Hope
Larry Howe died last week. He and his wife joined our church late in life, after she retired as a minister with the United Methodist Church. He had a long and successful career after coming home from World War II a highly decorated soldier: five Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. His family loaned me his book of letters, news clippings, and photographs that chronicled his career as a soldier.
On June 6, 1944, Larry came ashore on Utah Beach, Normandy; he was one of only four in Battery B of the 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Division, who survived the landing.
On June 22, 1944, he wrote his mom: “I hope this letter finds you and the rest of the family in the best of health. I’m fine and having a good time. I’m writing this letter sitting in my foxhole. My light hair might show up too much, although it is quite dirty now. If you ever happen to see Miss Severence tell her I am awfully sorry that I wasn’t a good French student. I’m paying for it now.” The heading of the letter read: “Somewhere in France.”
His Celebration of Life will be here at Providence sometime after the first of June.
I read that letter for you because it was the first of many times this week I read the word HOPE. It is a simple use of the word, the most common perhaps: “I hope this letter finds you in the best of health.” Who has not thought, spoken, or written that phrase!
The local newspaper described the new mural installed along the Historic Seventh Avenue District of Hendersonville. The mural is titled, “A Youthful Journey up 7th Avenue” and depicts “the past, present and hopes of the future of community members.”
One person posted a video on Facebook this week with this message: “I’m a very romantic person. I love to be in love when I can. I sincerely believe in the hope that there is somebody out there for everybody.” He was a comedian; so he continued: “The more I date the more I believe that my person died at birth or something.”
Perhaps the strongest use of that word Hope came this way, in this headline in The Washington Post, “For Jewish Students, protests stir fear, anger, hope, and questions.” Thomas Reese wrote this about that war: “Biden has had little success in getting Netanyahu to stop making war on Palestinian civilians. There is a glimmer of light in that Israel has allowed a few more aid trucks into Gaza…We have to persevere and have hope because the alternative is too terrible to imagine.”
These three things survive, persevere, endure, the famous apostle wrote, faith, hope, and love.
When did hope bubble up into your mind, your speech, your prayers this week? What situation push hope to the surface of your spirit? What struggle forced you back the basics: to faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, to hope in the promises of God, to love for your self, your family, and your neighbor?
I
Faith, hope, and love. These three.
By faith, we reach back through time, take hold of Jesus of Nazareth, seize hold of his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, and pull it into the now so that Jesus Christ, Risen Lord, transforms us, changes our habits, our ambitions, our values, our behaviors, our attitudes, our affections. That is faith.
By hope, we reach into the future, take hold of Jesus the coming One, join hands with the righteous judge of all the earth, the waiting father scanning the horizon for his children, the kindly gardener who finds her way to the river of life and there plants the tree of life whose leaves will be for the healing of the nation, the hostess who prepares a banquet for the rich and the poor, the wise and the simple, the strong and the weak, the saint and the sinner—we join hands with that One in such a way that it changes the way we think and feel, the way we speak and act, the way we live and move and have our very being.
By love, we reach into the realm of the spirit—above us, and around us, and within us—and embrace the holy and happy spirit of the living God, the One who creates us, empowers us, fills us with all the gifts of the human experience; by love we receive all that God has to offer that in this life, this week, this situation we can sing for joy and life with hope.
Faith, hope, and love, these three remain.
II.
There is a public side of hope, and it is called work. For what we hope, we work. That is the simple equation of life.
Yesterday, many schools hosted graduation. This coming week, Danny Mynatt, as the chief academic officer of his university, will hand out many diplomas. A little further west, Holly Obermiller will walk across the stage and received her college degree. It is a terrific event in the life of a young adult.
These pieces of paper signify hopes realized but what they recognize is work completed. Young people enter college with hope for opportunity and success and achievement. But what they discover is work!
What we hope for, we work for. Work is the public side of hope.
Millions of people are hoping their candidate will win the election this fall. But those who have real hope, get to work: raising money, distributing flyers, hosting events, cajoling voters, and driving people to the polls. They get to work.
If we don’t work, there is no real hope. If we are working, we can talk about our hopes and dreams.
“I hope these poor people get something to eat,” a person says. “Let’s pray for them.” But another person says, “You buy some food and give it to them. That is the way prayer works.”
That is the way hope works also.
You plant a garden in hopes of eating fresh vegetables; you must work.
You start a business in hopes of a steady stream of cash; you must work.
You join a church in hopes of an inspirational and consequential community; you must work.
You sign up for a fitness club in hopes of losing weight or getting into shape; you must work.
What are your hopes and dreams?
I will watch you work, and I will be able to tell what you are hoping for. Everything else is fantasy, fiction, a fraud.
We have a “living hope”, the apostle Simon Peter wrote many years ago. It is lively because it produces spiritual life, but it lively also because it is full of life, energy, activity, and sustained effort toward a goal.
What are you working for today? What hope animates your life today?
III.
There is a private and personal side of hope, and it is called trust.
We sing an old gospel song, “My hope is built on nothing less that Jesus blood and righteousness.” That, of course, is a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus’ blood is another way of saying Jesus’ death; the blood of Jesus is a reference to the death of Jesus. We believe that his death is life for us; he died in our place; he died for our sins and not only ours but the whole world. God so loved the world that God gave the only son that whoever believes in him shall receive eternal life.
This is one of the great promises of the gospel. There are many.
“I will never leave you or forsake you.”
“It is God that works in your and through you to fulfill God’s good purpose.”
“Call unto me and I will answer.”
What promise can you recall right now?
We put our hope in the promises of God.
CBS News broadcast a story this week about the tornado in Hawley, Texas. The winds destroyed their home. The mother told their story on camera. We gathered in the house. She turned to her son as she was telling the story and asked, What did we do? The seven-year-old boy Kasey, said, his face and body bruised and blooded, “We prayed.” We prayed, the mother repeated. Please keep us safe. Bricks are falling on us. I look up. Our house is crashing down. The seven year old son was sucked out and thrown 25 feet. We did pray, and then we ran for our lives. Down the road they ran and there appeared a car. Two storm chasers yelling, “Hurry, get inside.”
Here are both sides of hope. Praying and trusting the promises of God. Running and giving god an opportunity to save you and save your family.
Running through my head all week have been the tunes and lyrics of that old gospel song. I know what put it there. I stumbled across the great metropolitan opera singer Kathleen Battled singing this song. It stuck in my soul. Does that ever happen to you? You hear some word, some song, some promise of God, some testimony to the faithfulness of God, and it ministers to you for days and weeks even months?
That’s what happened to me. It was an explanation point on this word about hope.
We trust in God, that is the way we hope. We trust and we work; we work and we trust; and through it all we hope in God.
