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A COVENANT OF HOPE

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Genesis 9:8-17

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When our lives are threatened with floods of destruc= tion, we can still have hope.

A sermon preached by

Rev. William O. (Bud) = Reeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

February 10, 2008=

Let me begin with one of my favorite flood stories. It’s a classic, which means you may have heard it before.&= nbsp; But it still bears re-telling. It seems there was a Cajun down in = south Louisiana—I believe his name was Boudreaux—who found himself stranded by the rising floodwaters of the mighty Mississippi. The water was already knee-deep in= his front yard when a truck came by loaded down with people. They offered Boudreaux a lift to s= afety, but he refused. “I have= great faith,” he said. “= ;I know the Lord will save me.”

The water rose on up i= nto Boudreaux’s house, and he climbed up on the roof. Just then his neighbor from down t= he road came by in his fishing boat, and he hollered out, “Boudreaux, co= me get in my boat, and I’ll take you to higher ground.”

Still he refused. R= 20;I have great faith,” he said. “I know the Lord will save me.”

The flood continued to= rise, and finally the stubborn Cajun was forced to sit on his chimney, with the w= ater lapping at his heels. Suddenl= y out of nowhere a civil defense helicopter swooped down, and the rescue workers dropped Boudreaux a ladder. B= ut he waved them off! “No, thanks,” he yelled. = 220;I have great faith! I know the = Lord will save me!” The civil defense workers shrugged their shoulders, and the helicopter flew away. Inside of five minutes, the flood = swept Boudreaux away, and he drowned.

In the blink of an eye Boudreaux found himself in heaven, standing before the Lord God Almighty. He said, “Heavenly Father, I= got a bone to pick with you. All my= life I was a man of great faith. I thought you would save me from that flood.= So what am I doing here?”

“That’s wh= at I want to know,” the Lord boomed. “What are you doing here? I sent you a truck, a b= oat, and a civil defense helicopter!”

In the floods of life,= God will provide a way of escape. We c= an always trust God to provide what we need to deal with the difficulties of l= ife, if we are just wise enough to make use of his resources. That’s part of his agreement= with his children. That’s part of being a covenant people.

During Lent this year, I’m going to talk about being a covenant people. God makes covenants with his people throughout the Bible, and we are party to those covenants even today. “Covenant” is a religious-sounding word that basically means an agreement made in faith. Dr. David Lowes Watson, in the fin= al video for Disciple I, says that= the original root word of covenant is the same word for “fetter,” t= he leg irons that kept slaves from escaping in the ancient world. A covenant is like a fetter becaus= e it is strong and binding and, once entered into, cannot be easily escaped. A covenant is a faith agreement ma= de in a moment of strength so that in a moment of weakness it cannot be broken. That’s why covenants with Go= d are so important. We human beings= have many weak moments. Only by be= ing bound to God can we find the strength we need to overcome our weakness and = deal with our difficulties.

The first covenant God= ever made was a covenant of HOPE. It was the covenant he made with N= oah after the flood. You remember Noah. When God became totally= fed up with all the sin of his creation, Noah alone was chosen to survive a world-devastating flood. He b= uilt an ark according to God’s specifications, gathered his family and all= the air-breathing animals on board, and they rode out the worst rainstorm in the history of the world. Finally, after months in the ark with all those animals, the floodwaters receded, and Noah and his crew and cargo disembarked.&n= bsp; At the end of the ordeal, God made a covenant with Noah. God’s covenant with Noah is remarkable for three reasons.

It is unilateral. No re= sponse is required. Noah doesn’= ;t have to do a thing; God just promises never again to destroy the earth. Even if humankind proves sinful again—and they will—God will not send a flood like that.

God’s covenant w= ith Noah is also universal. It not only involves Noah, but inc= ludes his family and every living creature that was on the ark. God makes his promise to all creat= ion.

