Despair For Hope Transcript

We begin the season of Advent. We start a new Christian year. There's that slight overlap between the old year of the regular calendar and the new year of the Christian calendar. It's the first Sunday of four in preparation for Christmas. Usually these weeks tend to be filled with readings of the prophets, foretelling of the coming Messiah, foretelling of a time when God's reign would be established and made real for all.

A time where you don't have to live in fear and despair and darkness for the light has come. Daniel is one of those prophets that are sometimes turned to, though not usually the story. These next four weeks we here at Berwyn are going to be talking about a gift exchange. We're going to talk about the gifts that are given to us, whether we want them or not, from the powers and principalities of this world. And we're going to talk about how we can exchange them for the gifts that God brings.

For the gifts of this world will not free us. The gifts of this world do not comfort us. The gifts of this world cannot sustain us. And yet we try to cling to them as if they can. Sometimes we're not entirely sure how to let go.

Sometimes we're faced with the powerless of it all. Sometimes we grip onto that package, that gift, and we grip on so tight that our fingers get stuck and we just have no idea how to relax enough and trust enough to release them. This week, the gift of the world that we're talking about is despair. That feeling of hopelessness, that feeling of lostness, that feeling of stuckness, that feeling that nothing can change, the way things are, the way things are always going to be.

That feeling that the situation you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, you found, is the one that defines you and there is nothing else. A despair that settles in and leads to inaction, that leads to hopelessness, that leads to fear and joylessness. We're going to exchange that gift. We're going to ask God to exchange that gift, that one that the world gives that we really don't want at all anyway, but settles in and grips us so tightly.

want to change it for hope. A hope that can challenge the ways of this world. A hope that can challenge the darkness. A hope that believes that the way things are now are not going to stay that way. The hope that says that there may be darkness in the world right now, but there will be a light. And sometimes that light is just a small candle burning in the darkness, but that light will shine bright and will grow.

We live in a world where there are too many people in the world. They look at their lives and say, I am poor and destitute. I'm out of food. My family has rejected me. I'm caught in addiction. I'm just heartbroken.

Maybe I'm grieving and I feel stuck in that because someone I love has either recently passed or passed so long ago that this time of year is just incredibly painful. And we get to thinking, am I always going to feel this way? Am I always going to feel alone? Is this sadness? Am I always going to feel this hopelessness that nothing is going to change, that it's just another year passing?

We're going to move into the next one. And if I could just get through these four weeks with parties and celebrations and joy and laughter, if I can just get through this, then the pain will go away. Some of us are in despair because we look at the world. We look at our nation and the way it is and the way we hoped it would be. And we're not going to get through this. We're not going to get through this. We're not going to get through not sure of what the future will hold.

And so we think that what we imagine the future will be is how it's going to be. That we'll just grip on tight. We'll meet it out. We'll make it through. But for now, we're in darkness. A despair like that can lead to an action. A despair like that can say, well, there's nothing I can do. So why do anything at all?

Daniel. Now, Daniel was a part of the Babylonian exile. He was a part of the people removed from Jerusalem and taken into Babylon and had to live as foreigners in a strange land. Now, unfortunately for Daniel and also for those taken to Babylon, the Babylon eventually fell to the Persians, which is where we are now. And so not only did Daniel get taken from Jerusalem, but he also fell to the Persians. And so not only did Daniel get taken from Jerusalem, into Babylon and probably get used to one set of rulers and one set of laws and that sort of thing, he proved himself worthy.

He proved himself trustworthy. He proved himself over and over again to the point where the king was about to place him in charge of all of the, of running the kingdom. It's a story we're familiar with, with the story of Joseph we talked about earlier.

But there was those who would conspire against him. Those who would want that seat of power, those that would want that seat of importance, those that did not want this foreigner, this, this, this, this man from a distant land to be the one in charge. And so they conspire against him and they go, they butter up the king. Oh, king, Lord almighty, all powerful. We all agree that anything you say is good. Anything that you say will be done, but we want you to write this down so that you can't even change it.

They say, anyone who doesn't pray to you, anyone who prays to a God or a human being, other than going to you or other than through you should be thrown into the lion's den. And the king having been, having been buttered up says, well, that sounds reasonable for some reason and says, sure, why not? And he writes it down. He signs it. It becomes law that cannot be revoked.

