Hebrews 6:17-19

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁷ Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. ¹⁸ God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain. Jesus has entered there on our behalf.......
 

Her name is Hope…..

Recently I attended a workshop on a type of funeral service known as the “celebrant service”. Though I admit to affirming the motives behind this particular kind of service, and most certainly can understand the need for such services, there was something that nagged at me the entire weekend. There was something missing from the instruction, the theory behind the instruction, and the style of presentation which graced our two days together. There was a hole, a void, a vacuum of such size and proportion that it began to form a barrier around my mind as I listened and learned. Eventually I was able to identify what was missing. Hope was missing. I’m not sure if Hope had been given the weekend off, dismissed from her post, or simply forgotten. If she had a seat at the shin dig she never found it.

Having done countless numbers of funerals I could not imagine her lack of invitation and presence. I have come to understand Hope as a vital and iatrical part of both life and death. What kind of minister of the gospel would I be if I did not leave some measure of hope in the wake of my message? What kind of human being am I if I do not work to instill hope in the midst of the threat of hopelessness? And what Kind of child of God can I at any point claim to be if hope is not flowing from my lips like honey on my chin or dew from a flower? Hope is vital. Hope is irreplaceable. Hope is one of the most important words that can be spoken from on the silent lips of the deceased. 

As we look toward the cold, silent frame before us, the body lying lifeless and void, how are we supposed to move forward in our despair without hope? What is the purpose of grief if there is no hope? What is the goal of comfort, the joy flowing from our tears, or the reason for survival, if there is in fact no hope? And if there is hope, if hope is something that speaks truth to the human heart, why would we ever want to hide this truth? Why would we ever want to deny a front seat to the one entity that can take us beyond the moment of gut wrenching death into the possibilities of a new dawn? Hope is welcomed precisely because Hope is hope, even in the midst of death and loss. 

I sense sadness in the hearts and lives of people who know not the hand of Hope. I feel the pain of a service well done, a eulogy professionally delivered, and a family unsure, as Hope is left standing outside in the cold. The apostle Paul once wrote that “if only for this life we have hope, we are to be pitied above all other persons”. Life without Resurrection is emptied of the possibility of redemption. Death without a tomorrow is emptied of purpose. And relationship ending with a final breath takes the wind out of the truest evidence of hope known to human kind – love. Why love, if it is but temporary? Why risk the pain of heartache, if this is all we will ever know? Why celebrate life, if life is tied to a beating heart, where only darkness awaits the heart that ceases to beat?

I wanted to shout for all to hear – “I will never speak of the death of one you love without offering the message, yea the promise, of hope!!” I will never ask you to walk with me into a celebration of life if we cannot honor the continuing life of the one you love. I will not take you on a journey of death ending in death, without also pulling out a map of death swallowed up through the hope of life everlasting – a quality of life which begins each day and ends never. If there is no resurrection, “then eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Death is not a thing to be celebrated in a life or a world without hope. If looking back is the only direction life can take us, then life becomes an exercise in nostalgia rather than a walk with purpose. If the past is all we can celebrate in the moment of death, then let us freeze life in the moment of greatest joy and throw away the key so that my last moment on this planet might become something worth remembering. If our best days are not in front of us, then why move forward at all? If the purpose of a funeral is to draw a theme from days lived, without finding a purpose toward days about to be lived, then the funeral is the saddest place on earth, and there is no way to ever change this truth. But if Resurrection is real, if Resurrection is truth, if Resurrection is promise, then hope will never fade nor die nor abandon us to the grave. And there is never a reason to lose hope, in your faith, in love, in your church, in your future, and certainly not in God.

I hope for Trinity Baptist Church the same I hope for all of us – That we might know Him, the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, and the glorious power of living with the reality of His Resurrection. To move forward without hope is to dismiss the Power of the empty Tomb. To give up on God and God’s people in the midst of sorrow and pain is to deny the conquering contrast of the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus when compared to our human failings and frailties. Paul reminds us, we do not lose hope, as some are in the habit of doing, but “forgetting what is behind, we move forward toward all that God has for us", in this life and in the next. Doubting God and others around you? Drowning in the depths of despair and loneliness, death and rejection? There is an answer given for those of us who know Christ. Her name is Hope. Do not lose touch with Hope, do not doubt her ability to carry you through, and whatever you do, never forget her name and the promise her name carries to your life and mind like and Anchor for the Soul. There is Hope, there is always Hope, in Christ our Lord.  (Peace/out)