Hope
As Jesus left the Temple one of his disciples commented on what large stones and buildings. It was a comment that recognised the grandeur and majesty of the surroundings, but Jesus replied, 'not one will be left; all will be thrown down'.
Tough it doesn't immediately sound it the reading reflects hope - not hope in the way it is seen often in worldly terms - hope of a good job, hope of lots of money or good health, hope of winning the lottery perhaps but hope in terms of knowing that whatever happens in our lives with Jesus on our side, nothing can ever really destroy us.
There’s a rather nice true story about a volunteer tutor was asked to visit a nine-year-old in a large hospital. She took the boy's name and room number and was told by the boy's teacher that they were studying nouns and adverbs in class. It wasn't until the tutor got to the boy's room that she realised the boy was a patient in the hospital's burn unit.
No one had prepared her to find a nine-year-old so horribly burned and in such great pain. Though she wanted to, she felt she couldn't just turn and leave, so she gathered her courage and entered the room. "Hi, I'm the hospital teacher," she stammered. "Your teacher asked me to help you with nouns and adverbs." And, clumsily, she launched into the lesson.
The next morning a nurse called the tutor. "What did you do to that boy?" The tutor immediately began a tearful apology, but the nurse interrupted her."No, no, no. You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But since you were here, he's fighting back, he's responding to treatment. It's as though he's decided to live." The boy explained that he had given up hope, until the tutor came. "I figured they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with someone who's dying, would they?"
Hope is something that everyone needs – through the darkest times of life, it is often only hope that keeps people going, and in the reading from Mark’s gospel (13:1-8) Jesus tells us that that hope must be placed in the only absolute unchangeable thing in life, and that is God.
Many of you will remember the incredible scenes back in 1989 as the Berlin Wall was destroyed and people ploughed over the border seeking something – they weren’t sure what, but that something was based on a hope of something better…
What seemed an almost indestructible wall with all the political and military systems associated with it crumbled almost overnight. Today what is left of the wall are small sections set up for tourists as a reminder of what was. The time since in Germany has often been painful as two very separate systems have struggled to come together, but, founded on hope, things have improved and the unification process continues.
But going back to the words of Jesus in our gospel reading, Jesus talked of an even more dramatic fall. As the disciples pointed out the wonderful Temple structure with it’s incredible stonework and size, Jesus told them that it would crumble. The Temple had of course taken years to complete – the Jewish people, not just the religious authorities, were incredibly proud of it – the Temple represented far more than a place of worship…. It was a place of power….
When Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple he wasn’t talking about just the building. The destruction of the Temple meant the destruction of the whole of the political, economic, religious and social system of the nation. Nothing was unchangeable, nothing unbreakable, nothing would last forever.... Nothing in terms of buildings and earthly powers and riches that is, but of course Jesus came to offer us something that would last forever – something that would last far beyond wealth or buildings or beauty or any number of material goods…
This week I was talking to a couple and we were talking about Moscow - its a place I've never been to but one that I've always found quite fascinating. The couple I was talking to had been there both before and after the fall of the Soviet regime - but they talked primarily about it now and described it as a place where many of the population flaunted their wealth - some of it undoubtedly gained as a result of corruption and greed.
Outside the centre of the city there is still problems with extreme poverty though and we are reminded that whether rich or poor money is not something that buys happiness. Money will be nice, it will be useful, and I’m sure we’d all like some of it, but money by itself will not buy happiness, and it will not last forever.
So Jesus, as he spoke these words, was talking about the future, he was talking about a time that was to come, a time when our earthly lives will end, but he wasn’t telling us to dwell just on the future – in fact quite the opposite – Jesus was reminding his disciples that the future is irrelevant if we didn’t get the present right…
Amidst the remains of the Jewish Temple and the Berlin Wall today we can find personal stories of broken dreams and shattered hopes – the Temple builders built a Temple for God’s glory, and yet, unlike God’s glory, it wouldn’t last. They built it with great hopes that one day their Saviour would come and would overthrow the Romans or any other invading force, and establish his base right there.
