HOPEFUL

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live…”

Ruele Howe tells about growing up with his parents in the country. When he was fifteen years old, the house caught on fire. They escaped with only the clothes on their backs. There were no close neighbors to help so he and his father walked to a distant village to get supplies. As they returned they saw something that stayed with Ruele Howe all those years after. Beside the charred remains of what had been their house, his mother had laid out lunch on a log. She had placed a tin can filled with wildflowers on the log. It was a symbol of hope in the midst of tragedy.

This is the Christian faith, isn’t it? She didn’t try to cover up the disaster with flowers, but in the midst of that gloomy scene she had placed a symbol of hope. Martha had the hope that did not cover up the fact that her brother had died, but she had hope that in her grief, Jesus would act. Hope does not cover up what has occurred, but it gives a promise of something better to come. The house was gone, but there was the hope of rebuilding, or getting the supplies to carry on.

That was Martha. She had the hope that something would happen when Jesus came. She says: And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Martha had hope. She did not know exactly what Jesus had planned, but she had hope that something would happen. Then Jesus gives a glimpse of what was going to happen as the text says: Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe.”

Jesus turns Martha’s hope into action. Jesus gives Martha a glimpse of what is going to happen when he says: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

This is a story that tells us out of discouragement comes hope. Martha and Mary were discouraged as they both told Jesus if you would have been here our brother would not have died, but even in that discouragement they saw a hope. And to us, to you and me as we live with our discouragement, our despair, our hurts, our pain, Jesus offers hope. All of us face discouragement in life, and it is at those times we need to turn to the Lord and somehow he will act. We must believe that somehow he will act.

No matter where you are at this very moment, there is hope. Our hope is independent of the circumstances that we face. It may seem like a lost cause, as though death has already crept in to your dreams. Take heart today. Jesus knows where you are and is not alarmed by your situation. Because nothing is beyond his life-giving impact. Keep looking and keep hoping. Hope Lives.