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Introduction

In this, the final sermon in our series entitled “9 special offers”, our subject is “hope”. We’re going to be considering together those feelings and thoughts we can have which look forward to the future, believing something good is going to be ours; the feelings and thoughts we call “hope”. And the title of this sermon is “you can have hope”.

Losing hope

Now that’s a very topical subject because we live at a time when many are losing hope. There are going to be substantial cuts in government spending which will result in lost jobs and lost income for many people. Our economy is going to suffer greatly, both through those cuts and also as a side effect of the economic ruin ripping its way through other European economies such as Ireland. These financial problems are going to trigger riots and strikes, of which we have only seen the first few thus far, and increased crime. Such problems will put individuals, families and communities under stress, causing break down within them. Put all that alongside the fact that it’s only a matter of time before terrorists cause more destruction in our midst and – a Royal Wedding not withstanding – many around us are losing hope. The future does not look rosy.

Of course, these are all on a country wide scale. Each of you also may have personal circumstances to cope with: reasons in your life which make you feel that hope is fading. Illness, redundancy, change, uncertainty, insecurity, weakness and old-age can all strip hope from us. There are times when all of us, even the most optimistic, have that thought cross our minds: what if this doesn’t work out well? What will I do then?

But I want to tell you that “you can have hope” and it’s a hope you can carry with you no matter what circumstances you’re going to face. This hope is found through the message of the Bible about Jesus Christ and I want to explain it to you using a real-life case study. We’re going to look at Jesus’ closest friends – his disciples – at three stages of hope. Firstly, we’ll see them with false hope. Then we’ll see them with no hope. Finally, we’ll see them with indestructible hope. And as we do this, we’ll seek to learn how the same can be ours.

False hope

Walking with the king

Let’s begin with false hope: a mistaken confidence in what the future holds. Jesus’ disciples certainly had a problem with this when they first came to know him and travel with him through the country of Israel.

Their false hope centred on the idea that Jesus was a king appointed by God to bring peace and joy to their nation. Now they had good reasons to believe this to be true. He preached about God having a kingdom, performed amazing miracles and was clearly like no other person. Listen to a discussion between Jesus and his follower Peter on one occasion.

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But what about you?’ he asked. ‘Who do you say I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ [Matthew 16:13 -16, NIV]

Large crowds were following Jesus around and he was highly discussed. Many considered him a great prophet: a spokesman for God, a preacher, like those from the past. But his closest friends recognised him as far more than that. They saw he was the Christ – the Messiah, God’s anointed king. They saw that he was the Son of the living God. Jesus responded by by saying that they were right to do so and that he was building a kingdom for God in which they – his disciples – would have significant roles.

Dreams of power

Now you can imagine how the disciples therefore felt. If this was true then they had a bright and glorious future! Jesus spoke in terms of no opposition of any kind being able to prevent him from doing his work! So the disciples started to see a marvellous pathway opening before Jesus upon which he would march into Jerusalem, the capital city, and proclaim himself king, overthrowing the hated Romans who ruled the land. And they – his disciples – would be with him all the way, ready to inherit all the blessings he could offer.

This dream so filled their minds that they would argue amongst themselves for the best jobs in the new kingdom. Indeed a couple of the disciples had a very pushy mother who tried to get a word in with Jesus on their behalf:

“The mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favour of him. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.’” [Matthew 20:20-21, NIV]

Jesus’ disciples believe that the future was going to be good; very good. They had great hope.

