Easter Hope In A Not-So-Easter World
Pastor Mathew Magera – 5/21/17 – Sermon 230
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
How quickly the celebrations
of Easter can disappear. The lilies die, the parties are over, the out of town
family go home. How quickly the celebration comes to an end. This is the
reality of holidays. We have limited time together, limited time to worship, limited
time to fellowship, limited time of joy. We commonly say that every Sunday is a
mini-Easter but how often do we put this into practice? The feeling of Easter
doesn't seem to be present six weeks later. The repetition of many things
becomes dull and overused. Even our spirits become troubled as we move further
forward from the hope that comes in the resurrection story while the truth of
suffering floods our lives once again. We are re-immersed in the everyday
experiences that don't provide us the hope we need and they begin to control
our existence. He is risen. Yes, but I have that doctor appointment this week.
He is risen. Yes, but I'm relying on that next paycheck to pay the bills. He is
risen. Yes, but I'm not so sure what good news will come this week.
I was talking with two
different people this week about two completely different subjects yet having a
very distinct theme among them. What do we do in situations where there is no
hope for light at the end of the tunnel? What do we do when something is not
curable but only manageable? These are real situations, when we know something
just can't be fixed, when anything short of a dramatic miracle can physically
change that which is broken or infected.
We come before the Lord day
after day, week after week, perhaps buried in prayer but not finding any relief
or answer to our cries. You might be thinking, oh, so the Lord says he will
answer our prayers, well, what about mine? What about the prayer I've been
praying for the past several years, huh? What about that one? What about that
time I prayed for that one person who was sick and then they died? What about
that one, God? What do we do about unchangeable situations that we encounter in
the reality of life? How do we find answered prayer? How do we experience
Easter hope when we are thrust into the reality of a not-so-Easter world filled
with suffering, trials and burdens?
Psalm 66 puts us right into
these very questions. We need to seek out that unique quality of praise and
thanksgiving when it feels fake and unhelpful. We need to seek out that ability
to invoke praise of our heavenly father even in the midst of suffering. It is
possible.
While we did not read the
entire Psalm, the verses we did contain the very meat that we need to savor and
I only have time to focus on a few verses in this Psalm but it should likely be
a launching pad for further consideration of praise in the midst of suffering.
This Psalm contains the words of one who has endured and may still be enduring
suffering and can still offer praise to God. These are the words of one who has
taken a good look at their situation and has found a way to push forward, the
words of one who has found Easter hope in a not-so-Easter world.
When we suffer we typically
do one of two things. We either work through it, or we try to push it aside.
There is a story of a boy who had been misbehaving and was sent to his room.
After a while he emerged and informed his mother that he had thought it over
and then said a prayer. "Fine," said his mother. "If you ask God
to help you not to misbehave, he will help you." The little boy said,
"Oh, I didn't ask him to help me not to misbehave, I asked him to help you
put up with me."
This story gets at a point
that we usually try to get to on our own, which is to say that our suffering as
a sinful world can be made better if we can place the blame on someone or
something else, if we can push it aside. In the case of this little boy, his
suffering becomes more bearable when he pushes the weight onto his mother. Look
at how lawsuit happy the world has become. People are using their suffering and
pushing it on someone else believing they will feel better if they win. We like
to place blame. We've been doing it for eons back to Adam and Eve. You know
they placed blame too. When God caught them eating the fruit he told them not
to eat, Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake and the snake had no leg to stand
on. You see, we find a natural ability to endure suffering or at least make the
most out of it by placing the weight elsewhere. We try to build ourselves up
but all that does is just break us down even more. We try to avoid the
suffering, harbor it up, give it to someone else, but we never want to just
deal with it. Believe it or not, there is good in suffering. I'm not saying
that you should go out and find ways to suffer but know that there is good in
suffering. The good comes from God's actions in our suffering. Whether we
brought the suffering upon ourselves or it was brought upon by others, we need
to know how God acts in suffering and be reminded of his actions constantly.
Considering God's actions in suffering we may be better equipped to work
through it and even come out of it more solidly grounded in our faith.
10 For you, God, tested us;
you refined us
like silver.
11 You brought us into prison
and laid
burdens on our backs.
12 You let people ride over our heads;
we went
through fire and water,
but you
brought us to a place of abundance.