Now, Daniel, Daniel had an apartment that he lived in. He had a second floor that with a window facing Jerusalem. And he, even though he knew this law existed, he continued to go up to there and pray. He did not pray in a closet. He did. He did not pray in a basement. He did not pray somewhere in hiding. He trusted in God and trusted in his faith and knew what he was called to do so that he went up and he knelt in that, in that window and prayed to God three times a day.

Of course, those who wanted him gone bring the charges against him to the king. The king can't change his mind apparently and has him thrown into the lion's den and sealed so nobody could empty it and move it away. We have hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, hint, of the Jesus story here with the closing of the tomb and the guards putting in top of it. We want to make sure. We want to be know for certain that Daniel actually spent the night in this tomb. We want to be certain that Jesus spent the days in this tomb, that nothing would actually take him away. And he spends that night in the tomb.

I love this story, but there's one thing that really bothers me. We have no idea what happens in the lion's den. It's like the most exciting part of the story. How did the lions react? What was going on? How did the angels close their mouths? What did he do while he was there? He was in there overnight.

Were the lions off in the corner? Were they staring in his face? Were they circling around him waiting to pounce but couldn't? I mean, these are the things that I want to know because, well, it comes out like an action movie at that point in my mind. But all that's left to our imagination. But can you imagine the hopelessness of Daniel, the despair that could have set in? If he had sat there and said, woe is me. I'm in the darkness. It is sealed around me. I cannot escape. And all around me are lions just waiting to devour.

And yet, the lions did not. The lions had their mouths closed. The lions' hunger was taken away. Something kept the lions, the angels somehow kept the lions at bay. And he lasted the night. Instead of sitting in hopelessness, he trusted in the faith that brought him to that place, the faith in God that caused him to kneel in the window and pray to God in spite of the law.

That same faith kept him through the night until he arose the next morning and the king greeted him.

There is something about hope that challenges desperate situations. There is something about hope that brings light into the darkness and begins shining brightly enough that others can see it and are drawn to it. There is something about hope that can sustain us to do the difficult things.

Today in history, whether you may or may not know, is the day that we remember Rosa Parks and her sit -in on the bus. On December 1st, a tired woman, after a long day of work, refusing to give up her seat. She knew the ramifications, she knew the legal effects that could happen to her, much like Daniel. And yet, in that moment, in that moment of hope for something better for herself and her people, her offspring, she refused to get up.

She refused to follow the law that was expressly given for the sake of something better, something true, something bringing light. And because of that, things changed. Because of that, the darkness was driven back. The darkness that once seemed so clouded and so deep and holistic and would leave you in despair. She refused to follow the law that was expressly given for the sake of something good. And you could see it in that moment, the tie between pain and despair began to break away. In the time since, some of that darkness has grown back. A lot of that light still shines forth.

But it was a hope for something different. For something better. hope of what could be. allowed so many to to experience beatings. To experience being thrown into jail. To experience lynching and killing. To experience being put behind bars and sent to jail. to experience harassment and brokenness, to experience everything that the world had tried to throw at them, to build up that despair, to give that despair because hope was so dangerous.

How much more powerful, how much more life -changing would we be as Christians, would we be as a church if we were driven by hope, if we were driven by a desire to see what God can do, a desire to see not only what God can do, but also trusting that God will do it. We no longer have to rely on ourselves. We don't have to rely on our own power. We don't have to rely on our own strength. We don't have to rely on our own plans. We just need to rely on God with a sure and steady hope that in the face of difficulties, in the face of challenges, in the face of the valleys that are talked about in the Psalms that we read today, that God is there, that God's presence is with us, and that God will help us walk through those places where the darkness seems deepest and the world seems so against us.

And we will come through the valleys. We will rise up to the mountainside, look back and see that perhaps what we had thought was insurmountable. didn't look all that big on the other side, but it's hope that gets us through the valley.

So I hope and pray that as you go about these preparations for Christmas, as you go about living out your faith, living out your life, you'll do so in a way that trusts in God and hopes for something better and hopes for something more, not only for yourself, but for those around you. And that hope will give you the strength that you need. And that trust will give you, move your feet, move your hands, give you voice to move out of despair and trade it in for hope. Amen.