FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER A
Life has a way of killing dreams, doesn’t it! You set out with high hopes for your career, your senior year at school, your family, and your retirement years. You have plans and expectations. But things – as we are presently and painfully aware – don’t always turn out the way you expected. People let you down, pandemics strike, and you find yourself in a place you never expected to be.
But, we can still have hope. Without hope, we die. When a team loses hope, the game is over. When a patient loses hope, death is crouching at the door.
Viktor Frankl survived years in a Nazi concentration camp. He noticed that prisoners died, often times just after Christmas. They were hoping they’d be free by then. When they weren’t, they gave up. He learned that as long as prisoners had something to live for, a reason to press on, they could endure just about anything. But once they lost hope, they quickly died.
Dostoevsky once said that to live without hope is to cease to live.
For us who believe, hope is a who. Hope is not a what. Hope is not a why. It’s a who! Things don’t get better just because we want them to. They get better because somebody does something.
And Jesus Christ is that someone. His resurrection proves that he is stronger than any setback, any failure, any loss, any disappointment, any fears. If life has a way of killing dreams, Jesus has a way of bringing them back to life.
That’s not to say we always get what we want or that every bad thing can magically be undone. Life doesn’t work that way. But, it is to say that God can and will do something good with our future.
Wherever you find yourself this morning, whatever pain, loss, or disappointment you may be dealing with, God can do something good with it. That doesn’t minimize the pain or loss or the evil in it. It simply means that the story isn’t over yet.
In this life, we can find joy and beauty, forgiveness and healing, purpose, restoration, and the reality of God’s presence in our lives every day. And not just that, but in the life to come as well. We can look forward to reunion with those we have lost, the restoration of creation, and to eternal life with God and one another in worlds beyond our imagining.
Hope isn’t wishful thinking – it’s confident living. It’s facing the future knowing that God can and will do something good in this life and in the life to come.
By his death and resurrection, Jesus conquered the most fearful thing of all – death! Jesus has promised us that after I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Even death can no longer hold us in constant fear.
If you should find yourself in a tough place right now – have the courage to stay in that place and instead, invite Christ to meet you there. If you know someone who is dealing with pain, disappointment, or loss – share hope with them. Ask them how they’re doing. Listen to them. Be with them. Pray for them.
And when the time is right, point them toward the resurrected Jesus. Because life has a way of killing dreams, but Jesus has a way of bringing them – and us – back to life.