Finally, the covenant = of hope is eternal. God’s promise is never again to destroy the earth i= n that way. The covenant is for Noah= and all his descendants, which would presumably be all of us. The contract will never be up for renewal or renegotiation. It = is set from that point forward.

As a seal on the coven= ant, God gives an appropriate sign—the rainbow, formed by prismatic action= of sunlight through water droplets in the air. Whenever the sun shines through the rain, there is a reminder of God’s providence. Whenever God sees the rainbow, he = will remember his promise to all creation. Whenever people see the rainbow, they= can be assured once again of God’s faithfulness.

Several years ago, Mar= y Lou Willoughby wrote a devotional for T= he Upper Room about such a sign. She was driving with her father and sister in the mountains of Puerto Rico when they saw a strange sight. It was a misty, rainy night. Suddenly, across the valley, there appeared a shimmering arc of light. They stopped the car and watched as a beautiful, pastel rainbow arch= ed over the mountain. But it was night! Mary Lou’s husba= nd John was a meteorologist for the Navy, and later he explained that what they saw was a “moonbow.” Instead of the sun’s light making the rainbow, the light came = from the full moon. For Mary Lou, = that was even a greater sign of God’s grace. Even in the darkest night, there is still a promise. There is sti= ll hope. There is still God.

We all sp= end some time in the darkness of trouble, don’t we? We have to negotiate the floods of illness, death, grief, conflict, hardship, depression—the list goes on.

I’ve never met anyone with a longer list of trouble than Carolyn Fish. This week Carolyn passed away. She was a member of our church, bu= t you probably didn’t know her. Carolyn was born in 1958 with spina bifida, a serious birth defect t= hat can cause paralysis, diabetes, kidney problems, and other complications. In 1958, the doctors told her pare= nts not to get too attached to this baby, because it wouldn’t survive. Within a few days of her birth, th= ey had her burial plot bought and ready. But Carolyn fooled everybody.

As a chil= d she had to wear diapers and walk with crutches, so she was ridiculed and reject= ed by the other children. Because there was nothing wrong with her mind, she began to question what kind of G= od would let this happen to her. After her father died when she was a teenager, Carolyn spent most of her adult li= fe in institutions of one sort or another.&nb= sp; When I first met Carolyn, she was sick and angry and bitter at life = and at God. She had been in the floodwaters for 48 years. The= first time I visited her, she raised her voice and tears came to her eyes and she yelled, “Look at me! Wh= at kind of God would do this to a person?”

Carolyn a= nd I talked on several occasions about God’s love, about the meaning of tragedy, and about her relationship with God. (Bro. Jim visited her often as well.) In the last year, I sa= w a change come over Carolyn. She= began to be at peace. She began to prepare herself to meet the God she questioned. She reconciled her relationships w= ith her three sisters, who had borne the brunt of her jealousy and bitterness.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

About thr= ee weeks ago, Carolyn entered hospice care because her dialysis had become futile. Last Wednesday mornin= g, Carolyn was healed. She was released from her illness. Af= ter 49 years, this woman who was not supposed to survive infancy took her last bre= ath. She finally got to ask God all tho= se questions we couldn’t answer. She had a lot of heart, and a lot of courage, and I came to love her= .

Sometimes= life is just not fair. In the sadness and the inequities of life, it’s goo= d to know we have a covenant of hope= 212;unilateral, universal, and eternal. As descendants of Noah, we are party to the promise. So when our lives are threatened w= ith the floods of destruction, we still have hope.= We always have hope.

When we a= re tested with what seems like trials beyond our strength, we can remember I Corinthians 10:13: “No testing has overtaken you th= at is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out= so that you may be able to endure it.” That = is our hope in the midst of the flood.

This kind of hope is more than mere optimism. Optimism says, “Things will = get better; everything’s going to be all right.” Hope says, “Whether or not t= hings get better, God will give us the resources to endure. And in the end, we will be victorious.”

