Living with Hope

This past Wednesday, a woman in Uganda gave birth to twins. Her name is Safina Namukwaya. The birth took place in Kampala, at the Woman’s Hospital International and Fertility Center. Her doctor, Edward Sali, hailed the birth as a "miracle." Safina is 70 years old!

How long did Safina live in hope, praying to give birth?

The Hebrew people have their own stories like this. The most famous is in the Hebrew Bible and is the story of Abraham and Sarah. Chapter 17 describes the word that came to Abraham about his wife Sarah, “I will bless her and give her a son!” The Bible says Abraham “laughed to himself in disbelief.” Then he asked a question, “How can Sarah have a baby when she is ninety years old?”

I suspect by the time she was 90, Sarah had given up hope! It might even be that when she heard the news at 90 years of age, it was not hope but dread that filled her soul.

But for millennia, in all corners of the globe, women and their husbands have prayed for children. Specialists in the United States report that 10% of women have trouble getting pregnant and that half of those, or 5%, are truly infertile.

The story of Christmas begins with such a story.

Luke chapter one, beginning with verse five reads like this:  

^“When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah, and his wife, Elizabeth, was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God’s eyes, careful to obey all of the Lord’s commandments and regulations. They had no children because Elizabeth was unable to conceive, and they were both very old.”

Do you know somebody like that? Somebody living in hope. Are you somebody like that?

What are you hoping for? For what do you pray in hope and faith? Healing of a disease? Enough money to pay your bills? People who will accept you and love you? Safe travel for you or your loved ones during these holidays?

Today, we light the candle of hope. Do you need to light a candle of hope in your home?

I.

Faith, hope, and love are the three great virtues of the spiritual life. They are not just Christian dispositions. People all over the world have faith in God. They hope in God and love God. Many are Christians, many are not.

Living with hope is a fundamental element of our spiritual life here at Providence. Sing for joy, and this is the season of joy, and live with hope. I wrote an entire book about it. I hope each of you has purchased a book (and helped me pay the publishing bill). But if you do not have the money, I will give you a copy. I want everyone to have this book. It is our philosophy of following Jesus: live with hope.

Jesus lived with hope. He had many obstacles in life, many situations that were daunting, much opposition, enemies on every side. Jesus began his teaching ministry in hope of the kingdom of God. Jesus called and coached his disciples in great hope, believing they were the agents of God. When Jesus called Lazarus to come forth from the grave, he did so in hope. When Jesus turned to talk to the women who touched his garment, he did so in hope. More than all of these, Jesus went to Gethsemane and prayed in hope. He stood before Pilate and Herod in hope; he walked to the hill called Golgotha in hope. While hanging on the cross, the righteous for the wicked, he called out to God in hope, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Jesus died with hope in his heart. He believed God and looked forward to vindication, to the renewal of all things, to the kingdom of God.

You and I can have the same hope that was in Jesus.  It grows out of our confidence that God is real, that God is present in all of creation, that God’s spirit is in this very room, speaking to you, nudging you toward hope, and love, and faith.

If you come to tell me you have had a powerful experience of God, I will ask you, “How do you know it is God?” If you say to me, “I feel a new desire to come to church,” I will wonder; if you say to me, “I spoke in tongues,” I will shrug my shoulders; if you say to me, “I am reading my Bible,” I will commend you. But if you say to me, “Faith, hope, and love are blowup my spirit,” I will say, Glory to God! If you say to me, “A year ago, I was in despair, living without hope, without confidence in the future, but now, I am believing that God will make everything new. I am living with hope in God,” I will stand up and speak in tongues myself! If you stand here in this sanctuary and testify, “God has touched me and I have a love for you and others around me that I never had,” I will say, truly, God is in this place, and God is in you.

Hope is a sign of the presence of God in your life. Christmas is a season of hope. We light the candle of hope, praying that God will light up our homes with hope, light up our church with hope, light up our spirits with hope.

II.

In what private corner of your life do you need that candle of hope?

