THE WONDERFUL MESSAGE OF HOPE
Isaiah 61:1-4
We had a lot of my family gathered at our home last August—a rare opportunity for my parents to be together with all three of their sons and daughters-in-law and a few of their grandkids and even a couple of their great-grandkids. We had a marvelous time!
I specifically recall one of those warm August evenings we had together that are so pleasant here in Idaho—and we were scattered in the family room, kitchen and patio of our home, with dinner about ready to share. I think we had done hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill.
Sitting on the edge of the countertop in the kitchen was one of those big gallon glass containers so ideally suited for making sun tea—which Cindy had done. But just before dinner, one of my niece’s little boys made his way into the kitchen and wanted some more iced tea. Before any of us could intercept, little 3-year-old Ian had reached up to release some more iced tea into his cup, but, in doing so, caused the whole thing to come crashing to the kitchen floor. It shattered and seemingly exploded into a million pieces. We didn’t care about the glass container; we were just happy that Ian wasn’t hurt. The container could be replaced! A bunch of us quickly sprung into action trying to both soak up the iced tea and pick up the tiny pieces of glass without getting cut ourselves. We found glass probably 10-12 feet in all directions—I don’t know when I’ve seen something go into so many pieces!
As I was reading a passage of scripture this week, I got to thinking about people whose lives are in many ways like that shattered iced tea container—broken into lots of pieces. Their dreams are shattered. Their security has exploded into tiny bits—seemingly impossible to reconstruct. And I got to thinking about the amazing way in which God puts lives back together again—from shattered remains beyond repair. I’ve seen it over and over again—and I never cease to be amazed at how God redeems lives.
In the 61st chapter of the Old Testament book Isaiah, there’s a wonderful message of hope for broken people. Let me read the first four verses of this chapter to you this morning—
[Read Isaiah 61:1-4, NIV]
In these four verses, there are so many images and word-pictures of hope that we don’t have the time to unpack it all—but my prayer is that one of these images will resonate with you, and if there is any corner of your life that seems void of hope today, you will see the difference the Lord can make in your life and in your circumstances.
These verses present a picture of a man anointed by the Holy Spirit for the task of preaching—and his preaching was centered on the message of hope. His calling was to speak for the Lord, and in so doing, to bring good news to the poor, to bring healing to the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for captives and release for prisoners. The words “captive” and “prisoner” trigger in my mind images not just of those who are behind bars, but also those who are held captive by habits and addictions. I also think of those who feel they’ve been held captive by devastating experiences from their past—perhaps abuse for which they had no control and perhaps memories that prompt guilt and shame for choices and decisions they made in the past. The past can so haunt us that we are held captive by it—and God’s Word offers hope to those who feel there’s no hope for ever getting past some of this stuff.
The mention of proclaiming “the year of the Lord’s favor” was a clear reference to the Hebrew “Year of Jubilee”—every seven years when all debts were canceled and many slaves were set free. It’s such a great concept for us of a fresh start—something we sometimes feel we aren’t ever going to get, and something others don’t always offer to us. But if we quit believing that God can give people fresh starts, we’re all in trouble! Someone was telling me this week that there’s a direct connection here with U.S. guidelines for bankruptcy—for individuals can only file bankruptcy ever seven years. Interesting, isn’t it? And while these wouldn’t logically or theologically line up completely, there seems to be a connection—it’s the hope of a fresh start when life has gotten out of control.
Going on, there’s comfort for those who mourn—the crown of beauty instead of the ashes worn in a time of mourning in their culture. There’s the anointing of joy—the oil of gladness—instead of mourning—and the garments of praise instead of the spirit of despair. Lives once wrecked by sin—their own sin or even lives seemingly wrecked by the sins of others—will be transformed into “oaks of righteousness”, standing tall and strong in a way which once seemed impossible.
God rebuilds the ruins! Someone put it this way: God works with rejects! Jesus gave us many examples from which we can better understand this. He transformed a tax collector into a disciple, a prostitute into a saint, a skeptic into an apostle, a madman into a family man, and a thief into a friend. God restores the devastated places! He renews the ruined cities.
When Cindy and I were living in San Jose, California, where part of my responsibility in the church was overseeing our ministry to youth, we got acquainted with a teenager named Jim. It was after our district camp one year that a counselor from camp called me, telling me that he’d had a kid in his cabin who lived in our area but wasn’t attending church—and he thought that if someone provided transportation that this teen would love to be at our church.
Jim had been in and out of foster homes all of his life. His dad was non-existent, and each of the children in his family had a different biological father. Mom was in and out of prison. Early in his life, Jim had been placed in a Nazarene foster home, and while he eventually left them, they had stayed in touch with him and had paid for his way to church camp every year. (Could plug our camping program!)
And it was through the camp that we connected with Jim—and Cindy and I quickly fell in love with this guy. Our home became a sort of safe haven for him, since there wasn’t much attention and certainly no love in the foster home where he was assigned. When he graduated from high school, he was immediately out of the foster care system, and came to live with us until he started college in the fall at Point Loma Nazarene University. On breaks in that first couple of years, he came mostly to our home.
Jim came out of the remains of shattered lives—lives devastated by sin…and God rebuilt the ruins! He completely transformed Jim’s life. If there was ever a story of someone who broke the generational cycle of sin, it’s our friend Jim. By God’s grace, God restored the devastated places for Jim. He gave a crown of beauty instead of the ashes of mourning. He offered release from captivity in Jim’s young life. The generational patterns have been broken!
Today Jim is a Christian medical doctor in the Phoenix area, married to a wonderful Christian gal named Amy. They have three children, including a little girl adopted from Korea. Theirs is a wonderful Christian home. I’m so proud of Jim—and so grateful for the God who redeems lives!