Not paying attention

But it was false hope, because they had failed to listen to Jesus properly. They were right to think him a king who would one day reign supreme. But the route to that destiny was not what they imagined. They thought it was simply a case of marching to victory. Jesus, however, knew he was actually facing the very opposite: before him lay trouble and death. Yet although he explained this over and again to his disciples, they didn’t pay proper attention. Their dream of power created false hopes for the immediate future. Listen again to Matthew’s gospel:

“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’” [Matthew 16:21-22, NIV]

Maybe Peter considered Jesus a pessimist and was letting his personality shape his judgement. Or maybe he thought Jesus was trying to prepare them for the worst case scenario so that they’d be ready to fight hard for him, and that this was a bad strategy. But whatever Peter’s reasoning, he certainly couldn’t treat Jesus’ words with respect. Peter says that Jesus is simply wrong. He might do miracles, teach amazing things and pray like no man ever prayed to God. But when it comes to predicting his death, he’s simply wrong! Peter knows it and Jesus needs telling!

False hopes about death

However, as events would soon prove, it was Peter who was wrong. His mistaken dreams and false hope had lead him astray, not Jesus who knew exactly what lay ahead. But this is the power of false hope: it leads us astray. Peter thought he knew better than the man whom he called the “Son of the living God”.

I wonder if you have any false hopes? People often do, particularly in regard to death. We all know that we’re going to die, but many of us live as though we can control it. We build up false hopes that we can hold death back, if only we eat the right food, do the right exercise, and listen to the health advice about sun-bathing, smoking and whatever else. Thus we push death out of our minds, because it frightens us, and live as though it’s never going to arrive. But it will and we should be prepared for it.

Christopher Hitchens, a well-known British journalist who lives in America, has been diagnosed as having cancer in the past few months. It’s affected his oesophagus – the food pipe to the stomach. Mr Hitchens is famous for his straight talking and strong views, particularly in regard to religion which, as an ardent and vocal atheist, he considers an evil in the world. He’s smoked and drunk his way through a life of self-indulgence and it seems likely that the disease has been triggered by the lifestyle he chose.

Well Mr Hitchens is writing about his cancer and also conducting interviews, and in one such interview he comments on people who try to give him false hope. Here’s what he says:

“‘When I meet people who say — which they do all of the time — ‘I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,’ and so forth, I switch off quite early,’ he says. ‘If this story is not about metastasized esophageal cancer, I’m not that interested. If you can tell me something about that, I’m passionately interested.’”

Do you see what he’s saying? In the face of death, he doesn’t want false hope. But so many don’t do that; they’d prefer to believe anything that will calm their fears.

False hopes beyond death

But confronted with death people don’t only have false hope about dealing with it; they also have strange false hopes about what lies beyond.

People believe all sorts of things about what happens after death, without any evidence for doing so. I was speaking with a man recently who believed that after death he would face God in judgement. How would God judge him? Well God would speak to two invisible angels who had tracked this man through his life. One angel had been busy writing down all the good things the man had done. The other angel had been writing down all the bad things the man had done. God would weigh up the two records, and decide the man’s future accordingly.

This man was hopeful. He didn’t consider himself perfect but he was religious and sought to live rightly. Also he told me that the good angel writes things down the moment they happen and multiplies their value by 10. Whereas the bad angel takes time before he writes things down and sometimes, if there’s been a change in the meantime, doesn’t write them down at all. So the man was hopeful that God would be pleased with him overall.

How can we know?

But how can he know? Christopher Hitchens would gleefully tell this man that he believes in fairy-tales for which he has no evidence. This man would tell Mr Hitchens that all this was written in his holy book and so he could trust it. But how can either one know? Christopher Hitchens’ hope is that there is no God and death will be the complete and final end of him. This other man hopes there is a God and death will see him safely into paradise. Which of them has a false hope? One, other or both? How can we know? The Bible would say to us that, like Jesus’ disciples, both men are living with false hope.

But is there any way to have a reliable hope in the face of death? Well let’s return to the story of Jesus’ disciples and take it onto the next stage, looking at how they lost all hope.

No hope

A private meal

The disciples had a false hope that because Jesus was going to be king, raging success was imminent. So when Jesus warned them that the road to his kingdom lay through his violent death, they simply didn’t believe him. But as his death drew near that confidence was really shaken and particularly came home to them over a meal.