This week, I watched the funeral of Rosalynn Smith Carter. She was 96 years old. Too old to have children, we normally say, but not too old to be a beacon of hope in this dark and selfish world. She was able; she was intelligent; she was eager to serve; she was humble. One woman who worked with her closely for many years spoke from the pulpit and put it like this, “She brought hope where there had been none.”

How would you like that phrase etched on your tombstone?

What a tribute! Her life gives me hope. All around us are selfish people, sinful people, solitary people. But God has many people like Rosalynn Carter. You know some. I know some. Some of you are like Rosalynn. You are light in a dark place, you bring hope by what you say, what you do, by what you are.

The pastor begins with the head—with somebody saying, “That is what I want to be.”  It moves to the heart, as we ask God to change our affections, our moods, our spirits, our attitudes. Then, that hopeful desire works its way to the hands. We begin to do things: visit the widows, call the lonely, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, the outcast, the hurting, the misfit, the lonely soul for whom Christ died.

Finally, these things become a habit. I was familiar with the head, heart, and hand trilogy; but he is the first I have heard to add that fourth stage: habit. We want our hopeful attitude and behavior to become a habit, like it was with Rosalynn.

Where along that four-stage journey are you?

III.

Last Sunday, I attended the Worship Meal here at Providence House. Phil and Glenda were sick and sent out a call for help. I answered the call, but I was not much help. Mostly what I did was talk to the people who came to eat. Better, I listened as they told me their stories. More than forty people came, twice as many as came to our sanctuary last Sunday morning to worship.

When Sam and I arrived at Providence House about 2:30, there were six people sleeping in the yard. They were waiting to eat or to get a new pair of socks. “I just walked into town from Boone,” one first timer said to me. Another said, “They towed my car, and I will never see it again. I don’t have the money to retrieve it. The charge goes up ever day, you know.”

After eating, one young man looked around, then said to nobody in particular, “Has the bus already gone?” I did not know what he meant, as I am not a regular server. “What bus?” I responded. “The one to take us back to the mission.” He was talking about getting back to his sleeping quarters for the night. “I don’t know,” I responded, “But I can take you where you need to go.”  As we drove that short distance, he told me about himself. He is 23 years old, I think he said. He was clean, and pleasant, and so young to be without food and a place of his own. “I can’t go home,” he said to me. I did not ask why. But my heart broke for him.

What must it be like to be young, attractive, and winsome but without food, without family, without a place of your own? Perhaps without hope.

But the Providence House is one bright candle. Every week we light that candle of hope for scores of people. Not me, every week, but some of you. I honor you today. I invite others of you to join this hardy band of candle lighters, of hope carriers, of gospel workers keeping hope alive for the people who live around us unseen and unknown.

I watched a video this week of a woman giving her testimony. “You don’t know me, and you probably don’t want to know me.  But I used to be first runner up to Miss America. My name is Cullen Hill, and this is what addiction looks like.”

She is a woman who looks 60 years old but probably is not. A black eye set off her disheveled face. I looked her up. Miss Virginia, 1995. First runner up, Miss America. “I’m putting this on TicTok. It is important that people see this. I have a black eye. I am an alcoholic. I have been struggling with this since I was 24. … I just got out of 30-days in jail …. I’m going to be OK. I have a wonderful son and a husband who loves me very much. We got sober together twelve years go. I had 4.5 years of sobriety. I know what sobriety is like. I just want to give a message to all of you, to let you know there is hope.”

Somebody lit a candle of hope for Cullen Hill, and now she is holding high that candle for somebody, maybe for you, maybe for me, maybe for somebody you love. This is the gospel, the good news. There is hope. You be that candle of hope for somebody today, this week, this year. Not everybody is an addict. But many are trapped in poverty, cornered by crime, defeated by disease. Around the world, millions of people are weary of war and longing for peace, for friendship, for love. You be a candle of hope and shine on. That light shines in the darkness, the gospel says and we believe, and the darkness can never put it out.