Let’s go back to Isaiah 61. When I read the passage a few minutes ago, did it sound at all familiar to you? Perhaps you’re remembering it from Luke 4, where Jesus quoted this passage clearly identifying the speaker with Himself. The setting was early in Jesus’ ministry. He had returned from Galilee to Nazareth, the town where he had grown up.
…On the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16-21)
And the point is this: In Jesus Christ, God offers hope to every person. His love and care is good news to the poor! He brings freedom into our lives that we’d never have otherwise! He offers release for those oppressed, a fresh start to those whose lives have been wrecked by sin.
This hope changes everything! And we’re lost without it. Our lives are empty and pointless without such hope. And the Good News of the Gospel—the message He has called us to proclaim to one another and to others—is that not one of us has to be without that hope! God’s redemptive work is available to each one of us. And the hope that God speaks into our lives changes everything!
A few years ago I watched the movie, “Shawshank Redemption.” It’s a pretty intense movie, but permeated throughout the story is a message of hope. Near the end of the movie, the chief character addresses another man, saying, “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
It’s such a stark contrast from the often dismal state of affairs in life. I know there’s some choice in all of this. Some people seemingly choose to live in the shadows of life—rarely choosing to step over into the sunshine. But the truth is that life’s messy—at least in some ways for us all! And hope paints a sharp contrast to the messiness of life!
I’m not sure if you would have caught it, but in the words from Isaiah is the contrast of the heaviness of a funeral to the joy of a wedding—“a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” That sort of resonated with me because our family has suddenly gotten caught up in wedding plans—and on Monday afternoon of this week, I went from being with my family with wedding details being discussed with great joy and excitement to a hospital room where a friend of ours was dying. It was quite a contrast.
Weddings are joyful occasions—at least most of them are anyway! As a pastor, I often have the privilege of standing beside a groom and watching as that man’s radiant bride comes walking down the aisle to come alongside him. It can be an incredibly joyful moment! And it hit me last Sunday afternoon that I’m going to have the privilege of once again walking a daughter down the aisle at her wedding—and my eyes start leaking a little just thinking about it.
I had some apprehensions of how hard that would be when our daughter Kara got married nearly 3 years ago. Shortly after she and Josh became engaged, I attended a wedding where a good friend of mine was walking his daughter down the aisle. Suddenly, seeing him with his daughter, arm in arm, coming down the aisle, something inside me almost imploded. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought I was having a heart attack. It was a moment of stark reality for me in realizing that I too was going to be giving a daughter away and that the moment was fraught with such a wide range of feelings. I saw the father of the bride after the wedding and said, “I hope you didn’t see me as you and Jessica were coming down the aisle. My response really had nothing to do with the two of you!” He graciously said, “Oh, yes, I saw you, but I understood immediately what you were experiencing!”
And yet, on the day of Kara and Josh’s wedding, when it came time for us to make that long walk down the aisle together, she was beaming with so much joy that she nor I had a thought of tears. I was caught up in her joy. She was ecstatic! If there was ever a radiant bride, it was Kara as she walked down the aisle to marry the man who had been her childhood sweetheart. She and I did great—until we got down to the front and saw tears streaming down Josh’s face and Kara’s twin sister as maid of honor blubbering away already. And it was pretty much downhill all the way then for the emotions—though I performed most of the wedding and came away feeling that for me I’d done pretty well—I never sobbed and never had snot on my upper lip!
So in August, I get to do it again. And already I’ve seen the joy in Krista’s eyes. It’s been so fun to see her in love! Someone said last Sunday that I needed to tell her to quit smiling—that her face was going to break from smiling so much! And I’m sure that when August rolls around and I’m about to walk her down the aisle, there will be a flood of emotions all over again, but I have a hunch that I’ll get caught up in her joy too—for there’s something about the joyful radiance of a bride on her wedding day!
Isaiah’s message of hope contrasts the widow in mourning with the radiant bride. You see, hope changes everything! God brings amazing transformations into our lives! He lifts us out of despair and puts us in a place of great joy—abundant peace, radiant gladness deep within! And the truth is that God offers such hope to every one of us!
Let me tell you a story I heard many years ago. It took place at an old apartment building in Russia—long before I first heard the story. The apartment house had a basement, and all the tenants had across the years taken their leftover “stuff” to the basement as so many do who have basements. And among all the boxes and unused items was an old harp, long before discarded as too broken to repair, and yet too valuable to throw away.
On a cold, snowy night, a homeless old man knocked on the door of that apartment building, pleading for some corner in which he might sleep. The apartment owner told him that all of their apartments were filled and that they had no more room. And then she looked out at the terrible snowstorm and blustery wind, and compassion came upon her as she looked upon the pitiful old man. “We have no room for you, but I guess I could clear out some space in the basement.” And so she emptied a corner in the basement and put some old blankets down as padding on the hard floor. And the old man was so grateful.
After several hours, the owner of that old, broken-down harp suddenly heard music in the basement. She rushed downstairs to find the old man playing the harp. “How did you repair my harp?” she asked. “I’ve never been able to find anybody who could fix it!”
The old man looked up and quietly responded, “Mam, when I was young, I made that harp. And when you make something, you know how to put it back together again.”
Your Heavenly Father knows all about broken hearts and shattered dreams. And God’s Good News to you today is that He—your Creator—knows how to mend broken hearts and shattered dreams. He made you—and He knows how to put you back together again! You can depend upon Him. You can trust Him! And the healing and release and freedom and comfort of the Lord is something each of us must first embrace ourselves—and yet we then get to share that wonderful news with others who so very much need to hear it.
Do you need a fresh dose of hope right now? Our Heavenly Father is the God of Hope, and He wants to address your specific need today…
