Hopeful When Hopeless

Mark 13:24-37

“But in those days, following that distress, “‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens. “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

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For today's meditation, I thought that I would offer you a few off the cuff remarks you might say on this idea of hope in the midst of hopelessness, hope in the midst of hopelessness. If that sounds familiar, perhaps it should. It's sort of familiar to the theme of the interfaith Thanksgiving service. We had gratitude in difficult times. So now hope in the midst of hopelessness. What does that mean to you at joining us this morning? What does hope in the midst of hopelessness look like for you? 

I talked a little bit about this at the interfaith Thanksgiving service if you were watching online instead of in a breakout room. I do want to be a little careful when I talk about hope in the midst of hopelessness. Because as much as I can appreciate the practice of finding a silver lining in the hard times I also don't want to discredit the hard times. I want us to To acknowledge those places in our lives that hurt. 

Now of course, we can go on the complete opposite end. We don't want to be all sunshine all happy all the time ignoring what's happening around us. But we also don't want to be those monks in Monty Python who walk around with wooden boards whacking ourselves on the forehead. That doesn't do us any good either. So it's somewhere in between. Where we find ourselves, managing hopelessness and hope, difficult times in gratitude. So where do you find yourself this morning as you worship with us? Where do you find yourself this morning? What is your heart, your soul saying to you this morning?

There have been times in my life, if I were to take a moment to share with you where I have felt hopeless. I'm sure if we dug deep enough, we all might be able to name one time, someplace where we felt hopeless. And so I'm telling you that there have certainly been times in my life, where I have felt hopeless. And it's a crummy feeling. And to try and find hope, in the midst of that hopelessness seems almost impossible. It's often not till later, after some time has passed, when I'm able to look back and see where those rays of light come in, to show me what that hope was. 

To give you a brief example, before coming down here to the Hudson River area, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with myself with my life. I Served a couple years as an associate pastor, but felt a little burned. And being a younger pastor couldn't really imagine what, you know, 40, 50, 60 plus years of ministry would look like and so I decided to come down to a little place called Mahopac, take a part time call and see what would happen. I didn't know what would happen. But it felt right. It felt like the place where God was telling me to go. Soon enough, look what happened. A year and a half later, now, almost. And you know, I can honestly say that this was hope when I was not feeling so hopeful. 

It's been a way not to only manage and enjoy and use my gifts to serve the church and to build relationships with all of you, but to also then serve the larger church, the broader church, others who are in our presbytery. As I now have the opportunity to work part time here and part time out of presbytery level. It's been great to have a variety of areas to use my gifts, my passions. And to me, looking back, I couldn't be more filled with hope now I couldn't be more thankful. But it took a little bit of vigilance, to keep watch, to be alert to see where these pieces were coming from and how they all came together to lead me to where I am today.

This morning, we hear in Mark's gospel, a message about hope and a message about being alert. Especially in a time of hopelessness. Yes. You see what's important for us I think to understand about Mark's gospel is that the Gospel of Mark was written in a time when the early church was facing a vast amount of persecution. The early church, the early Christians were fearful of what would happen next. So we are here this morning, as part of our Advent reading this call, to be vigilant, to be hopeful to keep watch. Because we do not know what will happen next. As Mark's gospel tells us only God knows. Only God knows. 

I sure wish, on some days, I had a crystal ball or a book that I could look into, to know what would happen next. But I don't, I'm sure all of us would love to have something like that. So what we're left with, though, is the warning or the encouragement, to be vigilant, to keep watch, to be active, to always keep our minds focused on the larger picture, things may not be great now. But we are still called to tend to matters at hand, matters that include how we love one another, how we serve one another, how we as a community come together in these hopeless times to make room for hope, later on. 

How are you a part of that message, that narrative this morning that we hear in Mark's gospel? How are you going to be like the ones who have been tasked by the land owner, to be vigilant, to be watchful, to perhaps even if you feel hopeless to be hope for someone else? And that, perhaps, maybe the broader question, how can we who may be hopeless people, be hope for other people who then may be a hope for us? Isn't that the beautiful coming together of the gospel? We may not feel hope now. But if we are hope for other people, then perhaps they may be the hope we needed all along.

Hope in the midst of hopelessness, Christ, who comes into our world, as we wait with anticipation until Christmas Eve, Christ comes into our world, we know to be that hope. And we wait with hope. We wait while also working, working on being everything that we know Christ is to us. So let us be hope. Let us be hope for the hopeless so they may be hope for us. Knowing that at the heart of all this is the unending hope and love comes from Christ. Amen.