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, calls this the “Stockdale Paradox.”<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It is named after the late Admiral= Jim Stockdale, the Navy pilot who was captured by the North Vietnamese in 1965 = and was held prisoner in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” for eight years. As the ranking officer= in the prison, Stockdale was singled out for torture more than twenty times. For eight years he had no rights, = no release date, no certainty of ever seeing his family again. Yet he shouldered the burden of co= mmand, devising ways to communicate secretly with other prisoners and to encourage= them to persevere. At one point he= beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself so he could not be shown as an example of a well-treated prisoner.<= o:p>

When Jim Collins interviewed Admiral Stockdale, he a= sked him who didn’t make it in= that horrible situation. Stockdale answered, “The optimists. The ones who kept telling themselves that things would get better and that they would be home by Christmas or Easter or July 4. They died of broken hearts.”=

What gave Admiral Stockdale the strength to endure w= as a combination of realism and hope. Whatever he was facing at the moment, he always believed that he wou= ld ultimately be victorious. = 220;I never lost faith in the end of the story,” he said. “I never doubted not only th= at I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experi= ence into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” [1]<= o:p>

That’s the “Stockdale Paradox”: Be realistic about the obstacles and difficulties you face, but never lose fai= th that you will prevail in the end. You may not be facing the brutality of a North Vietnamese prison cam= p, but whatever you are facing, you can endure it with hope.

The difference between the Stockdale Paradox and covenant hope is in the source. With the covenant people, hope is more than a matter of mental or emotional fortitude. Our hope= , our strength, our victory does not depend on us. Everything good in our lives is de= rived from our relationship with God. Grace, like a rainbow, appears, and we have very little to do with i= ts appearance, brightness, or duration. But while it’s there we can enjoy it. The hope we have from God comes th= at way. It is unilateral, a gift= of his love. It is universal, availa= ble to anyone who seeks it. It is et= ernal, because in God, our life never ends.

This is our ultimate hope. Even if everything earthly goes so= uth on us, even if everything we have is destroyed, even if our life on earth shou= ld end, we are not through. That’s not the final word. We have a hope that extends beyond = death, a hope that reaches beyond this little planet, a hope that is grounded in t= he God who made the universe. So= we can bear our afflictions and even learn from them and grow through them.

My = last long conversation with Carolyn Fish was back before Christmas. She was having a meltdown that day because they had just told her that her kidneys were gone. The only way she could survive was life-long dialysis. I had tak= en her a hymnal, because she loved the songs she had sung as a child. Her well-worn Bible was lying open= on her bed. I said, “You h= ave never doubted that God exists.”

She= said, “I have to believe in God, because I have to have someone to ask, ‘Why did you do this to me?’” But she smiled when she said it. She got kind of quiet for a minute= , then asked, “Does getting mad at God mean I have rejected him?”=

I t= old her no, that lots of faithful people get mad at God, even in the Bible.

Sud= denly she asked, “What is heaven like?”

I t= old her it would be a place where her body would be healed and perfect. She would have no more suffering.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And all her questions would be answered. She said, “Ho= w can I be sure I’ll get there?”&nbs= p;

I a= sked her if she had confessed her sins. I asked her if she had faith in Christ. I quoted to her Romans 10:9-10: = 220;if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart an= d so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.” = We prayed a prayer together, and Carolyn affirmed her faith in Christ, asked f= or forgiveness, and accepted her salvation.&n= bsp; Then she said, “That’s it?” I said that was what the Bible sai= d you have to do to be assured of your salvation. She said “That’s good.”

Whe= n I walked into that hospital room Wednesday morning and saw Carolyn’s st= ill, silent body lying on the bed, I thought to myself, “That’s good.” Hope is good. Living in hope is good.= Do you have that hope today? Do you know that relationship of salvation? When our lives are threatened by the floods of destruction, we can depend on God. He has made a covenant of hope wit= h us, and in that hope we can find strength for the difficulties, comfort for the pain, and life everlasting. A= s the late Boudreaux used to say, “We are people of great faith. The Lord will save us!” Amen!