Their hopes would be shattered because they didn’t understand God. God, who can never be captured in a single building… God, who is interested in people not in things…
The builders of the Berlin Wall – even some of those builders built that wall with principles. They had dreams and hopes of a society that would be equal, a society that wouldn’t favour the rich or the poor, that wouldn’t discriminate between the intellectual and the manual worker and so on. Of course, as we all know, that system became corrupted and that corruption and lack of freedom ultimately brought about the collapse of the wall and the death of the system.
Today many people have put their hopes in shares, and seen those hopes shattered. Some have worked so hard to build a good life for themselves that they have no time to enjoy it. Some have bought properties which they couldn’t even afford which have reduced in value so that they are left with huge debts, some tragically put their hopes in expensive loans, or in drink or drugs…
The hopes and dreams for so many are hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled, because all of those things we think of can destroy or be destroyed...
And so what Jesus was offering his disciples was a message not to be taken in by outward signs of wealth or happiness or prosperity or power but to decide on living for the present and concentrating on what is lasting – God, through the centuries, unlike anything or anyone else, has remained unchanged.
God is the only absolutely solid rock upon which we can build our lives, the guaranteed unchangeable in whom we can put our faith and our trust.
Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and scholar who did some incredibly detailed studies and wrote books which are well beyond my understanding was once asked if he believed in God, and he replied, ‘I don’t believe in God, I know God’. We can do all the academic work we want, we can study hard, we can read everything, but what Carl Jung said is the essence of a Christian – knowing God and knowing him personally…
God wants to interfere in our lives, but he won’t unless we invite him to…
He wants to share every moment with us, and he wants us to seek his vision and his wisdom and to use those things to show his glory certainly, but also to provide us with a life more abundant than anything else can ever offer… and a life of peace what ever the circumstances we find ourselves in….
And so, we can have hope - as we have the confidence of knowing that Jesus died to bring hope and peace and eternal life to all who believe in him.... Because he loves us, with a love more powerful and unbreakable than we can ever fully understand.
And so, In the words from the letter to the Hebrews (10:23), ‘Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful’. AMEN
Tough it doesn't immediately sound it the reading reflects hope - not hope in the way it is seen often in worldly terms - hope of a good job, hope of lots of money or good health, hope of winning the lottery perhaps but hope in terms of knowing that whatever happens in our lives with Jesus on our side, nothing can ever really destroy us.
There’s a rather nice true story about a volunteer tutor was asked to visit a nine-year-old in a large hospital. She took the boy's name and room number and was told by the boy's teacher that they were studying nouns and adverbs in class. It wasn't until the tutor got to the boy's room that she realised the boy was a patient in the hospital's burn unit.
No one had prepared her to find a nine-year-old so horribly burned and in such great pain. Though she wanted to, she felt she couldn't just turn and leave, so she gathered her courage and entered the room. "Hi, I'm the hospital teacher," she stammered. "Your teacher asked me to help you with nouns and adverbs." And, clumsily, she launched into the lesson.
The next morning a nurse called the tutor. "What did you do to that boy?" The tutor immediately began a tearful apology, but the nurse interrupted her."No, no, no. You don't understand. We've been very worried about him. But since you were here, he's fighting back, he's responding to treatment. It's as though he's decided to live." The boy explained that he had given up hope, until the tutor came. "I figured they wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with someone who's dying, would they?"
Hope is something that everyone needs – through the darkest times of life, it is often only hope that keeps people going, and in the reading from Mark’s gospel (13:1-8) Jesus tells us that that hope must be placed in the only absolute unchangeable thing in life, and that is God.
Many of you will remember the incredible scenes back in 1989 as the Berlin Wall was destroyed and people ploughed over the border seeking something – they weren’t sure what, but that something was based on a hope of something better…
What seemed an almost indestructible wall with all the political and military systems associated with it crumbled almost overnight. Today what is left of the wall are small sections set up for tourists as a reminder of what was. The time since in Germany has often been painful as two very separate systems have struggled to come together, but, founded on hope, things have improved and the unification process continues.
