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HOPE BECAUSE JESUS IS ALIVE

Pastor Michael Jarick

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It was a beautiful day for golf! Lectures were over for the week and there were no major assignments due in the next month. And so a dozen of us seminary students piled into cars, and headed to the golf course.

        On the tenth tee, a golfer playing on his own asked if he could tee off before us. He looked like a young Greg Norman – shaggy blonde hair, tanned, Plus 4s and Argyle socks. We stepped back to watch and thought, “This is going to be good!” His bag of clubs was immaculate, nothing like the antique bits and pieces we were using – our Spoons, Brassies, and Mashie Niblicks. I think someone even had a Wooden Cleek!  He looked very professional as he prepared to hit the ball. And boy did he hit it! 

        The only trouble was that he pushed it straight into a large tree on the right side of the fairway. The ball went “Clunk” and came shooting back towards us. We scrambled to get out of the way. The ball finished up 10 metres behind the tee. We looked expectantly at the Greg Norman lookalike. Was he crestfallen? Was he embarrassed? No! He said emphatically, “You should have been here yesterday. I hit a 280-metre drive straight up the middle on this hole yesterday. Oh, you should have been here yesterday!”

        He brusquely went back to his ball. We took cover as he belted it down the fairway and strode off purposefully. For the rest of our round, every time one of us duffed a shot, we looked at each other and said, “Oh, you should have been here yesterday!”

        “You should have been here yesterday!” That expression was a great joke for us on the golf course that day, but in a sense, it can become indicative of our whole attitude to life, especially in our older years. Yesterday, sometime in the past, that’s when things were really good!

        And when a Christian feels that way about life in general, it is as if it was only in the past that God did great things, and that God has gone missing in the present. Why do Christians sometimes feel this way? Maybe they had particular expectations about life that had not been realized. Their great hopes were undermined and then collapsed.

        I’ve been thinking about this while reflecting on the story of Jesus encountering those disciples on the way to Emmaus. They don’t recognize Jesus, and when Jesus asks a question, they can’t believe that this stranger doesn’t know what happened in Jerusalem.

        They said, “We were convinced that this Jesus was going to set Israel free! He was the one! But the chief priests and the rulers did him in, crucified him, they did! And that was two days ago. Arrgh! There’s been some strange rumours started by some women that he’s alive. But it’s not true! It can’t be!”

        Then Jesus spoke up, “You thickheads! (spoken affectionately). Don’t you realize that this is exactly what the prophets said would happen! It was necessary for the Messiah to suffer in this way, and then be glorified.”

        Jesus went on to explain everything that the Bible said about him – what Moses had said, and what the prophets had said, what was in the Psalms. What a Bible study that would have been! That the messiah would suffer and die and rise again wasn’t a big mistake, or a colossal failure. It was part of God’s plan from the very start.

        What impact does it have on you that Jesus is our living Lord, rather than a dead hero? It should make as big impact as an elephant does on a flea. Maybe if there are times when you feel like the disciples on the road to Emmaus or the 10 cowering in the locked room, the impact is more like that of a flea on an elephant.

        When we look at the state of our land what do we see? There’s a lot of bad news – houses unaffordable and people homeless; businesses going bust; young people anxious and despairing because of the apocalyptic predictions about climate and the environment; fiercely polarized political views about what the government should be doing; people lining up to be identified as victims of oppression; aggressive secular voices shouting down the church and Christian views.

        When the weight of these problems threatens to squash us, we might look fondly at how our country used to be. We might be tempted to think that there were no problems in the good old days. Aargh! You should have been here yesterday!

        Perhaps that’s the way we think of the church, too. We might be tempted to long for the good old days, when the church was full and there were half a dozen Sunday School classes and an active and vibrant youth group. Instead of dealing with the present, it is sometimes easier to suggest, “You should have been here yesterday!”

        Perhaps we might feel that way too about our relationship with God. We remember those times when Jesus felt so real and so close – our confirmation day, or the children’s Christmas service; that time when a desperate prayer for God’s help was dramatically answered, or the time when we were reading the Bible and it was as if God was speaking personally to us.

        Do you sometimes feel this way about your country, your church, and yourself? Certainly, God has done great things in the past, in the good old days. Ours is an historical religion. Jesus entered the world as a human being, and his words and deeds are recorded in human history.

        But God is not locked up in the pages of any book, even the Bible! The mighty deeds of God throughout history flow into our present century, our present year, our present day, like floodwater trickling down a dry riverbed from big rain months ago in a distant part of the country.

        When we reflect on the past, faith sees it as building block for today. And what is the mortar that holds the past and the present together? It is the resurrection of Jesus. Because God raised Jesus to life, we can be sure he is with us now. With Jesus at our side, who can be against us? Not even death can match God’s power and might.

        God gives us a reason to be hopeful. Our country may be troubled, but Jesus lives through his people in this country. By the Holy Spirit, Jesus lives in your hearts and minds today. Jesus acts today through your hands. Jesus listens through your ears. Jesus speaks through your words, today!

        Perhaps the Church is struggling in some ways, but it has a victorious Lord leading it into battle. And if Jesus feels like a distant voice from the past, he comes so close to us today that we hear him speak, so close that he gives us his body and blood, so close that we become his hands and feet.

        If we act like those disciples on the road to Emmaus, or the 10 disciples who locked themselves in the room, then Jesus’ words of gentle correction apply to us as well; “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!”

        Despite my thick-headedness and my lack of faith, the wonderful part of this story is that Jesus doesn’t tell us off and say that we’d better get it right next time. Instead, Jesus opens my mind to see him in the Bible, and to receive his body and blood in his holy meal, just as he did for Cleopas and his friend, just as he did for the disciples in the locked room.

        It is wonderful that even when I act as if Jesus were still dead, he shares his life with me. He doesn’t even wait until I change my mind and recognize that he is alive.

        It is unavoidable that life will deal us disappointments. Nevertheless, Jesus is alive. And because he is with us and in us, we can do much more than lament, “You should have been here yesterday!”

        Rather than wanting to return to a rosy past – which is impossible, of course – the past, in the person of the risen Lord, injects hope and life into the present. Jesus promises us, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28: 20).

        The mighty God is with us in the Spirit of his risen Son, and through his Church he is present in the world. He has the power to help us with our disappointments and struggles. He’s here, and here’s here to stay. Amen.