our Old
Testament lesson for today. “The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to
bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the
prisoners.” I am sure there are times that Isaiah felt that the
good he was doing was just a drop in the bucket. There was so
much suffering, so much injustice. He could not make it all go
away. Yet, he continued on, in hope, believing that the little he
was doing was worth it.
A fundamental difference exists between optimism and
Christian hope. Optimists live above the world’s suffering
while hopeful Christians live in it.
Optimists concern
themselves only with what is happy and positive. Hopeful
Christians concern themselves with broken-hearted people
caught in negative forces.
Peter Storey, a United Methodist minister, who helped
lead the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, once
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preached a sermon that contained these words. “It has been
given to only a few of God’s prophets to see the results of their witness.
Moses didn’t. Jeremiah didn’t. Nor did some of God’s modern
peacemakers like Martin Luther King. They all died before they the
saw the results of the good they did. Martin Luther King would have
been overjoyed to see the equal rights that were given to blacks in the
US.
God’s prophets do not see the results of their work. Yet they
remain true. They do so because their strength is in God. They give
themselves wholly to the struggle for justice and peace because God
steels their determination. For them, it is sufficient to know that they
are playing their part as brothers and sisters of Jesus, children of God,
peacemakers. Strengthened by God’s promise, we must do the same.”
Peter Storey is right. We must do the same. Do we want
to live in hope? Then, we must struggle for peace and justice,
even though it seems that our efforts go unnoticed. If Martin
Luther King had given up because no one seemed to be
listening to him, the life of black people in the US today might
be very different.
The Indian theologian, Samuel Ryan, once said, “A
candlelight is a protest at midnight. It is a non-conformist. It
says to the darkness, ‘I beg to differ.’” As one person speaking
out for what is just and true, you may feel like one small candle
burning in the vast darkness. Yet, one candle gives some light,
that should not be discounted, and it takes that one light to
enlighten others.
I have neither the desire nor the intention of becoming an
optimist. I will not waste my time trying to believe that
everything is lovely with the world. I see too much suffering
and injustice every day. I will spend my time doing my part, no
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matter how small, to relieve some of that suffering and
injustice. And I will have hope that the good I do God will use
to do even more good.
A little boy looked at the stars in the night sky and said
to his father, “The stars are so bright.” “No son,’ said the
father, “the world is so dark.” The world is dark with pain, and
our job as Christians is to be one small star that brings a bit of
brightness to the darkness. And when we do so, we have hope.
Rabbi Hugo Grynn was sent to Auschwitz, the Nazi
death camp, as a little boy. Many Jews there tried to hold on to
whatever shreds of religious observance they could. It was the
first night of Hanukah, the Feast of Lights, which occurs at this
time of year. (This year Hanukah begins on December 17.)
The young boy watched in horror as his father took the
family’s last pad of butter and made a candle from it, using a
string from his ragged clothes as a wick.
“Father, no!” Hugo cried. “That butter is our last bit of
food! How will we survive?”
“We can live for many days without food,” his father said.
“We cannot live for a single minute without hope. This is the
candle of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.”
Do you think that the boy’s father meant by hope that
they would all survive the prison camp? Of course, he didn’t.
Millions of Jews died in Auschwitz. He meant by hope that
their lives had been of some good in the world, that they had
done their small part to establish God’s kingdom.
This Advent we light our candles and hope in God’s light
which will never go out.
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