But going back to the words of Jesus in our gospel reading, Jesus talked of an even more dramatic fall. As the disciples pointed out the wonderful Temple structure with it’s incredible stonework and size, Jesus told them that it would crumble. The Temple had of course taken years to complete – the Jewish people, not just the religious authorities, were incredibly proud of it – the Temple represented far more than a place of worship…. It was a place of power….
When Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple he wasn’t talking about just the building. The destruction of the Temple meant the destruction of the whole of the political, economic, religious and social system of the nation. Nothing was unchangeable, nothing unbreakable, nothing would last forever.... Nothing in terms of buildings and earthly powers and riches that is, but of course Jesus came to offer us something that would last forever – something that would last far beyond wealth or buildings or beauty or any number of material goods…
This week I was talking to a couple and we were talking about Moscow - its a place I've never been to but one that I've always found quite fascinating. The couple I was talking to had been there both before and after the fall of the Soviet regime - but they talked primarily about it now and described it as a place where many of the population flaunted their wealth - some of it undoubtedly gained as a result of corruption and greed.
Outside the centre of the city there is still problems with extreme poverty though and we are reminded that whether rich or poor money is not something that buys happiness. Money will be nice, it will be useful, and I’m sure we’d all like some of it, but money by itself will not buy happiness, and it will not last forever.
So Jesus, as he spoke these words, was talking about the future, he was talking about a time that was to come, a time when our earthly lives will end, but he wasn’t telling us to dwell just on the future – in fact quite the opposite – Jesus was reminding his disciples that the future is irrelevant if we didn’t get the present right…
Amidst the remains of the Jewish Temple and the Berlin Wall today we can find personal stories of broken dreams and shattered hopes – the Temple builders built a Temple for God’s glory, and yet, unlike God’s glory, it wouldn’t last. They built it with great hopes that one day their Saviour would come and would overthrow the Romans or any other invading force, and establish his base right there.
Their hopes would be shattered because they didn’t understand God. God, who can never be captured in a single building… God, who is interested in people not in things…
The builders of the Berlin Wall – even some of those builders built that wall with principles. They had dreams and hopes of a society that would be equal, a society that wouldn’t favour the rich or the poor, that wouldn’t discriminate between the intellectual and the manual worker and so on. Of course, as we all know, that system became corrupted and that corruption and lack of freedom ultimately brought about the collapse of the wall and the death of the system.
Today many people have put their hopes in shares, and seen those hopes shattered. Some have worked so hard to build a good life for themselves that they have no time to enjoy it. Some have bought properties which they couldn’t even afford which have reduced in value so that they are left with huge debts, some tragically put their hopes in expensive loans, or in drink or drugs…
The hopes and dreams for so many are hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled, because all of those things we think of can destroy or be destroyed...
And so what Jesus was offering his disciples was a message not to be taken in by outward signs of wealth or happiness or prosperity or power but to decide on living for the present and concentrating on what is lasting – God, through the centuries, unlike anything or anyone else, has remained unchanged.
God is the only absolutely solid rock upon which we can build our lives, the guaranteed unchangeable in whom we can put our faith and our trust.
Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and scholar who did some incredibly detailed studies and wrote books which are well beyond my understanding was once asked if he believed in God, and he replied, ‘I don’t believe in God, I know God’. We can do all the academic work we want, we can study hard, we can read everything, but what Carl Jung said is the essence of a Christian – knowing God and knowing him personally…
God wants to interfere in our lives, but he won’t unless we invite him to…
He wants to share every moment with us, and he wants us to seek his vision and his wisdom and to use those things to show his glory certainly, but also to provide us with a life more abundant than anything else can ever offer… and a life of peace what ever the circumstances we find ourselves in….
And so, we can have hope - as we have the confidence of knowing that Jesus died to bring hope and peace and eternal life to all who believe in him.... Because he loves us, with a love more powerful and unbreakable than we can ever fully understand.
And so, In the words from the letter to the Hebrews (10:23), ‘Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful’. AMEN
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