In our suffering, God is
still with us. The suffering itself is not good. Being refined like silver is
not a pleasant experience. There's fire involved. If you've ever felt the
effects of a bad sunburn, being refined like silver is much much worse. Being
put in prison, not a good experience. Not that I'm speaking from experience,
but I'm told it's not pleasurable. Burdens on our backs, not a good experience.
If you suffer from back problems, you know exactly how a load on your back
makes you feel. Letting people ride over us, going through fire and water, none
of these are good experiences. All of these analogies made to symbolize the
many ways in which we suffer. But, where does it end? It doesn't end in
suffering, does it? No, it ends in that place of abundance. And who is constantly
there, continually present in each of these suffering situations? God is. God
is always present as the agent of protection and the agent of giving life.
Taking this further, God is
never the one who makes us suffer. God's intentions are only good intentions
and God does not ever desire to bring us harm. Unfortunately, we're sinners. We
live in a world that is steeped in sin itself and suffering happens. So, the question
we might ask, "Why, God, have you made me suffer so much?" should
instead be, "Why, God, have you allowed me to suffer so much?" God is
not the one who makes you suffer but He is the one who allows you to suffer and
that's tough because we don't always know why. He seems kind of like that
childhood friend who stands there as curiosity causes you to put your finger in
an electrical socket. They just watch what happens even though they know
perfectly well what is going to take place. That’s what God feels like when we
suffer, like he’s just not doing anything about it. Why has God allowed you to
suffer as long as you have? I don't know. I do know that God is with you and
that he's protecting you, giving you life and leading you into a place of
abundance.
In our suffering, God still
wins. Even in suffering we are never hopeless. Even in suffering God is giving
life, spiritual life. God always leads us into the place of abundance, the
ultimate abundance found in the resurrection life to come but also the
abundance we find in the victory over sin and death that we are already living
in. This is what Easter is all about... God is still with us, Jesus walked and
talked with his followers after his resurrection. He didn't abandon them. God
is protecting us, his death and resurrection opened the way to eternal life.
Death was no longer the end. God is victorious. Though the battles are still
fought, the war has been won.
While our suffering may not
hold the qualities of victory, we live in a post-cross, mid-Easter celebration
of the defeat of sin, death and the devil. Our response to this victory won by
Christ is what we are doing right now. Worship is the response to the end of
suffering that has been announced from the cross. Being in worship acknowledges
that God has the victory, it acknowledges God's protection, it acknowledges
God's life-giving power to end our suffering. If we want to have hope that our
suffering is only temporary, we should therefore treat it as temporary and
worship our victorious Lord who has already won. While the context of the Psalm
is Old Testament in nature, it is very much New Testament put to action.
God showed us what was
really high in value when he sent Jesus to die on the cross so that the barrier
between us and God would be torn in two. God wants us. Even in our suffering,
we still live in the victory party over death and that victory reminds us that
we are precious in his sight. We are no longer called sinner, but righteous,
honored, loved and redeemed, not by anything we have done but by everything
that God has done. A God who changes our name like will not let us suffer for
eternity. He knows our suffering and desires to lead us from it.
Suffering is an unfortunate
part of this world. It is a product of sin and rebellion that has been the
ruler of this world for ages. Luckily, our hope does not come from this world
because worldly hope only disappoints. Our hope needs to come from out of this
world, a place that is not plagued by sin, from a God who loves and cares for
those who are sick in sin and sick of sin.
Our Easter hope comes from
being able to step back and see the presence of God in our lives as a
protective and guiding force, bringing us together, giving us little glimpses
of his presence, revealing himself to us in small ways, proving to us that even
in the big burdens of our lives we can see tiny little resurrections, where
life comes from death. When you wake up to a new day that you were not
guaranteed to have. When you live to see another check in the mail to help pay
bills. When you have one new day with your health, God has won. Even when you
take your last breath in this world and Jesus pulls you from the grave, God
wins. These are little Easters that we can seek out and take comfort in within
our not-so-Easter world. They come from knowing that our God is a good God,
that God does not deliberately put suffering in our path but that God will work
good through any suffering that does, that God is faithful to answer prayer and
that God is gracious and merciful even to us repentant sinners. That is God’s
role in suffering and thanks be to God He cares so much for us to lead us from
death to life so that we might not fear anything that would rise up against us.
God has won the victory over our suffering and that is Easter hope in a
not-so-Easter world. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.