I Peter 1:3-9

&nb= sp;

We have been given a new birth into a living hope of= a heavenly inheritance.

A sermon preached by

Rev. William O. (Bud) = Reeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

April 27, 2008

Is anybody here still celebrating Easter? If you’re Christian Orthodox, Easter was only last week, but for Catholics and Protestants, it has been f= our weeks since Easter Sunday. Ar= e you still rejoicing over the resurrection?&nbs= p; For Christians, Easter is not a day; it’s a season of the chur= ch year. In fact, the resurrecti= on is the reason we worship on Sunday. Every Sunday recalls Easter Sunday. So Happy Easter, everybody!

One of my favorite Eas= ter stories comes from Margaret Sangster Phippen, the daughter of the late W. E. Sangster, a British Methodist and a great leader in post-World War II Metho= dism in England. As he got older, Sangster noticed = some uneasiness in his throat and a weakness in his leg. The doctor diagnosed him with an incurable disease that caused his muscles to deteriorate. Eventually he would be unable to w= alk or talk or even swallow.

After receiving this diagnosis, Sangster threw himself into his ministry with even more vigor, figuring that he could still write, and he would have even more time for prayer. He just wanted to rem= ain in the struggle. He often told t= hose who expressed their pity that he was just in the kindergarten of suffering.= As the disease progressed, he cont= inued to write books and articles and to organize prayer cells around England= .

Gradually SangsterR= 17;s legs became useless. Then he = lost his voice. He could barely ho= ld a pen, but his last Easter, just a few weeks before he died, W. E. Sangster w= rote to his daughter, “It is terrible to wake up on Easter morning and hav= e no voice to shout ‘He is Risen!’&= nbsp; But it would be still more terrible to have a voice and not want to shout.”[1]

Doesn’t the good news of Easter still ma= ke you want to shout, “Hallelujah!”?&= nbsp; Well, it should! Every= day is a day to celebrate what God did with the dead body of Jesus. We still ought to be shouting from= the rooftops, “Christ is risen!”&n= bsp; Easter is the greatest news, the greatest gift God has ever given his people. It is the gift of ult= imate, final, and eternal victory over sin and death and hell.

The First Letter of Peter is full of the joy of Easter, written to a church that was facing difficulties in an unfriendly world. Some scholars think it= was originally an Easter sermon, preached on the occasion of the baptism of new Christians. It could have been. This letter is importan= t for us because it lays out in beautiful ways the gifts God gives to his people = as a consequence of the resurrection.

Today we want to focus= on the resurrection HOPE. If there is anything that Easter b= rings us, it is hope. And if there = is anything that is true about hope, it is that hope is a gift from God. After the salutation of the letter= , the author (probably Peter, the apostle, dictating to Silvanus, also known as Silas) says, “Blessed be the = God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”= = [2] By God’s mercy, he has = given us this gift of a living hope. There is something essential about our humanity that requires hope.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

This week, United Meth= odists from around the globe began meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, for the 2008 General Conference o= f the United Methodist Church. The theme of the conference is = 220;A Future With Hope.” Our = former Bishop Janice Riggle Huie preached the opening sermon of the General Confer= ence on the theme of hope. She sai= d, "It is impossible to live without hope. Show me someone without hope and I will show you someone who is eith= er dead or so desperate that they are capable of the most awful violence."= ;= = [3] Hope, Bishop Huie said, is the ner= ve center of the Christian life. Love is the heart; faith is the muscle, but hope is the nerve center, the spark = of the spirit. It is impossible = to live without hope.

Then the bishop told a= story about a little girl in Africa who had re= ceived a mosquito net through the mission project “Nothing But Nets,” which provides protection from malaria.&nb= sp; Unfortunately, it was too late for this little girl. She already had malaria and AIDS, which is the other great epidemic in Africa. Her name was Esperança Afon= co, 8 years old. Ironically, her name in Portugese means “hope.”

The doctors had given = her only weeks to live. Neverthel= ess, even in this dire situation, Esperança’s mother, Bela, had decorated the bed to look like it was fit for a princess. A pink bed net was draped over the = bed, her dolls, and the child.

Even Esperança herself looked pretty in a pink dress. All this in the stark, drab surroun= dings of a hospital ward where many of the beds were filled with two or three sick children.

The doctor asked Bela, "Why have you worked so hard to create such a lovely environment?"= ;

The mother replied: &q= uot;We have to have hope."

As human beings, we ha= ve to have hope. And because of Eas= ter, we do! We have the hope of et= ernal life through Jesus Christ. Our heavenly inheritance is “imperishable, undefiled and unfading.” So we can li= ve with confidence.

You would think Jack Nicholson would be living with confidence.= He’s a famous, award-winning movie star. He is also famous for leading a ma= cho, swaggering kind of life off screen as well—numerous girlfriends, seve= ral children, always living life by his own rules. Nicholson’s latest movie is = called The Bucket List, in which he and Morgan Freeman star as two terminally ill men who take a road trip to do all the things they want to do before they “kick the bucket.” Dealing with some end-of-life issu= es has tempered even Jack Nicholson’s outlook and attitude. In an interview in Parade magazine, he said, “We all want to go on forever, don't we? We fear the unknown. Everybody goes to that wall, yet nobody knows what's on the other side. That's why we fear death.”= = [4]

I’ve got good ne= ws for Jack Nicholson and every other child of God. We do know what’s on the oth= er side. We don’t have to = fear the unknown; we don’t have to fear death any more. Jesus Christ has defeated death fo= rever, and he has prepared a place for us to live beyond the grave. When this earthly tent we live in = is destroyed, we have a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. That’s his gift.<= /span>

I like the little stor= y of a family who had invited a missionary couple and their children over for dinn= er after church one Sunday. When= the food was ready, the missionary’s wife called the children in and told them to go wash their hands before they could eat. The little son of the missionaries scowled as he trudged off to the bathroom, muttering under his breath, “Germs and Jesus! Germs= and Jesus! That’s all I eve= r hear about, and I ain’t never seen either one of them.”= = [5]

We haven’t seen = our heavenly home yet, but we know it’s there. And that fills our hearts with joy= . As our Scripture says, “Although you have not seen him, you lo= ve him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy.”[6] The joy, the blessings, the l= ove we experience here on earth are just a hint of the incredible eternal life we = will inherit in the Kingdom of God.