The meal in question was a private one organised by Jesus using some top secret arrangements. Only himself, his 12 closest disciples and a few others knew where and when they were meeting to eat. He did this because the meal was a very important moment in their lives as Jesus showed them, using the imagery of their own nation’s history, that he was about to lay down his life to protect them from God’s wrath and anger against sin. Hence we refer to this meal as the “Last Supper”.

The idea of his being a sacrifice was one which Jesus communicated in many different ways during the course of his ministry: he said it was central to all God’s plans. Jesus taught that our sin – our waywardness from God – is so serious that it will bring about our destruction. God will judge this world and when he does so none shall survive, unless they have already found protection: a way to escape. Jesus is that way and his death is the means. By dying Jesus took upon himself punishment which others deserved: he became a substitute who paid the price for others. He died so those who trust him could live eternally.

Betrayal

However, alongside his central point, Jesus also spoke at the meal of the means by which he would be brought to his death: he would be betrayed by one of his 12 disciples. This was a shocking and heart-stopping moment for them. For 11 it was a shock because they couldn’t believe one of them would sell him out to his enemies. For 1 it was a shock because he suddenly realised that Jesus was on to him: knowing that he had already agreed to arrange Jesus’ capture by the authorities for a fee. Let me read to you the account of this:

“When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, ‘I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.’ They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, ‘Surely not I, Lord?’ Jesus replied, ‘The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.’ [Matthew 26:20-24, NIV]

Judas Iscariot, who would sell Jesus to his opponents, was plotting that evening the best way to get Jesus caught, and Jesus knew it. A short time later Judas would slip away to bring the troops, although the other disciples wouldn’t realise what he was actually doing. But Jesus’ words had certainly unnerved everyone with him and this was only made worse with what he had to say next.

Friends flee away

After the meal Jesus moved them quickly away to another location – maybe to delay the approaching troops who would begin by raiding the house they were in. Out on a nearby hillside where a garden could be found, Jesus gave another warning to the disciples. He told them that when the blow came against him, they would run in fear of their lives: they wouldn’t stay with him but would flee like sheep whose shepherd has been attacked by a wolf. A cowardly act they denied being capable of:

“Jesus told them, ‘This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.’ Peter replied, ‘Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.’ ‘I tell you the truth,’Jesus answered, ‘this very night, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times.’ But Peter declared, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’ And all the other disciples said the same.” [Matthew 26:31-35, NIV]

Yet it was to work out exactly as Jesus predicted. When the troops finally found him in the garden and arrested him then immediately most of the disciples fled. Peter, who stayed to follow Jesus, later denied knowing him when questioned outside the courtroom. You can only imagine the impact upon their feelings and hearts. Every word Jesus told them came true, which meant all his negative analysis of his future surely had to prove true also. They had failed him; they were ashamed; their hope started to die. Then after a night of stress, interrogation, mockery and torture for Jesus, he was taken outside the city and nailed up onto a cross. It was over. He was over. The disciples’ hope was over. None remained.

Life without hope

Life without hope is depressing, isn’t it? We need things to look forward to in a world of trouble and pain. We’ve seen that only too clearly with the two recent mining disasters. In one – Chile – there was hope. The men were found alive and it was believed that a tunnel could be dug through to them. The hope of rescuing them kept everyone going. In another – New Zealand – hope was taken away. Poisonous gases and explosions left everyone sure that the miners were dead. Although the bodies haven’t yet been dug out, hope has died and grief now occupies the hearts and minds of the miners’ families.

Death is, of course, the ultimate destroyer of hope. An ill person might be healed, until they die. A youngster has all sorts of potential ahead of them until a motorbike accident steals his life. A singer may be on the verge of success and stardom until a drug overdose takes her life away. Death destroys hope.