But what about the suffering, the trials, the troubles of life? Every moment is not a new experien= ce of “indescribable and glorious joy.” Every day doesn’t end w= ith a beautiful sunset and a sigh of contentment. Sometimes life is a painful experience. The burdens are heavy. The sorrow is almost m= ore than we can bear. The fun is missing. What about all that?=

Peter knew exactly wha= t we are talking about. The apostle and friend of Jesus died a martyr’s death, crucified upside d= own during the persecution of Nero around 64 A.D. The actual letter as we have it ma= y have been distributed shortly after his death, and it was written to several churches in Asia Minor who were experien= cing harassment and persecution. T= hey knew about suffering. Peter t= ells them how to deal with it: “In= this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have to suffer various tria= ls, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold, that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”= = [7] Sufferings can be opportu= nities for discipline in the faith and purification of the believer. Like gold has to be refined and pu= rified by going through the fire, so we can be refined by the trials we experience. No, they are not fun. No, they are not good. No, they are not sent by God. But God can use them, and so can w= e, to bring us closer to God and to result in even greater praise and glory and h= onor to the One who gives us the strength to get through them.=

In a book called Forged by Fire: How God Shapes Those He Loves, pastor and author Bob Reccord tells about his “prison of pain.” In his case it w= as a severe back injury that caused not only excruciating pain, but left him partially paralyzed. He had t= o quit work and wear a neck brace around the clock for five weeks. But listen to his words about an e= ye-opening experience he had in the middle of this trial: “I found myself sittin= g on the screened-in porch behind our home.&nbs= p; The day was cold and blustery, but I was committed to being outside, just for the change of scenery. Suddenly a bird landed on the railing and began to sing. On that cold, rainy day, I couldn’t believe any creature had a reason to sing. I wanted to shoot that bird! But he continued to warble, and I = had no choice but to listen.

“The next day fo= und me on the porch again, but this time the atmosphere was bright, sunny and warm. As I sat, being tempted= to feel sorry for myself, suddenly the bird (at least it looked like the same = one) returned. And he was singing again! Where was that shotgun= ?

“Then an amazing= truth hit me head on: the bird sang in the cold rain as well as the sunny warmth. His song was not alte= red by outward circumstances, but it was held constant by an internal condition. It was as though God quietly said = to me, ‘You’ve got the same choice, Bob. You will either let external circumstances mold your attitude, or your attitude will rise above the exte= rnal circumstances. You choose!’”[8]

Bob Reccord and Peter = chose to have hope in the midst of their trials.= You and I can, too. We= can claim the merciful gift of God, the living hope of an eternal inheritance through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.&= nbsp; Then our song, like the song of the bird, will not be tied to extern= al circumstances. Then our lives= will radiate joy.

This is what it means = to live by faith. Because of the resurrection hope we have in Jesus Christ, we can live by faith in the mids= t of our trials. In spite of our difficulties, we can live productive, effective, joy-filled, and peaceful lives. We know how the story = ends, so we can walk with confidence and courage whatever the day may bring. As Paul said, “So we are always confident; even thoug= h we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.”[9] This is the gift of hope.

Last summer I shared w= ith you part of the story of Nancy and David Guthrie. I want to close with a different q= uote from the same source today. In 1998 the Guthries endured every parent’s worst nightmare—the death of a child. The little girl was named Hope, an= d she was afflicted with Zellweger’s syndrome, a genetic disorder that took= her life. <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Nancy wrote a book about her daughter c= alled Holding On to Hope. In the book, she shared these = words about faith:

We had Hope for 199 days. = We loved her. We enjoyed her richly and shared her with everyone we could. We = held her during seizures. Then we let her go.

The day after we buried Ho= pe, my husband said to me, "You know, I think we expected our faith to make t= his hurt less, but it doesn't." Our faith gave us an incredible amount of strength and encouragement while we h= ad Hope, and we were comforted by the knowledge that she is in heaven. Our faith keeps us from being swall= owed by despair.

But I don't think it makes= our loss hurt any less.

Early on in my journey, I = said to God, "Okay, if I have to go through this, then give me everything. Teach me everything you want to teach me through this. Don't let this incredible pain be wasted in my life!"

God…allows good and = bad into our lives and we can trust him with both.…Trusting God when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when there is only darkness—this is the kind of faith God values most of all…= .

I believe that the purpose= of Hope's short life, and my life, was and is to glorify God.= [10]

Here’s how we gl= orify God with our lives: We live w= ith the hope of the resurrection in our hearts. We live with courage in the midst = of our troubles and pain. We live with faith in God day by day, no matter what happens. That’s the gift. That’s the Easter story. That’s the good news that makes us want to shout “Hallelujah!” today! Amen! =

&nb= sp;