That was the experience of Jesus’ disciples. Once he had been nailed up on a cross, once the final breath had been taken, once the spear was driven into his side, then they knew it was over. The man they believed was a king, had ended up no more than an executed criminal. We’re told that Jesus was buried not by his closest friends, but by two other men who had come to trust and follow him. They took him to a private tomb, watched by some of the ladies who had been Jesus’ friends as well.

Indestructible hope

Going public

And really that should be the end of the story. One dead man, 11 grief-stricken friends and one disloyal friend – Judas – who ended up committing suicide over what he had done. Jesus’ story should have ended without hope and been lost in the annals of history as nothing more than the passing ambitions of an unimportant peasant carpenter. At most Jesus should have been only a footnote, read by virtually nobody, in a history book about 1st century Jewish religious movements. And his followers’ names should have long since been forgotten as they disappeared back to their regular day jobs.

But instead, just a few weeks after his execution, Jesus’ disciples were to be found in a public place in Jerusalem, talking about Jesus. There the most extraordinary things happened to them causing a large crowd to gather. But what brought this group of frightened individuals out into a public arena where they knew they themselves would be targeted by Jesus’ enemies? Were they mad?

Not at all. Rather they said that the hope which had been hacked out of their hearts, had been replaced with new hope: a better hope than they had ever known. Listen to Peter preaching that day to the crowds; he said this:

Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. [Acts 2:22-24 , NIV]

God raised Jesus

The response to Peter’s words was unbelievable. Overnight Christianity was launched and it grew and grew, surviving for two thousand years thus far, with many people becoming new Christians every day. And what sat behind this dramatic change and wonderful success. Peter told us in his first sermon: “God raised Jesus from the dead”.

Death is the great destroyer of hope: whatever hopes we have, they are lost when we die. But if you can defeat death, then hope becomes indestructible. That’s precisely what Jesus’ disciples proclaimed. That’s why they themselves became such different people. They said they had met Jesus alive: truly, fully, completely alive, back from the grave; which meant Jesus understood death and had overcome death. The change within them testified to the fact that they really meant it – they had met Jesus.

Since that time, every Christian has testified to the same thing. They have come to know Jesus by hearing of him and his message. They’ve prayed to him and found him to be alive. Their hearts have been made new and their lives have changed. A hope has been injected into them which nothing can take away. Christians – including Jesus’ first disciples – have faced the most dire of circumstances, even their own deaths, and continued to have hope.

You can have hope

You can have this hope. To do so you must have it in the same way as Jesus’ disciples. In others words, don’t become a Christian and build up your own false hopes. Some do. They do so when they behave like the disciples did originally. They think that becoming a Christian will make their lives easy now: just like the disciples looking forward to glory and riches in Jerusalem. In what ways do people do this? Well, some think that Jesus – as God’s king – will make them rich. Others think that Jesus will free them of pain. Others think that Jesus will take all the confusion out of their lives. Others think that Jesus will patch up their broken emotions or mend every relationship for them.

Those are false hopes which fail to see the pathway which Jesus actually offers to people. He said, quite clearly, to his disciples and to us that in this world he offers a hard road to follow. He himself ended up on a cross and he promised a life to his followers which would feel like carrying a cross every day. Christianity doesn’t solve all our problems in this world over night. Some of them it actually makes worse.

So if those are your hopes then face up to what happened to Christ, and let those hopes die as they had to for Jesus’ disciples.

But then take up the real hope which Jesus offers. That when this brief, passing life is over with all its difficulties and frustrations, then a new life can begin where all those problems and troubles are over. That’s the real hope Jesus can give. He’s proven it by coming back from the dead. Jesus, in his death, defeated both sin and death. He destroyed all that spoils life in this world. Then Jesus launched a new type of life: resurrection life. He has it and it is untainted by anything horrible. Our lives can be the same if we entrust them to Jesus Christ. If we repent of our sins and put our lives into his hands, then our future can be secure. You can have hope. Real hope. Indestructible hope, in an eternal life which never ends and which is never spoiled. Jesus Christ offers that to you.